Free Web Hosting – Looking for a free web hosting service to start your website? We get emails from readers on a regular basis asking if there’s a way to get free website hosting. And the answer is YES. We all love free things in life, but it’s important to remember not all free things are created equal. In this article, we will compare the best free (and almost free) website hosting services with their pros and cons.
There are tons of free website hosting companies in the market. But as a smart consumer, you should know that there is no such thing as free lunch.
There is always a catch.
Running a website hosting service costs a lot of money.
The companies offering free website hosting need to make money somehow, or they will go out of business.
They do that by either displaying ads on your website, limiting your website traffic, locking you in their platform, and/or upselling their other services. Some of the ads displayed may not represent your brand well, and it can even be your competitor’s advertisement.
Except for a test website, it’s almost always a bad idea to use free website hosting.
Best Free Web Hosting
While free is tempting, it’s always limited when it comes to website hosting. With that in mind, we have hand-picked the best free website hosting sites that you can use to get started.
These hosting sites are 100% free for you to use.
1) WordPress.com
WordPress.com is a popular free hosting platform that offers a unique flavor of WordPress. Not to be confused with the WordPress.org, which is home of the well-known self-hosted website builder, WordPress.
WordPress.com offers a free website hosting plan which gives you a WordPress.com subdomain (i.e. yourwebsite.wordpress.com), 3 GB storage, and access to free templates for your website.
This free plan displays ads on your website. You can upgrade to their paid plans to get rid of ads, use a custom domain name, and access additional features.
2) Wix
Wix is another fully-hosted website builder that offers free website hosting.
Like most free hosting services, it is supported by displaying ads and Wix.com branding on your free website. You can get rid of it by upgrading to their paid plans.
The free plan will give you a Wix.com subdomain, access to website templates, 500 MB of storage and 500 MB of bandwidth.
For more details, see our comparison of Wix vs WordPress where we break down the pros and cons of both platforms.
3) Weebly
Weebly is another popular free website builder that you can use. It comes with an intuitive drag and drop builder and ready-made templates to create a website.
Their free plan includes a Weebly subdomain, 500 MB of storage, and displays Weebly ads. You can upgrade to their paid plans to get rid of ads, get more storage, and unlock features.
4) Google Cloud Hosting
Google Cloud Hosting – Google offers a wide variety of free website hosting solutions for small businesses and students. It comes with all the powerful features that you can expect from a top-class company like Google.
Since their plans are based on pay-per-use, it’s an easy place for students to get started. Google offers $300 free credit for new customers which is sufficient to last you for a whole year, if you’re just looking for a free website hosting for test sites.
You can use Google Cloud to host any type of website, and they even offer WordPress on Google Compute Engine.
5) Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Amazon Web Services also known as AWS powers some of the most popular websites in the world. While it’s not easy to use for small businesses, it’s a great platform for students and developers who’re just getting started.
Amazon offers 12 months free and always free products on their AWS Free Tier which is by far one of the best free website hosting for testing sites.
Students can use Amazon’s powerful platform to learn and master their development skills.
