You can serve static content (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and image files) directly from a storage container named $web. Hosting your content in Azure Storage enables you to use serverless architectures that include Azure Functions and other Platform as a service (PaaS) services.
Setting up a static website
Static website hosting is a feature that you have to enable on the storage account.
To enable static website hosting, select the name of your default file, and then optionally provide a path to a custom 404 page. If a blob storage container named $web doesn’t already exist in the account, one is created for you. Add the files of your site to this container.
For step-by-step guidance, see Host a static website in Azure Storage.
Files in the $web container are case-sensitive, served through anonymous access requests and are available only through read operations.
Uploading content
You can use any of these tools to upload content to the $web container:
Viewing content
Users can view site content from a browser by using the public URL of the website. You can find the URL by using the Azure portal, Azure CLI, or PowerShell. Use this table as a guide.
The URL of your site contains a regional code. For example the URL https://contosoblobaccount.z22.web.core.windows.net/ contains regional code z22.
While that code must remain in the URL, it is only for internal use, and you won’t have to use that code in any other way.
The index document that you specify when you enable static website hosting, appears when users open the site and don’t specify a specific file (For example: https://contosoblobaccount.z22.web.core.windows.net).
If the server returns a 404 error, and you have not specified an error document when you enabled the website, then a default 404 page is returned to the user.
Note
CORS is not supported with static website.
Impact of the setting the public access level of the web container
You can modify the public access level of the $web container, but this has no impact on the primary static website endpoint because these files are served through anonymous access requests. That means public (read-only) access to all files.
The following screenshot shows the public access level setting in the Azure portal:
While the primary static website endpoint is not affected, a change to the public access level does impact the primary blob service endpoint.
For example, if you change the public access level of the $web container from Private (no anonymous access) to Blob (anonymous read access for blobs only), then the level of public access to the primary static website endpoint https://contosoblobaccount.z22.web.core.windows.net/index.html doesn’t change.
However, the public access to the primary blob service endpoint https://contosoblobaccount.blob.core.windows.net/$web/index.html does change from private to public. Now users can open that file by using either of these two endpoints.
Mapping a custom domain to a static website URL
You can make your static website available via a custom domain.
It’s easier to enable HTTP access for your custom domain, because Azure Storage natively supports it. To enable HTTPS, you’ll have to use Azure CDN because Azure Storage does not yet natively support HTTPS with custom domains. see Map a custom domain to an Azure Blob Storage endpoint for step-by-step guidance.
If the storage account is configured to require secure transfer over HTTPS, then users must use the HTTPS endpoint.
Adding HTTP headers
There’s no way to configure headers as part of the static website feature. However, you can use Azure CDN to add headers and append (or overwrite) header values. See Standard rules engine reference for Azure CDN.
If you want to use headers to control caching, see Control Azure CDN caching behavior with caching rules.
Pricing
You can enable static website hosting free of charge. You’re billed only for the blob storage that your site utilizes and operations costs. For more details on prices for Azure Blob Storage, check out the Azure Blob Storage Pricing Page.
Metrics
You can enable metrics on static website pages. Once you’ve enabled metrics, traffic statistics on files in the $web container are reported in the metrics dashboard.
To enable metrics on your static website pages, see Enable metrics on static website pages.
