No need to start over. You can use different platforms for every project if you like.
Can we just use GitHub Pages?
You can use GitHub pages for the front-end sections (i.e. instead of CodePen), but not for the back-end challenges. GitHub Pages is a server that serves your files. In the back-end challenges, you will be creating your own server.
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Thanks for your response Isaac - this is exactly what I was trying to understand without knowing how to ask. I’m probably too early to fully understand the difference, but thanks for pointing me to the right direction!
@IsaacAbrahamson: What about Glitch? Is it a server or enables the user to create his own server? 
That’s fine, just use GitHub Pages, and you’ll know when you need your own server.
Glitch is something you can use for the back-end challenges. It is a server that you are able to customize yourself. Let me try to explain what a “server” is a little bit more.
(image from wikipedia)
A server sends data to a client. The client could be a mobile app, a web browser (most common), or even another server. To be specific, we are dealing with a “web server”. Here is a diagram of a web server:
(image from quora)
A web server takes HTML, CSS, and JS files and sends them to a client, which in this case is a web browser. So when you put your HTML and CSS files on GitHub Pages, GitHub takes your files and formats them correctly and sends them to whoever views your site. The HTML and CSS files you create are called then “front-end”. The “back-end” is the server which sends the “front-end” to the client. So when you get to the “back-end” challenges, you are directly controlling what is sent to the user. GitHub Pages will no longer work for you, as you are creating your own server to send data to a client. Your job on the back-end will usually be to read data from a database, modify data, render HTML files (put the data you recieved into the HTML files), and send all that to the user.
Glitch is a platform for building your own servers. Since Glitch is a server, you can use it to show you front-end projects. But it is primarily used for the back-end challenges, because it provides a server for you to modify.
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Thanks a lot Isaac. It makes the distinction easier to grasp, and I appreciate you taking some of your time to explain to a noob 
I’ll get on glitch and start playing with it!