Option 1: A single HTML file
Upload an .html file on its own when everything the page needs is inside it: styles in a <style> tag, scripts in a <script> tag, and images either embedded or loaded from full https:// URLs.
This is typical for pages generated by AI tools, email-style newsletters, and quick one-page prototypes. Droply serves the file as the home page of your link, so it opens directly with no download step.
Watch out for: references like src="photo.jpg". If the photo is not uploaded too, it will show as a broken image. That is the signal you need a ZIP instead.
Option 2: A ZIP of a whole site
Use a ZIP when your page is made of several files: an index.html plus acss folder, images, fonts, or more pages like about.html. Droply unpacks the ZIP and serves it as a website, with index.html as the front page and every other file at its own path. For example, about.html opens at your-name.droply.page/about.html.
Two things decide whether a ZIP works:
index.htmlmust be at the top level of the ZIP, not inside a sub-folder. Zip the folder's contents, not the folder.- Upload the built version. For React, Vue, Svelte, Astro or Vite projects, zip the output folder (
dist,buildorout), not the source.
You can check both in seconds with the ZIP Inspector, which runs in your browser and uploads nothing.
Option 3: The file itself (PDF, image, video, anything)
If you want people to look at something rather than browse a site, upload the file as it is. PDFs open in a viewer, images and videos display in the page, and other file types get a clean page with a download button. You can also select several files at once to put them in one project.
Do not zip files just to upload them. Droply always unpacks a ZIP as a website, so a ZIP without anindex.html has no front page to show. To hand over a bundle of files, select them all in the upload box instead: they land in one project, and your visitor can open or download each one.
Quick decision table
| You have… | Upload | Visitors see |
|---|---|---|
| One HTML file, everything inline | The .html file | The page |
| A folder with index.html, CSS and images | A ZIP of the folder's contents | The site |
| A built React/Vite/Next export | A ZIP of dist / build / out | The app |
| A PDF, deck, image or video | The file itself | A viewer with download |
| Several files to hand over (PSDs, fonts, exports) | Select them all at once | One page listing every file |
One more thing: size
Your plan's storage limit counts the unpacked size of everything you upload. Free accounts get 10 MB, which is plenty for a hand-coded page but tight for photos. Before upgrading, try the Image Compressor and HTML Minifier. You can also check any file against each plan's limit with the File Size Checker.