Best Free Web Hosting Compared

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Web hosting forms the essential foundation for any website, but it doesn’t always have to be costly. This guide explores the world of free web hosting, reviewing some of the best free hosting services available in the market. We will examine the benefits and potential drawbacks of these services.

1. Hostinger

Hostinger Free Hosting

Website: http://www.hostinger.com/free-hosting

Hostinger began its hosting business in 2004. Originally located in Kaunas, Lithuania, the company now has offices worldwide. Hostinger offers both free and a wide range of paid hosting plans, including shared hosting, VPS, and cloud hosting.

Hostinger’s free website hosting services are provided through 000WebHost, a free web host that has been in business since 2007. The basic paid shared hosting plan, known as the “Single Web Hosting Plan,” allows for hosting one website and offers 50 GB of storage, 100 GB of bandwidth, one email account, and a drag-and-drop website builder.

Updates: 000WebHost has discontinued their free hosting services. We recommend readers to host with Hostinger at a small monthly cost instead. While Hostinger’s plan incur some expense, it provides mmuch better server performance, customer support, and additional features that can enhance your experience.

Hostinger Free Hosting

Hostinger’s free hosting is an excellent choice for beginners who want to avoid spending on web hosting. Every free account provides up to 300 MB of disk space, one MySQL database, and one FTP account, and it is protected by a Cloudflare nameserver.

Key Features

  • 300 MB disk space storage
  • MySQL database included
  • Free HTTPS web hosting
  • 99% uptime guarantee
  • Support PHP, FTP, and Cloudflare
  • User-friendly control dashboard – HPanel
  • Auto malware monitoring with Imunify360 
  • Optimized for WordPress

Hostinger Upgrading Options

For those who are already using Hostinger’s free platform, the company offers ultra-cheap website hosting for upgrades. Their Single Shared Hosting plan sells at an incredibly cheap price of $1.99 per month. Users who want better hosting features, such as auto weekly backup, larger storage space, drag-and-drop website builder, and GIT access, should upgrade to this paid package.

To learn more about Hostinger, read our review here.

What’s the Catch Behind Hostinger Free Plan?

When hosting on Hostinger’s free platform, 000WebHost, your website must be in the form of a subdomain (e.g., yourdomain.000webhost.com). Want to use your own custom domain? You’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.

Additionally, free Hostinger hosting users must contend with an enforced one hour of “sleep” time each day, during which the website will be unavailable to anyone, including yourself.

Regarding their basic paid plan, the ultra-cheap pricing comes with a condition: you must sign up for four years, which is longer than the typically recommended subscription period of 24 months.

2. Weebly

Weebly Free Website Hosting Plan

Website: https://www.weebly.com/

Founded in 2002 in San Francisco by college friends David, Dan, and Chris, Weebly is a site builder that has supported over 40 million websites. With a combined annual traffic of more than 325 million unique visitors, the company is backed by funding from major players such as Sequoia Capital and Tencent Holdings.

Weebly Free Website Hosting Plan

Weebly is part of the new generation of site-builder-slash-web-hosts that is performing exceptionally well. Its free plan is not only advertisement-free but also includes advanced site features like SEO, a form builder, an online shop builder, and a shopping cart.

Weebly is also well-supported by a vibrant community, and you can reach out to them via email or live chat.

Key Features

  • 500 MB of disk space and bandwidth
  • Proprietary database and control panel
  • Quick online shop setup with inventory management
  • Free SSL, SEO, form builder, and Instagram feed support
  • Weebly website templates and apps included

Weebly Upgrading Options

Weebly places significant emphasis on its online store builder, focusing on transactional features. While upgrade plans enhance basic features, the standout aspect is the number of products you can sell at a time. If you’re solely interested in hosting plans, Weebly accommodates that too. Prices range from $12 to $26 per month.

What’s the Catch with Weebly Free Website Hosting?

Weebly strongly emphasizes its own ecosystem and doesn’t integrate well with other platforms. For example, it does not support server-side scripting (such as PHP) or database integration.

If you host a free domain on Weebly, it will be in the form of a Weebly.com subdomain (e.g., yourwebsite.weebly.com). To connect a custom domain, you must upgrade to a paid plan.

While the Weebly free plan is extremely powerful on its own, it limits flexibility. Once you start using it, you may find yourself committed to Weebly for the long term.

Read Weebly Terms of Service

3. 20i

20i free website hosting

Website: https://www.20i.com/

20i is a UK-based web hosting provider that has been around for only a few years. However, its founders have a long and distinguished track record in the industry. The company currently offers a decent range of products, including its own free CDN.

20i Free Hosting Packages

20i’s free offering ticks a lot of the right boxes compared to similar plans. Notably, it provides an ad-free experience, and you can run ads on your site to earn money.

Key Features

  • 10 GB disk storage with 250 MB monthly bandwidth
  • Easy app installation including WordPress
  • Free HTTPS hosting (wildcard SSL)
  • Manage using My20i control panel
  • Free transfer of .uk domain

20i Upgrading Options

The next logical step up from 20i’s free plan would be one of their standard shared hosting options. However, it is advisable to look beyond the lowest tier and consider the ‘Premium’ plan, which offers significantly more resources, often unmetered.

Potential Drawbacks with 20i Free Hosting

While 20i is generous in many areas, they have limited web bandwidth somewhat tightly. All free users only receive 250 MB per month, which can be quickly exhausted.

Read 20i Terms and Conditions

4. HubSpot

Hubspot free hosting

Website: https://www.hubspot.com/

HubSpot was launched in 2006 by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah. While renowned for its robust CMS offering, the company recently introduced a free web hosting solution aimed at ensuring your content is secure and reliable when reaching your customers.

HubSpot Free Hosting Services

HubSpot’s free web hosting provides websites with 24/7 security and threat detection, SSL, WAF, and a dedicated security team. With its built-in CDN and web monitoring features, you can save time when hosting a website for free with HubSpot.

Key Features                                                         

  • Unmetered storage space and bandwidth
  • Intuitive drag-and-drop website builder
  • Built-in CDN and content hosting
  • Free security features with WAF, SSL, and Malware/Threat Detection
  • Data integration into HubSpot’s All-in-one CRM platform
  • Content optimization and SEO recommendations

More Tools Available With Upgrades

You can unlock more premium tools by upgrading from HubSpot’s freemium pricing model. HubSpot’s free tools offer many “lite” versions of select tools, allowing you to try them extensively and upgrade to unleash their full potential.

What’s the Catch with HubSpot Free Web Hosting?

HubSpot’s Content Management System (CMS) is rather basic, and their starter paid plan costs an eye-watering $23 per month.

Read HubSpot Terms of Service

5. Wix

Wix Free Website Plan

Website: https://www.wix.com/

Wix is a well-known name in the website-building business and was among the first of the new generation of web tools. It’s great for newbies, easy to use, and offers enough features to interest beginners before they consider upgrading to paid plans.

Wix Free Website Plan

Wix’s free plan comes with a powerful website editor (Wix), free website templates, and adequate storage space.

Key Features

  • 500 MB of disk space and bandwidth
  • Proprietary database and control panel
  • Drag-and-drop website builder included
  • Support SSL by default – Free HTTPS hosting
  • Free basic Wix website templates and apps

Wix Upgrading Options

Wix’s plans are designed to scale up functionality for websites, but higher-level plans can become expensive. These plans include features such as a form builder, email marketing campaigns, online payment gateways, and even professional website reviews.

Pricing starts at $4.50 per month and goes up to $24.50 per month.

What’s the Catch with Wix Free Hosting?

Wix is a proprietary platform, which means it tries to retain users as much as possible. However, it plays better with other tools compared to its close competitor, Weebly, and is compatible with some tools like Caspio, a free database platform.

Your free Wix website will be in the form of a subdomain: accountname.wixsite.com/siteaddress. To use a custom domain (e.g., yourdomain.com), you will need to subscribe to Wix’s paid plans.

Additionally, Wix is not ad-free. If you’re not on a paid plan, Wix ads will appear on every page of your site.

Read Wix Terms of Use

6. Awardspace

Awardspace

Website: https://www.awardspace.com

Offering website hosting services since 2004, AwardSpace has stood the test of time by continually refining its free hosting offerings to keep up with the competition. Just last year, they launched a completely redesigned website and streamlined their services.

Awardspace Free Hosting Services

The free version of AwardSpace does not come with an uptime guarantee. To ensure uptime, you’ll need to upgrade to one of their paid plans. However, AwardSpace’s paid hosting plans offer a Service Level Agreement (SLA) with 99.9% uptime and a no-questions-asked refund within the first 30 days if you’re not satisfied.

Key Features

  • Disk Space: 1GB, Bandwidth: 5GB
  • Built-in Spam Protection
  • Easy CMS installer, support WordPress, Joomla, and more.
  • Ad-free site hosting
  • Free HTML website hosting

Awardspace Upgrading Options

AwardSpace offers three paid plans in addition to the free option, with prices ranging from $4.99 to $9.99 per month. For new signups, AwardSpace offers a significant discount of up to 95%, meaning you could pay as little as 25 cents a month.

Potential Risks of Hosting a Free Website at Awardspace?

There is no significant catch with AwardSpace’s free hosting; however, the lack of an uptime guarantee could be a consideration for some users.

Read Awardspace ToS.

7. Dreamnix

Dreamnix free hosting

Website: https://www.dreamnix.com/

Rather than a free server hosting, I’d consider Dreamnix to be “almost-free” since they offer top-of-the-line features with sharp limitations in their free product. This is in line with their concept of “try before you buy”.

Putting Up Your HTML Site for Free at Dreamix

It’s a pretty good bet that Dreamix is legit, since all-round the company stresses its money-back guarantee. In fact, it doesn’t even take your credit card information until you pay for any service. As I said – try before you buy!

Key Features

  • 1 GB SSD storage with 1 GB monthly bandwidth
  • Free cPanel hosting
  • No advertising on free accounts

Server Upgrade Options

Once you’re outgrown your free plan, upgrades differ mainly in terms of add-on features such as access to Cron jobs, mailing lists, and so on. The basics such as bandwidth and sick space go up to unlimited with even the lowest plan. Starts from $1.95 per month up to $4.95 per month based on annual subscription rates.

What’s the Catch Behind Dreamnix Free Plan?

As far as we can see, nothing much, except that Dreamnix is limited to data centers in only three locations. These are nicely spread out around the world though, so there shouldn’t be any real issues here.

Learn more about Dreamix limitation in their ToS.

8. Freehostia

Freehostia free web hosting

Website: https://www.freehostia.com/

Freehostia boasts over ten years of experience in the hosting industry, highlighting its “Load Balanced Cluster Technology” as a superior alternative to standalone servers. As a large-scale web host, it offers not only standard hosting packages but also high-end solutions such as dedicated servers. However, the data center location is limited to Chicago.

Hosting PHP Sites at Freehostia

Freehostia advertises a 99.9% uptime for its free hosting plans, which typically suggests that paid plans might offer greater reliability. Unfortunately, Freehostia does not disclose the uptime for paid plans, making it a bit uncertain.

Key Features

  • 250 MB storage with 250 monthly bandwidth
  • Free website templates
  • Auto Installer (WordPress, Joomla, etc)
  • No ads website hosting services
  • PHP & MySQL database support

Server Upgrading Options

Freehostia offers multiple plans with incremental capacities, focusing primarily on the amount of storage provided. This is unusual given that storage is relatively inexpensive these days, and most web hosts offer it liberally. Prices for upgraded plans range from $14 to $65 per month.

Potential Drawbacks with Freehostia Free Server

The most significant limitation is storage space. Offering only 250 MB for a web host, even a free one, is quite restrictive in today’s context. Additionally, the sheer number of available plans can be confusing to navigate.

Read Freehostia ToS.

9. FreeHosting.com

FreeHosting.com

Website: https://freehosting.com/

The first thing you’ll notice when you visit FreeHosting.com is that it’s plastered all over with the word “Free”. Great, since that’s what you’re after right? Not so much when you realize that the long list of features offered is cunningly interspaced with non-free items just so that it looks longer.

FreeHosting.com Free Plan

FreeHosting.com provides a completely free web hosting plan with no hidden costs, ideal for beginners and small websites. This plan offers reliable performance and essential services to help get your website online fast.

Key Features

  • 10 GB storage with unmetered website bandwidth
  • Free website builder
  • Free cPanel hosting with CMS auto installer
  • PHP & MySQL database support

Server Upgrade Options

Freehosting.com only offers two plans – you pay, or you don’t. Paid accounts benefit from unlimited storage space and bandwidth at $7.99 per month.

Potential Drawbacks with FreeHosting.com

For the free service, not much that we can find. I’ve been around and again over this website but there doesn’t seem to be any mention at all of an uptime guarantee, which is a little frightening. The only time money-back is mentioned is within its 30-day grace period of paid accounts.

Also. there is a caveat in their terms of service: There is an ‘out’ clause there that basically states that they can shut you down if you’re taking up too many (unspecified) resources.

Read FreeHosting.com ToS.

10. Free Hosting EU

Free Hosting EU

Website: https://www.freehostingeu.com/

FreeHostingEU is not affiliated with Freehosting.com, but reminds us a little of Freehostia, in the sense that it offers a paltry amount of storage space in the hopes that you’ll get frustrated and upgrade. I’m not sure where the mentality of annoying your customer in the hopes he’ll pay you came from, but it seems successful for web hosts. It’s worth noting though that this host offers free .eu5.net domains even for free accounts.

More About FreeHostingEU Services

All plans on Freehosting EU come with 24/7 Server Monitoring and a 99.8% uptime guarantee. As far as web hosts go, that’s on the low side. I guess for peace of mind though, they offer the same guarantee to free accounts.

Key Features

  • Disk space of 200 MB with 4 GB monthly bandwidth
  • Free website builder with Advanced CP as hosting control panel
  • Auto Installer (WordPress and Joomla only)
  • No ads

Server Upgrade Options

FreehostingEU comes in three flavors: Free, Best and PRO. The two paid plans cost $6.95 and $11.95 per month respectively and come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. They do offer a discount for first-time sign-ups though.

What’s the Catch with Free Hosting EU?

Once again, it’s all in the small print and in the case of FreeHostingEU you’ll go ‘WOW!’ – if you don’t rip your hair out first. Compliance is expected in many areas that are a little unusual because, well, who thinks of some of these things? For example, you must agree to limit your space to consist of only 10% image files, 10% archives, etc.

So, in reality, you’re getting a web host that you can dump… 20MB of images on. Also, you’ll need to be in their paid plans if you wish to use your own custom domain.

Learn more in Free Hosting EU Terms of Service.

11. FreeHostingNoAds.net (FHNA)

Free Hosting No Ads

Website: https://freehostingnoads.net/

Free Hosting No Ads (FHNA) has been around for 18 years, I kid you not. This website is very generous in terms of what it offers, in fact, more than what some paid accounts go for. I guess part of it is subsidy through advertising though, since they plaster Google ads all over their own website. They promise not to force you to carry their ads though.

Hosting Websites for Free at FHNA

FreeHostingNoAds appears to be another hosting provider which doesn’t believe in server uptime guarantees. However, users who join are offered technical support, even on the free plans. It doesn’t, however, clarify what nature that support takes – it could be simply a reference to a knowledge base or FAQ.

Key Features

  • Free storage of 1 GB disk space
  • Auto Installer (WordPress, Joomla, etc)
  • Ad-free hosting services
  • Free domain hosting with a custom control panel
  • Support up to 3 MySQL databases per account

Server Upgrading Options

FHNA’s upgrading options come in two flavors: VIP and Pro Plan, priced at $4.99 and $9.99 per month. Their Pro Shared Hosting Plan offers you almost everything you could wish for a cheap shared host – including a 40% special discount during signup (this pushes the price down to $5.99 per month for the first term).

What’s the Catch Behind FHNA’s Free Hosting?

Aside from non-existent uptime guarantees and cloudy reference to technical support, nothing else. This seems to be aimed mainly at people who are seeking a free or cheap hosting solution and that’s all. Given that they have an entire page dedicated to HTML5 website building that ends up directing to Wix, they might be a subsidiary of an affiliate.

Read FreehostingNoAds ToS here.

12. Free Web Hosting Area (FWHA)

Free Web Hosting Area

Website: https://www.freewebhostingarea.com/

Another longstanding company in the web hosting arena, FreeWebHostingArea is generous in its basic terms for free accounts. It also offers a curious option between two different control panels, one of which seems extremely feature-light.

FWHA Free cPanel Hosting Services

There is no mention at all of either an uptime guarantee or technical support. In fact, although a forum is listed, it doesn’t really exist. A cursory search returns many comments that this is not an entirely reliable host.

Key Features

  • 1.5 GB storage space with a website builder support
  • Free email customer support
  • Free cPanel hosting
  • Conditional ad-free
  • PHP & MySQL database support

Server Upgrade Options with FWHA

FWHA’s upgrade options are the first we’ve seen that prices mainly according to different control panels. FreeWHA seems to be a proprietary modification of an open-source control panel script. Prices range from $1 per month up to $6.99 per month.

What’s the Catch Behind FWHA Free Plans?

The list of catch clauses is a mile long and personally, I would dread hosting even a free website here.

There are no real limitations stated in black and white for FWHA’s free hosting plan. Yet at the same time, they claim the right to terminate accounts for almost any deemed infractions, even over-usage of resources. Definitely not the way to win friends. Even their ad-free claim is conditional since they say they will impose ads on websites that they wish to.

See FreeWebHostingArea.com terms of service here.

13. InstaFree

InstaFree

Website: https://www.instafree.com

InstaFree offers potential website owners a pretty good deal, going by their word. Even free accounts are hosted on SSD-based storage and they are generous in both their terms of service as well as feature offerings. In fact, not only is there free shared hosting – but there is even free reseller and free VPS hosting

InstaFree Free Web Hosting Offers

There is the standard 99.9% uptime guarantee along with a relatively active user community in the forums. Technical support is included but is restricted to immediate issues relating to the hosting service.

Key Features

  • Disk Space: 10GB
  • Bandwidth: 100GB
  • Host up to 5 MySQL database
  • Free PHP hosting and website builder
  • Auto Installer for WordPress, Joomla, and other CMS
  • No ad free hosting

Upgrade Options with InstaFree

All InstaFree’s free accounts have their corresponding paid account, which is basically a step up from what the free account offers.

Pid plans range from $1 per month to $5 per month. InstaFree also offers website transfer support, even for free accounts, provided you’re using cPanel.

What’s the Catch behind InstaFree Free Plans?

There are a couple of quirks here, such as the fact that InstaFree has a list of countries that it has banned users from. This includes among them countries such as China, Russia, and Poland, but also (surprisingly) Singapore.

Read Instafree ToS here.


Things You Need to Know About Free Hosting

Free Website Hosting” refers to web hosting services that allow users to store their websites and make them accessible on the Internet at no cost. These services typically offer a limited amount of server storage and bandwidth and often provide a free subdomain for users’ websites.

Why Do Hosting Companies Offer Their Services for Free?

Web hosting companies provide free hosting services primarily as part of their business strategy. This model allows them to attract a broad user base, including beginners, hobbyists, and small businesses with tight budgets.

Users often start with free web hosting plans; as their websites grow and require more resources or advanced features, they are likely to upgrade to a paid plan offered by the same provider. Moreover, some free hosting providers may display advertisements on their users’ websites to generate revenue.

Differences Between Free and Paid Hosting Services

The two main differences between free and paid web hosts are hosting fees and server resources.

Free web hosting services cost $0 and usually come with very limited server features, such as minimal server storage space, low CPU power, and limited security protections and technical support, if any. Most free hosting plans cannot meet the basic standards required to run a simple business website.

In comparison, paid hosting services typically offer better server security, advanced functionalities, and more server resources. If you are serious about your website, it’s better to host it on a basic, low-cost paid hosting platform. Many, especially those recommended in our cheap hosting guide, provide quality services and professional support at reasonable prices.

Free Web Hosting for Students and Nonprofits

Some providers offer paid shared hosting plans for free (or at heavily discounted prices) to nonprofits and students. If you are running a charitable organization or are a student who needs a free web host for practice, consider contacting providers to request a free “paid-account.” This typically offers better performance and higher reliability in hosting services.

Non Profit Discount from DreamHost
DreamHost, for example, offers a free Shared Hosting plan with email hosting to U.S.-registered non-profit and charitable organizations. This benefit is available for one Shared Hosting plan per non-profit and applies to U.S.-based 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(19) organizations, remaining active for the lifetime of the DreamHost account.
InMotion student hosting
While not free, InMotion Hosting is 50% cheaper for students (verified with an .edu email address).

The Pros and Cons of Free Hosting Sites

What’s Good About Free Hosting Services?

  • Cost-Efficiency – Pay $0: The most obvious advantage is that free website hosting doesn’t require any financial investment. This makes it a great choice for website owners operating on a tight budget.
  • Ideal Testing Field for Beginners: If you’re new to website building, free hosting allows you to learn the ropes without risking any money. You can experiment with different content management systems (CMS), hosting control panels, and functionalities; gaining valuable experience in the process.
  • Ease of Use: Many free website hosting providers offer user-friendly interfaces, often including simple drag-and-drop website builders. This makes it easier for newbies to launch their websites without much technical skills.

Potential Drawbacks of Free Hosting Services

While the word “free” can be very tempting – there are numerous performance and security risks with a free web host.

Poor Server Performance

The most glaring issue that comes with using a free web hosting model is the terrible server performance. In order to save server costs, a lot of providers will lump together hundreds, or even thousands, of websites in a single shared server. When you have that many websites sharing the same server resources, it’s inevitable that your website will suffer plenty of server issues such as slow-loading websites or lots of downtime.

Strict Server Limitations

With free hosting providers, you’ll have to deal with a lot of strict and tight resource limitations which your website will quickly outgrow from. When that happens, you’ll have to move to a paid hosting account which can mean more work and costs down the line.

For example, 000WebHost forces their users to endure a one-hour period of “sleep time” every day, which helps maintain their server capacity, but ensures that your website can’t go beyond a 95.8% uptime.

000WebHost sleep time
000WebHost forces one hour sleep time every day. But user feedback shows that some accounts are having up to 4 downtime in 24 hours (source).

Sudden Website Shutdown / Company Goes Out of Business

Because you are not paying a single dime for their services, most free domain providers won’t take your website seriously. This leads to a huge risk that comes with free hosting plans, in that your website can be taken down at any moment.

There have been many incidents where people who used free hosting platforms ended up having their accounts deleted or barred with no prior notice or warning. Since you’re not paying for their services, a lot of free hosting providers don’t feel obligated to keep your website online indefinitely.

Tweets on nightmares with free hosting (see it live here and here).

This is why many free hosting providers will include certain terms in their T&C that allow them to shut down your website at any moment if it goes against their interests.

An example of this is from Free Hosting EU. in which they limit their user’s account storage for up to 10%. Should the user go past the 10% limit, they can then shut down the website with no warning or penalty (read their ToS here).

FreeHostingEU.com ToS
FreeHostingEU.com users must agree to not use more than 10% of their storage for images, archives, or PDF files.

Getting Your Data Leaked

Data is an important asset for a business, especially if you’re an eCommerce business. But with free web host models, you’re more likely to get your data leaked or stolen as most providers don’t follow and enforce the standard and fundamental security practices needed to protect their users.

Again, since a lot of these providers are offering their services and infrastructure for free, they usually don’t feel the need to provide proper security to protect their users and their data. This led to cases where a user’s sensitive details, such as usernames and passwords, ended up stolen by hackers.

One such case of a massive security leak was with 000Webhost, in which they repeatedly ignored security warnings by a Forbes journalist and a security researcher back in October 2015. This led to them getting hacked and caused 13.5 million users to have their passwords, email address, and usernames stolen.

What to Look for in a Free Web Hosting?

When choosing a free website hosting provider, consider the following important factors:

  • Storage and Bandwidth: Assess the storage and bandwidth offered to ensure it can accommodate your website’s needs.
  • Uptime Guarantee: Look for a provider with a high uptime guarantee to ensure your site is accessible most of the time.
  • SSL Support: Look for free SSL support so you can run your websites in HTTPS.
  • Customer Support: While support may be limited to free hosting, some level of customer service is a good sign.
  • Upgrade Options: A provider with easy-to-transition paid plans can be beneficial as your website grows.
  • Terms of Service: Review the provider’s terms to understand policies on issues like data ownership, privacy, and potential ads on your site.

Best Practices for Using Free Hosting Services

When using free website hosting, keep the following best practices in mind.

  • Understand Your Limits: Be aware of your hosting provider’s limits on storage, bandwidth, and other features. Monitor your usage to avoid potential issues.
  • Backup Regularly: Most free hosting services do not come with automatic backup features, so it’s essential to back up your website data regularly to prevent loss.
  • Ensure Security: Use strong passwords, keep your website software updated, and consider additional security measures as free hosts may have limited security options.
  • Optimize Your Website: Keep your website light and optimized for speed.
  • Review Terms of Service: Ensure you’re aware of the host’s policies, especially regarding data privacy and ownership.
  • Plan for Future Growth: Consider a provider that offers easy upgrade options to paid plans for a smooth transition in the future.

Upgrade to Paid Hosting Plans: When and Why?

If you are hosting your website on a free platform, consider upgrading to a paid plan if you start experiencing frequent site downtimes, slow page loads, or running short on server storage.

Paid hosting generally offers more server resources (such as increased storage and bandwidth), better performance (faster page loads and higher uptime), advanced security features (automatic malware scanning, firewalls, etc.), and responsive customer support (via live chat or phone). It also provides a more complete solution, including essential features like email hosting, automatic backups, and SSH access.

Additionally, paid hosting services do not impose advertisements or limit monetization options. This results in a cleaner user experience for your visitors and gives you more freedom to grow (through newsletter signups, social media widgets) and monetize (via affiliate marketing, display ads, paid content subscriptions, etc.).

Transition Process

Most hosting providers make upgrading or transferring your site straightforward. Upgrading within the same provider usually involves selecting a plan, making a payment, and enjoying the added benefits without needing to move your website.

If you are switching to a different provider, you can request website migration assistance. Hosting companies often provide this service for free to first-time customers, allowing your website to be moved without significant downtime.

The table below shows some of the popular paid hosting services that cost less than $5 per month.

Web HostCheapest PlanFree Domain
Hostinger$2.99/moYes
TMD Hosting$2.99/moYes
GreenGeeks$2.95/moYes
InMotion Hosting$2.99/moNo
ScalaHosting$2.95/moNo
BlueHost$2.95/moYes
HostPapa$2.95/moYes

Final Thoughts

Starting with free web hosting is a viable option for those looking to establish an online presence without initial costs. The hosting providers featured in this article offer diverse solutions, each with its strengths and limitations.

By understanding your specific needs and the potential trade-offs, you can select a provider that suits your goals. Consider factors such as storage, bandwidth, and upgrade options to ensure your website remains functional and accessible as it grows.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Is free web hosting safe?

As mentioned above, there are various risks and catches involve when using free web hosting services. However, all free web hosting providers allow you to upgrade to their paid plan- which will move your websites out of the free server box and eliminate most risks.

How is free web hosting different from paid hosting?

The two main differences are cost and server resources. Free web hosting costs $0 and usually comes with a very limited server capacity (small storage, low CPU power, etc). Paid hosting typically comes with better website security, advanced functionalities, and more server resources.

What is the best free website hosting?

“Best” is relative – What’s best for me might not be right for you. That said, however, Hostinger, Weebly, Wix, and Award Space are some of the best free web hosts in the market. You are recommended to check out all the free hosting providers in our list above.

Is there any free web hosting without ads?

Yes, there are quite a number of free hosting platforms that do not force ad placement on their users’ websites. Please check our list of free web hosting for specific recommendations.

Do I get an FTP connection with free web hosting?

Yes, most free hosting platforms allow users to upload files via FTP connections. Alternatively, platforms like 000WebHost provide an easy-to-use file manager so users can navigate, upload, and delete web files using the browser.

Which free web hosting comes with a free domain name?

Weebly, Wix, 000Webhost, ByetHost, Free Hosting EU and etc. are some providers who offer free web hosting with a domain name. If that’s your choice, your website will appear as the subdomain to the hosting providers (ie. yourwebname.wix.come). Alternatively – with less than $12 per year, Hostinger offers you everything you need for free web hosting and domain name with no strings attached.

How can I get a free domain name?

There are two main ways you can get a free domain name – that is through either Freenom (the registry operator in charge of .tk ccTLDs) or a web hosting provider which offers a free domain name with the purchase of specific web hosting packages which they sell.


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Article by Jerry Low

Jerry Low has immersed himself in web technologies for over a decade and has built many successful sites from scratch. He is a self-professed geek who has made it his life’s ambition to keep the web hosting industry honest. For latest personal updates and news, follow Jerry on Facebook and Twitter.
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