Slide to the step where your app gets a name you own and a padlock in the address bar.

Drag from "works on my laptop" to "a real product"

https://myapp.com

Who can open it
Anyone, by a name you own
Where it runs
The same server, behind your domain
Rough cost
$10–15/yr + hosting

What this stage adds: DNS points your name at the host; HTTPS is issued automatically. This is a product.

Watch out: The domain is now a reputation — email, search results and trust attach to it.

A domain is the human name you rent; HTTPS is the lock that encrypts the trip and proves the name really points at you.

Out of the box your app has a host's URL like my-app.pages.dev. A domain such as myapp.com is a name you rent (usually around $10–15 a year) and then point at your host using DNS, the internet's address book.

The padlock is HTTPS. MDN: "HTTPS (HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure) is an encrypted version of the HTTP protocol." It scrambles the traffic so nobody between you and the site can read or tamper with it, and it proves the site is who it claims to be.

From a name to a padlock
  1. Rent the domain

    Buy myapp.com from a registrar (~$10–15/yr)

  2. Point DNS at your host

    Tell the domain which server to send visitors to

  3. The host issues a certificate

    Free and automatic, after proving you control the domain

  4. The padlock appears

    Traffic is now encrypted end to end

You do the first two steps once; the host does the certificate for you.

That certificate used to cost money and effort. Let's Encrypt changed it: its goal is "to make it possible to set up an HTTPS server and have it automatically obtain browser-trusted certificates without any human intervention," after "the ACME client proves to the Certificate Authority (CA) that the web server controls a domain."

So on a modern host you rarely touch certificates by hand. You buy the name, point DNS at the host, and the padlock appears on its own.

Try it with the rules off. In the sandbox, slide to the custom-domain step and watch the URL change from the host's address to your own name with a padlock. Slide back and see the plain host URL return.

Check yourself

0/4 got it

Saved on this device only. No account, no streaks.

Next in making it real: Hosting, and what it costs.