Skip the S3 + Cognito build. Publish in 15 seconds.
DIY authenticated static hosting costs $5–20/month in infrastructure – plus 1–2 days of engineering time to build and ongoing maintenance to run. display.dev is the managed version: €49/month flat, 15-minute setup, 15-second publishes, nothing to maintain.
display.dev vs. S3 + CloudFront + Cognito + Lambda@Edge
| display.dev | DIY AWS Stack | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly infrastructure cost | €49 | $5–20 |
| Setup time | 15 minutes | 1–2 days |
| Year 1 total cost (at $150/hr eng) | €588 | $3,480–$5,940 |
| Google + Microsoft SSO | ✅ | Complex federation |
| Publish CLI | ✅ | ❌ (custom scripts) |
| MCP integration | ✅ | ❌ |
| Maintenance required | ❌ | ✅ (ongoing) |
| No infrastructure to own | ✅ | ❌ |
The real cost of DIY
The AWS stack costs look attractive: S3 storage, CloudFront bandwidth, and Cognito are cheap. $5–20/month in infrastructure.
The engineering cost is not cheap. Setting up S3 + CloudFront + Cognito + Lambda@Edge correctly takes 16–32 hours for a senior engineer. At $150/hour in fully-loaded cost, that's $2,400–$4,800 before you've served a single page.
Then: certificate renewals, Cognito API updates when Google or Microsoft changes their OAuth flows, Lambda@Edge version updates, IAM policy documentation for compliance. This infrastructure belongs to whoever built it. When they leave, it becomes an orphaned auth system no one wants to touch.
When to build DIY
You have specific cloud provider requirements (AWS GovCloud, specific regions). You need network-level access control or device posture checks a SaaS can't provide. Your compliance framework requires on-premise deployment.
When to use display.dev
You don't want to maintain infrastructure. You need Google AND Microsoft SSO without complex federation. You want a CLI and MCP. You want compliance documentation to be "add to vendor register," not "document and evidence everything yourself."
Pricing
Try it. No credit card.
- Included: 10 gated artifacts
- Included: Unlimited public artifacts*
- Included: 50MB storage
- Not included: Version history
- Not included: Google + Microsoft SSO
- Not included: Private artifacts
- Not included: Audit logs
display.dev branded
Individuals. Unlimited gated sharing.
- Included: Unlimited gated artifacts
- Included: Unlimited public artifacts
- Included: 1GB storage
- Included: 10 versions
- Not included: Google + Microsoft SSO
- Not included: Private artifacts
- Not included: Audit logs
For teams that need company auth.
- Included: Unlimited gated artifacts
- Included: Unlimited public artifacts
- Included: 25GB storage
- Included: 50 versions
- Included: Google + Microsoft SSO
- Included: Private artifacts
- Included: 90 days audit logs
For compliance-driven organizations.
From €499/mo
- Included: Unlimited gated artifacts
- Included: Unlimited public artifacts
- Included: Custom storage
- Included: Unlimited versions
- Included: Google + Microsoft SSO
- Included: Private artifacts
- Included: 365 days audit logs
Try display.dev free
- €49/month – vs. $2,400–$4,800 to build DIY, plus ongoing maintenance
- Google + Microsoft SSO out of the box – no federation to configure
- First artifact in 15 seconds · No credit card
Features
Viewers click a link and sign in with their Google or Microsoft account, or a one-time password. No app to install. No account to create. No IT ticket.
Inline comments on every artifact. Your agent reads them via MCP, fetches the current version, republishes with short_id and base_version, and resolves the thread. The artifact stays a living document, not a one-shot screenshot.
dsp publish ./file.html from your terminal, or one sentence in Claude Desktop. No git repo, no deploy pipeline, no project to configure.
Every artifact gets a URL that keeps working. Share in Slack, link in Notion, paste in email. It still works six months later.
No per-seat pricing at any tier. Share with your PM, exec, legal team, or designer for the same flat price.
Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor all work, along with anything else that creates HTML or Markdown output.
Common questions.
Is there a way to get DIY costs below €49/month?
Infrastructure alone: yes, $5–20/month. Total cost including initial build and ongoing maintenance: no.
Can I migrate from DIY to display.dev?
Yes. Run dsp publish on the same HTML files you're currently serving from S3. Update the links. Decommission the stack.
Does display.dev use AWS/S3 under the hood?
display.dev runs on managed infrastructure. You don't need to know or configure any of it.
Publish your first artifact in 15 seconds.
Free tier. No credit card. One-time password auth on free, Google + Microsoft SSO on Pro (€49/month flat).