When you are just starting up you would want to start things on a budget with minimum expenditure, cause not everyone has enough funds. So to some about you can definitely go for free web hosting. Here are the best free web hosting for 2021 to help you start your own website.
What you will see?
What is web hosting?
The business of hosting a website for businesses or people is referred to as web hosting. It can be done by individuals or by small or big businesses. Finding a reliable and affordable web hosting provider is just the beginning and is quite an overwhelming task. You will find many web hosting providers with many features that you may or may not require for your website. To build a website for yourself, or your small business, or to create a simple online store, you will have to note down the features that you will need on your website to get to the best suitable hosting provider.
Once you have a few potential hosting providers in mind, you can use this comparison tool at hostadvice.com to choose Better.
1. Wix
REASONS TO BUY
- 1 site, 500MB storage, 500MB bandwidth
- Wix ads
- Assigned Wix domain
- Drag-and-drop website builder
REASONS TO AVOID
- Online payments not included
- No Google Analytics
If you are a beginner, Wix is one of the best website builders for you. With Wix, you get a highly intuitive UI making it easy to create an attractive website. The best thing is that customer support is open 24/7. Although their features are quite low for the free tier. You get half the storage and bandwidth of the other tiers. Moreover, you don’t get a custom domain and your site will only have Wix ads. However, the data on your site is secure and compliant with the highest international standards. Everything is automatically set up once you have published your website and no installation is required. Your website will run on secure and stable networks with enterprise-grade reliability. With a free website, you get 500MB of cloud storage and 500MB of bandwidth. The bandwidth makes it easy to stream and download content from your website. Overall, it is a great choice for hosting for a beginner.
2. Infinityfree
REASONS TO BUY
- Unlimited storage
- Unlimited bandwidth
- 400 MySQL databases
- 10 email accounts
REASONS TO AVOID
- Average load times
Even though Infinityfree offers free hosting, the features are quite good. The website is well-designed with a solid homepage. Being in the market for over six years, Infinityfree has over 400,000 users. It not only gives you unlimited disk space and bandwidth but you can even host as many domains as you want. Although, you will only get 10 email accounts and one FTP for uploading your content. You do not need to pay any kind of hidden fees and even get a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Also, you get the Softaculous script installer with more than 400 applications.
The surprising part is the 400 MySQL databases, a free DNS service, free SSL and free Cloudflare CDN. Even a cheap paid tier offers unlimited everything for $6.90 per month. So if you want you can upgrade and even get access to Cloudflare Railgun.
3. Freehostia
REASONS TO BUY
- Five sites, 250MB storage, 6MB bandwidth
- Domain Registration
- No ads
- 24/7 customer support with 1-hour ticket response and online documentation
REASONS TO AVOID
- Limited database storage
In the Chocolate plan, Freehostia offers free cloud hosting. However, the Chocolate plan is very small and provides only 250MB of disk space and 10MB of database storage. So you cannot upload a ton of media on your website. However, it gives a free self-signed SSL certificate, a site builder with free templates. Not only this, you even get your help tickets responded to in under one hour. Even with the small size, the customer service makes it worth choosing.
4. Byethost
REASONS TO BUY
- Good support
- Easy to use
- 1GB disk space
- Five sub-domains and email accounts
REASONS TO AVOID
- Limited server space
Byethost is part of Byet Internet. It is a US-based hosting provider with more than one million websites hosted. In the free tier, you get 1GB of server space, 50GB monthly bandwidth and MySQL / PHP compatibility. Moreover, you can contact tech support 24/7 tech support. Also, you can access Byethost’s community and knowledge base. You get an automatic SSL on all your domains along with a free site builder with templates. The only problem is the poorly written website and the unlimited features are not clearly described.
5. Googiehost
REASONS TO BUY
- 100GB of data
- 2 FTP accounts
- Free SSL
- 2 sub-domains and email accounts
REASONS TO AVOID
- Site doesn’t inspire trust
- Worrying security errors
Being eight years into the market Googiehost is one of the better options among other free web hosting providers. Although the fine print on the website is shady and the website is full of odd grammatical mistakes. With the free plan, you get cPanel and Cloudflare. Also, while testing, there were some errors, and Chrome identified it as a “not secure” property. But before you get going with Googiehost, you will need to give a reason for them to accept your website. This is done to keep the spammers out.
6. FreeHostingNoAds
REASONS TO BUY
- Largest file size limit
- Straightforward installation
- 3 subdomains
REASONS TO AVOID
- Very limited 1-click install
- Limited disk space and bandwidth
FreeHostingNoAds is owned by Runhosting, an established web hosting provider. You get a small part of the paid version with the FreeHostingNoAds. The SSL certificate is although not free and will cost you about $30. The control panel is limited, allowing only Grav, WordPress or Joomla for one-click installs. However, you can install anything besides these yourself but keep in mind that the file size is limited to 15MB. Creating a new account is easy, even though you might find the confirmation mail in your spam folder sometimes.
7. Agilityhoster
REASONS TO BUY
- One site, 1000MB storage
- 5GB bandwidth
- Domain Registration
- PHP 7.2, MySQL 5.7
REASONS TO AVOID
- No SSL
- Limited ticketing,
live chat , online documentation - 24/7 customer support for system malfunctions only
Agilityhoster provides only 1000MB of storage and one 20MB MySQL database for the free tier. Even though it lacks a website builder, you get a simple WordPress and Joomla installer. So you can set up your website and it is a good option if you need to get something cheap. Also, it runs up-to-date PHP and MySQL.
8. Google Cloud Hosting
REASONS TO BUY
- One website
- Unlimited storage
- Extensive support documentation
REASONS TO AVOID
- One year free trial period
Although technically Google Cloud Hosting is not free, it offers a one-year free trial. This free trial period helps you to set your website up without spending anything. It is specially designed for large businesses, but anyone can use it. You only need a Google account to get started. After the free trial ends after 12 months, you only pay for the resources you use. You can calculate the amount to pay with the help of Google’s price calculator and estimate your costs.
9. 000Webhost
REASONS TO BUY
- Established player
- Impressive features
- No ads
REASONS TO AVOID
- No 1-click install
- No email accounts or subdomains
000Webhost is owned and operated by Hostinger and is a free website hosting provider. It has been in the market for ten years and has millions of users. This even makes it susceptible to hacking, and in 2015, the entire database was compromised. Details of an estimated 13.5 million accounts were stolen. Even though after the incident, the provider has completely changed, but users still remember it. With the free plan, you get cPanel, a website builder and a WordPress auto-installer. Another bonus point is that there are no ads. Although you get only 3GB bandwidth and 300MB of disk space which is quite low.
There is no SSL certificate, subdomains or email accounts. The biggest drawback is the lack of support via tickets, so for help, you need to go through the forums. At most, you can install two websites with 000Webhost. Also, Google flagged email confirmation from the provider as a suspicious email. It even showed a warning that malware often comes from that URL.
10. FreeWebHostingArea
REASONS TO BUY
- Unlimited bandwidth
- 3 MySQL databases
- 1.5GB storage
REASONS TO AVOID
- No 1-click install
- No site builder
When you open the website you might take the design like something from the bygone era. However, it provides you with free web hosting with unlimited bandwidth. You even get more storage capacity than most companies, that is 1.5GB of webspace. Also, you get three MySQL databases. Even though the control panel is quite basic, and sometimes you find fault with the site builder and the auto-installer. So, you might have to upload your files via FTP to create your websites. The maximum file size allowed is 12MB.
The service provider also gives you daily or weekly offsite backups. Also, there are no ads on low traffic websites. If you upgrade to the Basic package for $12 a year then you will get ads removed regardless of the popularity of the site. You also get five MySQL databases per account, single-click database backup and priority technical support with this plan.
Why do companies offer free hosting?
Free web hosting is used as a marketing tool by companies. So the terms and conditions might change frequently. Also, as there is no monetary transaction, you can face downtimes more frequent as SLA are non-existent. Of course, you will face some limitations with the free service. Even though you get server space, site speed, traffic, uptime guarantees and backup, but with a small amount of money you can get better services. Keep in mind that free web hosting allows companies to sell more expensive web hosting to people in need.
Conclusion
While the services provided by the free web hosting providers are free, there are certain drawbacks too. For some services, you are limited with what you can do, and some of the websites are not even secured properly. So, if anything goes wrong you are left to face the consequences. The main pro is that the service is free so you can save some money. If you are at the initial stage then this might be an okay choice and you can experiment with website creation.
Which hosting service are you choosing? Tell us in the comments section below.
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