Publish a Kimi website in five steps

We used these steps to publish a small static website from a paid account. See the test conditions and version record for the account settings and scope.

Before you confirm Publish: check the hosting allowance and usage shown in your account. Kimi’s pricing help describes a cloud-service charge that uses membership credits while a published website stays online. Not seeing a new purchase prompt does not mean hosting is free.

1. Open the website version. Return to the conversation where you built it and open its website Preview. Use the website panel, rather than a conversation-sharing control.
2. Check the preview before making it public. Read the page, follow its links and try its main action. Remove private test data and unfinished content. We used our demonstration timer with no customer information.
3. Select Publish in the website panel. Our dialog explained that the site was only visible to its owner and would become publicly accessible. It displayed the proposed website address.
4. Confirm Publish and wait for Published. We saw a publishing progress state before the completion panel appeared. A saved version in the conversation was not our evidence that deployment had finished.
5. Copy the link and check it outside the editor. The completed panel offered Copy link and View site. Open the copied address in a separate browser or private window and test the actual page. Our published timer opened without asking the visitor to sign in.

Use the address your account displays. Our live publishing dialog generated a *.kimi.page address. Kimi’s website overview gives abc.ok.kimi.link as an example. Do not construct a URL by replacing one suffix with the other.

Saving a new version is not the same as updating the live site

We changed one footer sentence and asked Kimi to save a new preview without publishing it. Version 2 appeared in the editor, but reloading the public address still showed version 1.

1. Make the change in the original conversation and check the new Preview.
2. Open Share in the website panel. In our test, it said that the new version had not been published and identified V1 as the currently published version.
3. Select Update, wait for completion, then reload the public address. Our new footer appeared at the same URL after this step.

Take the site offline

In the published site’s Share panel, open the three-dot menu and select Unpublish. We did this after our test: the editor returned to Publish, while reloading the former public URL produced “404 Page Not Found.” The V2 preview remained available to us in the project.

Unpublishing stops the live page from being served in this tested flow. It cannot recall screenshots or copies that someone already saved.

What we actually tested

We used Focus Break Timer, the same original four-file project from our export guide. V1 was the original site; V2 changed only one footer sentence. We published once, updated once and unpublished once. No custom domain, paid upgrade, API key, payment form or database was involved.

A working URL is only one check. In our interaction sequence, changing the timer’s minutes required Reset before Start used the new duration. Publishing had not removed that application quirk. Test the behavior your visitors need, not just whether the page loads.

The temporary demo was deliberately unpublished after verification. The results above describe this one static website, not a general reliability test.

The original V1 timer files are available as a ZIP (8 KB). These are the unchanged files from the earlier export test, not the V2 update or a record of Kimi’s hosted deployment controls. The package includes a provenance note and file hashes.

When you need your own hosting or domain

Choose a deployment route based on what your project contains:

• A simple static project: inspect the downloaded files and README, keep the folder structure intact, and test the entry page locally before selecting compatible static hosting. Our timer had a root index.html plus styles.css and app.js, with no build step.
• A project with a build system or server: identify its build command, output directory, runtime and environment variables. A ZIP of source code is not necessarily ready for drag-and-drop static hosting.
• A project using Kimi-managed login or a database: plan a migration. Kimi’s official FAQ says those platform services and database contents do not automatically move with exported code.

A customizable provider subdomain is different from connecting a domain you own. The documentation describes changing part of a Kimi-hosted address; we did not verify an own-domain connection. If that is essential, confirm support in the current product before choosing hosting.

We did not deploy this project to Netlify, Vercel or another host, so this guide does not present an untested third-party deployment as a completed workflow.

If the site does not appear as expected

The public page still shows old content

Check whether you saved a new preview but have not selected Update. That exact distinction appeared in our test. Confirm the published version first, then reload the public URL.

There is no usable preview

Kimi’s FAQ recommends reopening the conversation and checking that the website was saved from the expected project directory. Ask Kimi to verify the project and save a version; avoid rebuilding everything before diagnosing the missing preview. See Kimi’s preview troubleshooting.

Publish fails or the deployed page is blank

Keep the version number and distinguish a deployment failure from an application error. Kimi recommends retrying a failed publication later and using its feedback channel if it persists. A blank page needs a check of the generated application and its files. We did not encounter or reproduce a failed publication in this test.

Can I publish for free?

This test used an existing account labelled Moderato and did not trigger a new purchase. That does not establish free-plan publishing allowances or ongoing hosting costs. Kimi’s current pricing help says that keeping a published website online uses membership credits and that unpublishing stops that cloud-service charge. We did not measure this charge in the September 19 test. Check the offer shown in your account and our Kimi pricing guide before relying on a particular allowance.

Continue your project

For a public demonstration, start with Kimi’s Publish flow and check the result independently. For an externally hosted project, start with a verified export and a deployment plan that matches its dependencies.

Download and inspect Kimi-generated code · Explore the Kimi guide · How we test

Official guidance checked September 29, 2026: Kimi Websites overview and Kimi Websites FAQ, plus Kimi membership pricing help. The publishing observations are from our September 19 test; current documentation supports the hosting-charge note, troubleshooting and migration limits. Found a changed control or an error? Send a correction.