Any good hosting for Inform games?

I know there’s Philomela for Twine, but is there such a site for Inform 7 IF?

Not specifically Inform 7, but IFDB, textadventures.co.uk, and itch.io will host your files and in many cases allow them to be played online. Playfic is a completely online implementation of Inform 7 that hosts the games created there (you cannot upload files, but I imagine you could paste your source text that doesn’t use extensions into the website.)

ifdb.tads.org
textadventures.co.uk/
itch.io/
playfic.com/

No, I’ll need to use extensions in future, so playfic is probably not for me. I don’t think the IF would do well on itchio, but thanks for the other sites.

I’ve been very pleased with textadventures.co.uk. They’ve been very easy to use and have higher traffic than most of the other sites. They also let you link directly to the game without a frame or splash page.

Advantages to itch.io - they have great stat-tracking so you can view numbers of downloads and page views, and you can also elect to monetize or allow donations (IF doesn’t really “sell” but it’s good to have the option). You can also set up a dedicated message board forum for your project.

Playfic does have some support for extensions. I think the devs managed to add all the extensions that were bundled with build 6G60, the build Playfic uses and I think probably will always use. (I guess really I can only vouch for Basic Screen Effects working, but I don’t remember hearing about any that they couldn’t add.) There’s some potential for compatibility issues, but if you work entirely within Playfic (or if you migrate only between Playfic and a local outmoded copy of 6G60) you should have no problems, until your game gets particularly ambitious.

Playfic’s interface is not as nice as desktop Inform 7, which is a disadvantage, but if you have a local copy of 6G60 to work in then that’s not really a problem.

The other disadvantage of Playfic is that your game’s source code is immediately available to players, so there’s nothing stopping them from reading straight through all your plot points, puzzle solutions, alternate endings, or lousy coding.

Very true. I think Playfic’s goal is more toward learning and sharing than hosting large-scale games. I think it’s used in classrooms that employ IF as a teaching tool.