Is free web hosting worth it

Hi I’m Praneeth Kumar.

In this blog post I will walk you through everything you need to know about free web hosting services along with the pros and cons in detail.

This is the only blog post you need to read in order to decide whether you should choose free web hosting to host your website or not.

So without further ADO let’s get started

Here is a 30000 foot view of the blog post.

What is free web hosting & examples?

Free web hosting is a service that allows you to host & store a website & its files for free of cost so that other people can access your website on the internet.

Some popular free web hosting companies are,

Many people wonder why do big companies offer free web hosting services for people in the first place,

Well, there are many reasons for it like,

It can be their business strategy to first of all get people to use free web hosting and then convert them into purchasing the premium plans in future like lead generation strategy.
It can also be a testing strategy for hosting companies to test new features in the hosting by offering free service and getting some feedback from the real users.
It can also be just a motto to offer free hosting so everyone can have their own website free of cost.

You can click here to learn more about what web hosting is and the importance of it in detail.

Pros and cons of free web hosting.

Let’s take a look at the benefits and drawbacks of using free web hosting companies to create your website.

Pros of free web hosting.

1. It is free of cost.

The biggest advantage of free web hosting services is it is free of cost which means,

you do not need to invest any money in either purchasing the hosting or the domain name in order to create a website whether it is on wordpress or wix or any other website Builders.

For example if you want to create a website on wordpress open source software not wordpress.com then, you must invest in at least a domain name and web hosting service which will cost you around $100 per year but,

Using the free web hosting services you can get both free web hosting and a subdomain name without investing a single penny so that you can create a website on WordPress for free.

2. It is great for trial and testing.

Another big advantage is, if you want to learn WordPress before you start your own blog then it is also great idea to use free web hosting

Using many free web hosting companies like Infinity free you can create a website on WordPress using a subdomain name and learn how to use wordpress like installing a plugin and

theme and see if you like using wordpress or not or you can switch to other blogging platforms like wix, joomla which are good alternatives to it.

Apart from that you can also do testing on your free WordPress website like create a staging website by creating a duplicate version of your website before you implement those changes on your live website on wordpress.

Along with that you can also use free web hosting companies to learn different things like file management and

file uploading related to wordpress so that you can get used to it when you get your own paid web hosting for your website.

Cons of free web hosting.

1. It has limited storage.

The main disadvantage of free web hosting services is that it offers Limited storage to host your website.

There are many free hosting services like,

Byet.host
Googiehost
Accuwebhost
Wix

All these platforms that offer free hosting and domain name have limited storage space like 1gb.

There is also a limit of how much size your blog posts and website pages could be, the number of pages you can have on your website and

after exceeding a limit of storage you cannot upload any huge files like images and audio files or add new pages on your website.

2. It has limited bandwidth.

This is the most common disadvantage of almost all free web hosting services available.

Basically bandwidth is the amount of data that can be shared between the user and the server in a period of time.

And in every free web hosting company you can see that there is a limit to bandwidth including website builders like Wix & Weebly as well.

This is one of the big issues you can face if you have lots of people coming to your website because if more people visit your website then you will need more bandwidth which is why free web hosting is not a reliable option due to such limiting resources.

3. It offers poor customer support.

Another big disadvantage of free web hosting is that it offers bad or no customer support whatsoever.

Whenever you get into some trouble and problem while creating your website or configuring any setting in the control panel of the hosting you either have to read the documentation or

post your question in a forum to get a solution but you will not get any live chat or Email support from the majority of the free hosting companies.

The reason is quite obvious, better customer support comes with a price tag because the web hosting company also has to pay salary for employees who give customers support but in this case we are looking to create a website using a free hosting option.

4. It also looks unprofessional.

Another big drawback of free web hosting is that it looks unprofessional.

Because many of the free web hosting services also offer free sub domain name, for example if you want to create a website on wix then

you can get a domain name like your domain.wix.com or on infinity free then a sub domain of that.

This is called a sub domain name and when people visit your website and read your domain name it kind of looks quite unprofessional & hurts your website credibility.

5. It can be neither secure nor reliable sometimes.

You should also know the fact that free web hosting companies can also be sometimes very insecure and unreliable options for hosting a website.

The majority of these companies store a bunch of websites on a single server without proper distribution of resources of the server which will increase the load on the server causing slow website speed, and downtime of the website as well.

If your website is either loaded slowly or goes down due to server down then there is no use and it will create a bad impression with users who are trying to visit your website and hurt your overall SEO rankings because people can’t visit your website in the first place.

You should also know that your web hosting company will play a huge role in the overall security of your website for example,

Your hosting company will provide ddos protection by monitoring the traffic and people visiting your website and blocking bots and threats online from attacking your website through firewall protection.

If you get a free web hosting company for your website then your website security can always be at risk because such security measures come at a cost which you have not paid.

6. Making money is hard.

Another disadvantage of free web hosting is it is quite hard to make money from your website because since you are using the free web hosting,

You should understand the fact that it costs money to host your free website so the hosting company will place different ads on your website to generate revenue & pay for the bills & costs related to hosting of your website and also make some revenue.

Is free web hosting good & safe?

After reading the advantages and disadvantages, let’s take a look at in what circumstances using a free web hosting for your website is a good choice.

Free Web hosting is good;

If you want to create a personal website or blog or test things.
You don’t have enough money or much traffic visiting your website at the moment.
If you want to learn using WordPress and create a website.

In all these situations you should use a free web hosting service for your website.

Free Web hosting is bad;

If you want to create a professional website and blog.
If you want to have a website free of company ads.
If You get lots of people visiting your website you want more bandwidth.
If you want a faster website loading speed and more reliable uptime of your website.
If you want better customer support, security and storage for your website.

In all these different cases you should consider switching to a paid web hosting service like to bluehost which offers web hosting service starting from 2.95$ a month.

Read bluehost review and also why it is the best web hosting for WordPress.

For more information regarding creating a website you can refer my guides below,

With that said let’s conclude the blog post.

Ending remarks

These are all the things you need to know about free web hosting and pros and cons in detail.

Share the blog post if you have found it helpful

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Also comment down which free web hosting you are going to choose.

I will catch you next time till then keep learning and keep growing.