HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) is the fundamental programming language, or scripting, used to create web pages. There are numerous additional scripting languages that work in concert with HTML, such as CSS, JavaScript, XML, etc., but HTML is the most basic and fundamental of all web page scripting. A basic HTML website will be a static website, static meaning that the webpage content will not change with user interaction. A static HTML website is the most common of all websites, and often provides all the functionality that the a website owner ever needs. If you don't need to have content management, blogs, interactive forms, databases, etc., then a static HTML website may suit your needs. Page loading speed of a static HTML website has an advantage over a dynamic PHP, ASP or Cold Fusion website.The page content of an HTML web page is hard coded into the web page code, so the page is immediately served to the user, limited only by the speed of the hardware and operating system. This is called a client side web page. In contrast, a dynamic web page sends data to the server, then the server sends data back to the web page and serves the content to the user. The time it takes for the data to go from the user to the server and back to the user again is limited not only by the speed of the hardware and operating system but also by the speed of the scripting language software, PHP for example, any database tables it may reference, e.g., MySQL. This is called a server side webpage.

Special scripts, e.g., JavaScript, XML, Actionscript, etc, can enhance a static HTML webpage and give it a dynamic appearance. XHTML is the modern version of HTML, the X stands for extensible. Using XML and JavaScript a static HTML webpage can become a dynamic XHTML web page.

An basic HTML website is typically priced from $1000-$3000.