Is Free Web Hosting Really Possible?
Do you want a short answer to this question: yes, it's possible, free web hosting exists and 99 times out of 100, I'll advise against using it. You get what you pay for.
There are certain situations when free hosting can be useful. In these cases, it's extremely important to choose the right free web hosting provider.
In this article, I'll focus on reliable web hosting providers where you can get a website up and running without having to pay. I'll also show you the major differences between paid and free hosting. Additionally, I'll provide you with several solid affordable alternatives.
Who is free hosting suitable for?
Advertisements and promises about free web hosting have been attracting a lot of attention for years. After all, why would you pay if you can get it for free? It's understandable that people want to minimize costs. However, this comes with a certain price.
In many cases, free web hosting actually means “freemium” web hosting. It's free, but you get very few of the essential features you need for effectively hosting a quality website.
However, some reliable free hosting providers can be a good option for developing new skills or for small projects. For example, think about creating a website for a trip, sports team, or school project.
For web hosting companies, there are roughly three reasons to permanently offer their services for free:
- The web hosting provider hopes that you will later purchase the associated subscription or refer other people to it (freemium model).
- Your website is forced to display advertisements. The money earned from these ads goes straight into the pockets of the hosting company. This is also common with free website builders.
- The free web hosting sells your data to marketing companies.
Sometimes it's a combination of the options above, and sometimes they suggest that there's free hosting, but it turns out that's not actually the case. By that point, you've already filled in all your information.
The Best Free Web Hosting Services
As you might have guessed reading between the lines, I'm not a fan of free hosting. However, there are many free web hosting providers out there.
Finding a reliable free web hosting service on your own is like walking through a minefield.
However, there are a few legitimate, trustworthy companies that offer genuinely free web hosting. We selected three of them: Wix, with their own website builder, 000hosting and Freehosting (both supporting WordPress).
Hosting a Free Website with Wix
Wix is a widely popular website builder that allows you to create a website for free. You can build a website with just a few simple clicks.
They offer many of the features for free. They also provide you with a wealth of well-developed content (images and videos) that you can use without copyright restrictions.
When your Wix website is ready, you can publish it on a Wix subdomain. This means you'll get a site with an address like “start24.wix.com”, for example.
If you're a business or organization, that's obviously not very professional. For just €11 per month, you'll get a free domain name and all Wix advertisements will be removed.
Want to see if Wix is the right website builder for you? You can get pretty far with a free account.Wix is a convenient but ultimately very limited website builder. Are you just starting a small business? Then it might be an option. In many cases, though, you'll want more than what Wix can offer. Additionally, Wix's premium plans aren't exactly cheap. It would be smart to look into WordPress as an alternative.
Hosting a Free WordPress Website
WordPress is a widely supported content management system. Several major hosting companies allow you to use free web hosting with WordPress. My favorites are 000webhost (a subsidiary of the well-known Hostinger) and the free web hosting provider Freehosting.
You install WordPress in your web hosting environment, and then you can build your website there. WordPress offers much more than Wix, and many large and well-known websites have been built with WordPress (including WebsiteGecko.nl itself).
Within WordPress, you can import thousands of free themes. We're big fans of the Kadence theme, which integrates directly with WordPress's editor. Kadence is also used for WebsiteGecko.
Here you'll find a step-by-step guide for creating a WordPress website with Kadence.
000webhost
With 000webhost, you can launch free web hosting without ads for your website. You can host 1 website and get up to 300MB of disk space. The bandwidth is limited to 3 gigabytes. This isn't a lot, but hey, it's free.
Please keep in mind that while you can host a website through 000webhost, you won't get your own domain name. Instead, similar to Wix, you'll receive a subdomain on 000webhost (for example, start24.000webhost.nl).
Freehosting
With Freehosting, you get the complete cPanel and can install WordPress for free. Additionally, you won't be required to display any mandatory advertisements on your website.
You'll get an email address, 10 gigabytes of storage space, and unlimited bandwidth. The latter operates under a “fair use policy.” In practice, this means you'll be given lower priority compared to paying customers.Freehosting truly offers only free hosting. However, you'll need to connect your own domain name. This is a bit disappointing.
Free hosting services don't offer you the option – unlike 000webhost and Wix – to launch your website without a domain name.
You can of course purchase a domain name from them. Domain names are often less expensive than hosting and therefore more accessible for many people. Read here how domain names work and how to choose a suitable domain name.
If you'd like to experiment with WordPress in a “no commitment” way, 000webhost is my favorite option. If you already have a domain name but don't want to pay for hosting, then Freehosting is a worthwhile alternative to consider.
The Main Differences Between Free Web Hosting and Paid Web Hosting
So far, I've mentioned several points where paid hosting and free hosting can differ. Below, I've laid out everything in more detail.
This will help you make your choice. Each element will matter to a greater or lesser extent for your intended web project.
Bandwidth and storage space
Bandwidth and storage space are two core components of web hosting. Storage space indicates how large the website can be. Bandwidth indicates how much data the website can deliver to its visitors. Simply put, how often the website can be accessed.
With free hosting, there's often a limit imposed. This limit is typically set so tight that it becomes uncomfortably restrictive.
A hosting provider generally has no incentive to give you enough free storage space and bandwidth.
If they do, you should ask yourself what they're getting in return.
Features and Upgrades
With free web hosting, you'll often find essential features missing that you'd want for your website. Think about things like an SSL certificate (the “green” padlock), cPanel, or backup options.
If you want to have a website that stays online for an extended period, let alone gets picked up by Google, these are basic functions that are often missing.
Domain Name and Branding
We've already seen that even with our free hosting providers mentioned above, the domain name is an issue. Often you'll find that you're given a subdomain instead.
The name of the free web hosting service will also be displayed there. You obviously wouldn't print that on your business card, and in many cases it looks quite unprofessional.
A paid hosting plan doesn't automatically include a domain name. However, nowadays there are many affordable hosting providers that offer a free domain name with their services. These are often “.com” domains. Free “.nl” domain names are less commonly offered.
Privacy and Security
Sometimes someone offers you free hosting and it's not clear how they plan to make money from this in the long run. In that case, there's a good chance they're directly selling your information to marketers.
Be very careful when providing your email address, phone number, or other personal information when signing up for a free hosting program. Before you know it, you'll be bombarded with spam or receive dubious phone calls from Nigerian princes.
Website Performance
Another area where free and paid web hosting differ is performance. As a free customer, you obviously won't get the fastest and newest servers with features like SSD hard drives.
You won't need to worry about downtime when your free website's server becomes overloaded.When you pay for hosting, providers typically specify their downtime-uptime ratio. They often promise an uptime of 99.8% or higher per year. This gives them a few hours annually where they might unexpectedly go offline.With free hosting, that percentage will be significantly lower, so don't be surprised when your site becomes temporarily unavailable. In most cases, this is something you'll want to avoid.
This is a major limiting factor that will prevent you from freely sharing your website with everyone.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
Search engines like Google index the internet, displaying the most relevant results at the top of search rankings. Since 2010, Google has also taken website speed into account, along with factors such as security and site downtime.
If you're using free web hosting, there's a good chance that Google won't view your site as trustworthy enough to show to its users. This significantly reduces your chances of being found in Google search results.
With paid web hosting, you have a much better chance of being picked up by Google.
Technical Support and Customer Service
Finally, you won't receive any support. With a decent hosting provider, they assist you with setting up and installing various apps. They help you connect your domain and can provide guidance on the (technical) structure of your website.
With a free website, customer support isn't even on the table, so you might as well forget about getting any help.Fortunately, in many cases, you can find answers online, but this requires extensive and time-consuming searching. This is why spending those few dollars per year for even basic hosting quickly pays for itself.
In summary: Should you pay for web hosting?
No. There are free options available. These options are very limited though. I recommend paying for hosting if you want a professional website, want to start a personal blog, or plan to run an online store.
Use free web hosting options for hobby projects, school assignments, or websites where speed, professional appearance, and constant accessibility aren't critical concerns.Are you going backpacking for six months and feel that social media doesn't offer enough to share your story? Then free web hosting with a blog might be a good option for you.
If you want to learn more about using WordPress or expand your web development knowledge without incurring costs, free hosting is an option.
If you're creating a website for your basement league sports team or for your birthday, free hosting could be an option. In pretty much all other cases, I'd recommend paying for hosting.
Paid web hosting starts at very affordable rates
I've always found it fascinating how large the demand (and supply) of free web hosting is.
People tend to look for free alternatives when the paid versions are prohibitively expensive or when the quality of free services is comparable to paid ones.
In my opinion, there's a huge difference between the quality of free web hosting and even the most affordable paid web hosting options.
However, the prices for the cheapest paid web hosting are negligible and fall into the “one coffee shop latte per month” category.
Therefore, I strongly recommend investing a few dollars per year in web hosting and IT if you want to start a business website, blog, or online store.
It saves you a great deal of hassle and frustration, and ensures that all those valuable hours you invest in your project aren't limited by poor quality free web hosting.
Cloud86: Practically Free Web Hosting
If you've come to the conclusion that free web hosting isn't suitable for your project, consider Cloud86's paid web hosting services when keeping costs low is important.
The pricing is excellent. Are you unsure about other aspects of Cloud86 hosting, such as uptime and related features? We've written an in-depth review of Cloud86.
If you're not completely sure whether your project is worth those few euros per month, you can start for free with 000webhosting and then switch to Cloud86 later.
Remember that when creating a website, you'll encounter multiple expenses beyond just hosting. Consider things like graphic design software, purchasing rights to use images, or registering a domain name. You can read more about this in our article about how much a website costs.
