How We Built ShopFree: The Fastest, SEO-Friendly Tech Stack for Free Deals
The Plan
When we set out to build ShopFree, the world’s leading directory of free offers, we knew speed, scalability, and cost-effectiveness were key. After exploring multiple frameworks and hosting options, we settled on a modern, serverless-first stack that gives us world-class performance while keeping costs low.
Here’s how we built ShopFree and why this stack is perfect for projects that need fast SEO-optimized pages, dynamic interactivity, and efficient automation.
Why We Chose Astro for the Frontend
Astro is a free and open-source web framework designed for performance. By default, it ships zero JavaScript to the browser unless you need it, which makes it one of the fastest frameworks available.
For ShopFree:
- All public pages are statically rendered, which means Google and other search engines can crawl them easily.
- Dynamic data such as offer views and votes is pulled via an API and inserted dynamically, without slowing down page loads.
- Our admin dashboard is built using Astro SSR (server-side rendering), giving us the flexibility of a modern app where we need it.
The result? Lightning-fast load times and maximum SEO performance.
Supabase: Database and Storage in One
We chose Supabase as our backend because it combines:
- A Postgres database (powerful, SQL-based, and scalable)
- Image storage for deal thumbnails and other assets
Supabase’s free plan is generous:
- 500 MB database
- 1 GB file storage
- 50,000 monthly active users
- 500 MB bandwidth
This means we could launch ShopFree without upfront backend costs, and scale affordably as traffic grows.
Cloudflare Workers: Fast Hosting at the Edge
We host ShopFree on Cloudflare Workers, which deploys our site across a global edge network. This ensures that no matter where a user is—Australia, the US, or Europe—ShopFree loads quickly.
Why Cloudflare Workers works for us:
- Free plan includes 100,000 requests per day
- Global CDN for speed and reliability
- Built-in caching and DDoS protection
This setup allows us to deliver static pages instantly, while also handling dynamic API calls at the edge.
Styling with Tailwind CSS & React Islands
We use Tailwind CSS for styling. Its utility-first classes make it simple to create consistent, responsive designs without writing bloated CSS.
For interactivity, we use React components. Astro supports the “islands architecture,” meaning React is only loaded for specific interactive elements—keeping the rest of the site blazing fast.
Development in GitHub Codespaces
We buildt ShopFree entirely in the cloud using GitHub Codespaces. This gives us a consistent development environment that’s accessible anywhere, with no need for complex local setups.
Codespaces is free for up to 60 hours per month, and there is a premium option to add premium agents or you can simply add in your own API key for the coding agent of your choice.
We heavily used Claude Sonnet 4 in agent mode for code assistance, helping us build, debug and iterate faster.
Content Automation with Make.com & AI
ShopFree relies on fresh, relevant content. To save time, we’ve automated much of our content pipeline using Make.com and ChatGPT 5.0 mini.
Tasks we automate:
- Ingesting and formatting new offers
- Publishing workflows
- AI-assisted content drafts
This allows us to scale content without scaling manual effort.
Why This Stack Works for ShopFree
- Astro = Speed + SEO: Static rendering and zero-JS by default give us some of the fastest pages online.
- Supabase = Affordable backend: Free plan covers early growth, with room to scale.
- Cloudflare Workers = Edge performance: Global hosting at virtually no cost for early traffic.
- Tailwind + React = Flexible UI: Lightweight design with dynamic interactivity where needed.
- Automation = Efficiency: Make.com and AI keep content flowing.
By combining these free and low-cost tools, ShopFree runs lean while delivering an experience that’s fast, SEO-optimized, and ready to scale.