The costs of setting up and maintaining a website can add up quickly.
Designing, developing and maintaining a site all need outlay of one
sort or other and so it's important for businesses to minimise
expenditure where they can.
- If you think we've missed
any major free web hosting company or if anyone listed no longer
operates, drop us a line in the comments below.
Web
hosting is one area in which costs can easily accumulate, as hosting
packages are generally sold with monthly billing. There are a number of
providers that offer free web hosting, however, and whilst such packages
will not be suitable for some businesses, others have a great
opportunity to make quick and easy savings.
Free
web hosting comes with a number of limitations of course. Server space,
site speed, traffic, uptime guarantees and backup provision are all
features that are often curtailed, but that's not to say that good cheap
hosting isn't available.
Bear in mind that free web hosting
exists because it allows companies to upsell more expensive web hosting
to those who may need it.
As such, free web hosting should be seen
as a marketing tool which means that terms and conditions may be
changed frequently and since there is no financial transaction,
downtimes may be more frequent as SLA (service level agreements) are
non-existent.
This article provides a selection of the best free
web hosting plans available to everyone, in no particular order, and
since they are all free, nothing prevents you from trying all of them.
1. 000Webhost
Bandwidth: 100GB |
Disk Space: 1.5GB |
Ads: No |
Panel: Cpanel |
MySQL Databases: 2 |
Website: 1 |
E-mail accounts: 5 |
Domain hosting: yes |
FTP: Yes
Located in the US,
000Webhost
has been providing free hosting services since 2007. Its free hosting
service includes 1.5GB of space, 100GB of bandwidth per month and five
accompanying email accounts. PHP and MySQL are supported with no
restrictions and users are guaranteed 99% provable uptime as well as
weekly backups.
The service is supported by donations from its
community of users (nearly 14 million at the time of writing) and
revenue generated from 000Webhost's premium hosting packages (24hosting).
Starting at $2 per month, they aren't going to break the bank and give
customers the option of moving to a more comprehensive plan should the
need arise.
2. Freehostia
Bandwidth: 6GB |
Disk Space: 250MB |
Ads: No |
Panel: Elefante |
MySQL Databases: 1 |
Website: 1 |
E-mail accounts: 3 |
Domain hosting: yes |
FTP: No
Freehostia offers a number of different hosting tariffs with outlandish names like
Lovebeat,
Wildhoney and Supernatural. Its free plan, Chocolate, gives users 250MB
disk space, 6GB bandwidth each month, PHP & MySQL compatibility and
3 POP3/IMAP email accounts. Server uptime is guaranteed at 99.9% and
24/7 user support is provided should any problems arise.
It even
offers a surprisingly good 1-hour ticket/email response promise. Joomla,
WordPress, phpBB and other PHP scripts can be installed with one-click
using Freehostia's Elefante Installer and upgrading to any of the paid
premium packages can also be done in one-click, should users outgrow the
free plan.
3. 5GBfree
Bandwidth: 20GB |
Disk Space: 5GB |
Ads: No |
Panel: Cpanel |
MySQL Databases: 3 |
Website: 1 |
E-mail accounts: 0 |
Domain hosting: yes |
FTP: Yes
As you would expect,
5GBfree provides 5GB of free hosting space to users along with 20GB of monthly bandwidth, 3 MySQL Databases and PHP scripting.
There's
no email included in the package, but the company is proud of the
technology it offers, claiming, "At any other hosting company, you could
be paying between $15 and $20 a month for the same cutting edge
software (including the revolutionary CloudLinux operating system!),
hardware, and security certifications."
Support is provided in
forums via the 5GBfree community and users who require expert phone
support can upgrade to the Pro version, which costs $2.95 per month and
offers both unlimited disc space and bandwidth.
4. FreeHosting.com
Bandwidth: 250GB |
Disk Space: 10GB |
Ads: No |
Panel: Cpanel |
MySQL Databases: 1 |
Website: 1 |
E-mail accounts: 1 |
Domain hosting: yes |
FTP: Yes
Of the free hosting providers convered in this article,
Freehosting.com
is the biggest hitter in terms of monthly bandwidth with a whopping
250GB data allowance provided. The service also includes 10GB of server
space and one email account. For users without a domain name, free
subdomains are also offered, such as freesubdomain.freehosting.com
Economy
and Deluxe packages are also available, both offering unlimited disk
space and monthly transfer as well as unlimited email accounts.
Freehosting is also one of the few to actively encourage using the
hosting service to backup your important files (e.g one 10GB ZIP file),
great as it doesn't have a limit for file sizes.
5. Zymic
Bandwidth: 50GB |
Disk Space: 6GB |
Ads: No |
Panel: Zymic |
MySQL Databases: 3 |
Website: 1 |
E-mail accounts: 0 |
Domain hosting: yes |
FTP: Yes
Zymic
describes its free hosting as, "one of the most reliable and feature
packed free web hosting services on the net." The service includes 6GB
of space and 50GB of monthly bandwidth with support for the latest
version of PHP and up to three MySQL databases. There are no paid
packages offered.
Along with its hosting, Zymic provides users
with free templates, tutorials, articles and a Twitter account relaying
updates about any downtime (
https://twitter.com/zymichosting). There is also a forum - which is currently down for maintenance - for the Zymic community to ask for and provide support.
Although
we were able to create an account, the site doesn't inspire much
confidence. The Twitter account hasn't been updated since 2014 and
there's a suspicious VPN link in the footer.
6. Byethost
Bandwidth: 50GB |
Disk Space: 1GB |
Ads: No |
Panel: Cpanel |
MySQL Databases: 5 |
Website: 1 |
E-mail accounts: 5 |
Domain hosting: yes |
FTP: Yes
Byethost
is part of Byet Internet, a US-based provider of hosting, domain name
and reseller services. With more than one million websites hosted, It
claims that its free hosting service is, "one of the most powerful
networks dedicated solely to free hosting in the world."
Users are
given 1GB of server space, 50GB of monthly bandwidth and MySQL / PHP
compatibility. They also benefit from 24/7 tech support and access to
Byethost's community and knowledge base. And if you are ever interested
in becoming a free web hosting provider yourself, Byethost operates a
separate entity,
myownfreehost, that allows you to do just that.
7. Awardspace
Bandwidth: 5GB |
Disk Space: 1GB |
Ads: No |
Panel: Proprietary |
MySQL Databases: 1 |
Website: 1 |
E-mail accounts: 1 |
Domain hosting: yes |
FTP: Yes
For businesses that want free hosting with green credentials,
Awardspace
provides a solution. It offers CO2-neutral hosting with all of its
servers running on wind-generated electricity. Its free plan provides
1GB of storage (a 15MB upload file size limit), 5GB of bandwidth per
month and up to five MySQL databases. One associated email account is
also included.
Users have access to online documentation and 24/7
support should any issues arise. Live chat is also available for
pre-sales queries. Worth noting that the servers of Awardspace are
located in Kiel, Germany, rather than in the US and house more than one
million websites. There's a nifty test hosting speed service that allows
you to check the transfer speed in a live environment.
8. FreeHostingEU
Bandwidth: 4GB |
Disk Space: 200MB |
Ads: No |
Panel: Proprietary |
MySQL Databases: 1 |
Website: 1 |
E-mail accounts: 1 |
Domain hosting: yes |
FTP: Yes
FreeHostingEU
is a joint project set up and run by FreeDomain.co.nr and AttractSoft
GmbH. Yes, Germans are at the forefront of free web hosting in Europe.
Three hosting tariffs are offered - two paid and one free.
The
free package provides 200GB of space, 4GB of bandwidth per month and one
associated email account. Five free domains at .eu.pn and .me.pn are
also included but they are likely to be of little use for most UK
businesses.
For users of Wordpress and Joomla, one-click
installation is provided and languages supported are PHP, MySQL, CGI,
Perl, Flash. Worryingly though, the user forums have been closed until
further notice.
9. U Host Full
Bandwidth: 1000GB |
Disk Space: 1000GB |
Ads: No |
Panel: Proprietary |
MySQL Databases: 2 |
Website: 1 |
E-mail accounts: 2 |
Domain hosting: yes |
FTP: Yes
For businesses that are looking for hosting that is quick and simple to setup,
U Host Full
promises the ability to setup a site within five minutes.It also
provides a host on one-click installers for platforms including
Wordpress, Joomla, phpBB, Mambo, osCommerce and Zen Cart.
Uptime
is guaranteed at 99% with unlimited server space provided and unlimited
bandwidth per month. Email is also included. Now we don't know what the
catch is but it is definitely one of the better deals out there
especially since it doesn't have any adverts.
Note that there doesn't seem to be any limit to the size of the files uploaded which is a pleasant surprise.
10. Free Web Hosting No Ads
Bandwidth: 200GB |
Disk Space: 20GB |
Ads: No |
Panel: Cpanel |
MySQL Databases: 3 |
Website: 1 |
E-mail accounts: 3 |
Domain hosting: yes |
FTP: Yes
All of the free hosting options included in this article are ad-free, with revenue generated by other means.
Free Hosting No Ads celebrates
this more than others, but still offers a good free hosting deal, which
at 20GB, is one of the the biggest server space provisions featured.
The
deal also includes 200GB of monthly bandwidth and three POP email
accounts. Three PHP versions are supported (5.2-5.4) and three MySQL
databases are also included. As expected, the free service is subsidised
by the paid-for service.
Just note this though...
"FreeHostingNoAds.net reserves a right to send 1 promotional email
message every 6 months that can promote our affiliate products." You may
however unsubscribe from the marketing marketing list.