In today’s advanced world of the web, owning a website has become like having a personal identity, as it carries our brand name and communicates our ideas to the world around us. One of the foundations of website success is having strong and stable free websites. Are you wondering how to have free web hosting without any side costs? In this article, we will dive into the world of free website hosting and learn about its advantages and disadvantages. Then we will learn about the best free website hosting sites ever.
What is web hosting and how does it work?
The best free web hosting providers.
What are the advantages of choosing free hosting?
What are the disadvantages of choosing free hosting?
What is web hosting and how does it work?
It is a technology that saves space on a remote server. In this space, you can store your site files and make it visible to users. This service performs many tasks, firstly, it provides storage space that allows you to save your site’s data and files on it. This service then provides you with a private IP address through which users can access your site content. This service also works to respond to requests from users and process them to show them the required content from your site. In this way, web hosting presents your site to users on the Internet and allows them to interact with this content.
For more information about web hosting, you can browse the following article: What is web hosting?
The best free web hosting providers.
In the world of paid web hosting, there are many sites that can be talked about that deserve the title of the best web hosting platforms. When talking about free hosting, the number of platforms that provide this hosting decreases, and it can be summarized as follows:
1- 000webhost
A brand backed by Hostinger, it offers a free web hosting plan with 300MB disk space and limited bandwidth of less than 10GB per month. It also includes support for the PHP programming language and a single MySQL database. This is in addition to a simple control panel, a WordPress installation tool, and finally a website builder.
000webhost may be suitable for personal websites or as a test for your WordPress site.
2- InfinityFree
One of the best web hosting that can be obtained for free, as it supports 5 GB storage space, and it is ad-free hosting. Plus, it’s one-click installable and comes with a free subdomain. InfinityFree also supports 400 MySQL databases. htaccess files are also fully supported. These files are necessary when you cannot access the main configuration files.
InfinityFree claims to be the world’s fastest free hosting, and it guarantees 99.9% uptime. It also does not put a limit on the number of websites that can be hosted. In addition, you can use your own domain name, or choose from InfinityFree’s free domain names with more than 25 extensions. In addition to a free SSL certificate, and free DNS service as well.
3- Freehostia
Freehostia offers a one-click app installer, which allows you to install WordPress and other website applications with one click. It also offers 5 free domains, with 250MB of free disk space. And monthly traffic up to 6GB. And 3 email accounts, a MySQL database that comes with a storage capacity of 10 MB.
4- AwardSpace
With AwardSpace you can host one domain plus 3 free subdomains. These domains, according to AwardSpace, are suitable for microblogs, temporary websites, or small business websites. AwardSpace also guarantees 99.9% uptime. It also provides a one-click app installer. So with one option you can install WordPress, Joomla or any other CMS within seconds.
In addition, AwardSpace ensures that customer support works 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.
It also supports PHP and a bandwidth of 5GB, as well as MySQL database support and up to 1000MB disk space. It offers a completely ad-free service.
5- Byethost
Byethost offers you free, ad-free hosting, and supports PHP, MySQL, and FTP. You can choose your own subdomain, which comes with Byethost branding. With Byethost you also get a script installer that can install more than 333 scripts including shopping carts, blogs, and image galleries. With 1000MB disk space per month, 24/7 technical support, FTP account and file manager. In addition to being a completely ad-free service. With a free website builder and 5 MySQL databases.
6- GoogieHost
GoogieHost’s completely free plan comes with 1,000MB of SSD storage, and a limited 100GB bandwidth. This is in addition to free email, a free MySQL account, and free ftp. It also includes a free SSL certificate and can host only one website.
What are the advantages of choosing free web hosting?
Although free hosting services are not recommended, they can often be useful, and may have features that cannot be overlooked. Here are some advantages of using a free hosting service:
The cost.
Many startups or modern website builders do not have the ability to afford paid hosting. Getting free hosting may be a good start while making some profits and moving to paid hosting.
The possibility of testing the site.
You can benefit from free hosting to test the website and its performance. This is a great idea to learn about the overall performance of the website and the demand of visitors for it. Therefore, this step helps determine the capabilities that the site will need in terms of speeds, storage spaces, and processing capabilities. After collecting this data, you can purchase a paid hosting service suitable for your website. Without wasting money on trying paid plans one after another.
Ease.
Free hosting is easy to use because it does not provide any additional options to customize the server and adjust various settings. Therefore, it is suitable for a novice website owner who does not have any experience in web hosting.
Flexibility of relocation.
Whenever you want to move to paid hosting, all free hosting services provide a fast and smooth transfer method.
What are the disadvantages of choosing free web hosting?
First of all, there are several basic features that you will have to overlook when choosing a free hosting service. Secondly, a free hosting service cannot satisfy the purpose of an actual website that receives acceptable traffic on a continuous basis. Here are some disadvantages of using a free hosting service:
Advertising
Of course, the hosting provider, even if it is free, will need to make profits from customers, and the ads that appear on your site are one of the most prominent ways to do this. The profit from these ads will be through visitors who come to your website. Every time a visitor clicks on one of the advertising links, the hosting provider will earn profits. This way you will lose the profits coming from your ads which should go to your wallet.
Attach your hosting provider’s branding everywhere.
With free hosting, you will not be able to have an independent branded website. The hosting provider’s trademark may be found anywhere on the website. The trademark is often added to your domain name, which forms the URL of your website. For example, chances are that the name of the service provider is US and the URL of your site is as you want it to be www.ex.com you will instead get this address www.ex.us.com.
Poor customer support.
Since free hosting companies don’t make a lot of money, it’s natural for customer support to be a chat service that can answer pre-defined questions like a bot. Therefore, it lacks flexibility and will not be able to help you solve any problem you encounter.
Although many free hosting providers claim to provide around-the-clock customer service, it’s unreasonable to expect too much.
Runtime.
In the world of web services, there is a term called uptime. Every company evaluates the uptime it guarantees, which constitutes the reliability of the system or service. Most paid hosting providers publicly guarantee the user 99.99% uptime. Although all hosting companies are exposed to sudden malfunctions, and may sometimes need to interrupt service to perform preventive maintenance, paid service providers have greater capabilities to perform maintenance as quickly as possible, and they may have alternative options for not interrupting service.
Limited bandwidth.
Companies that provide free hosting services always have a limited and small bandwidth, which affects the loading speed and performance of your site. It especially affects sites that contain a lot of media, such as videos and images. Therefore, you cannot guarantee that the site will perform well with free hosting.
Many of the necessary features depend on paid upgrade plans, but if you think about improving some features, you will immediately have to pay additional amounts. These amounts may be close to what you would pay to subscribe to a paid hosting service with shared hosting with very acceptable features.
When is free hosting useful?
Free hosting is an important and highly useful feature for testing small and medium projects. It may be a good starting point for a new, simple website such as a blog. The free hosting service can also be used to determine the site requirements before subscribing to a paid hosting service.
At the end of this journey in the world of free website hosting, we realize that choosing the best free hosting depends on your individual needs and the capabilities of your site. Also, the free hosting option may be suitable for an initial or experimental project, but it is necessary to move to a paid hosting plan that provides professional features to manage your site safely and stably.
