8 “Best” Free Web Hosting Sites (2024)

Updated Jul 17, 2023.
Best Free Web Hosting Sites

Websites are platforms for you to build an online identity, either for your business or for yourself. People want to spend the minimum as possible when building their websites, and if possible, not a penny.

Building a website requires the use of a web hosting platform. They fall into two categories: the free and the paid. The market loves anything ‘free’ and will rush at it.

There are multiple free hosting sites on the internet. If you are a regular web user, you know that there is no such thing as ‘free.’ Sites for free web hosting have to make money one way or the other, because of their running cost.

They make their money from using your websites to display paid ads (whether or not you like the ads).

Some have premium plans, so they limit your traffic, leave no room for monetization, offer small and insufficient space and limited domains (for WordPress users, free domains always have an unremovable wordpress.com). They do this to upsell their services to its free web hosting and domain users.

Except you want to open a personal blog, free hosting services should be avoided. It is better to go with cheap shared hosting providers like Bluehost, which has affordable hosting plans for small business owners.

Note: If you have a nonprofit organization, you should consider special nonprofit hosting providers. They offer great discounts and even free hosting for qualified nonprofits without compromising quality.

Reasons Why You Should Avoid Free Web Hosting Services

Many people want to use free web hosting and domain services to keep their costs low. The idea of getting a free web hosting service without paying a dime is attractive.

When you do a quick search for the best free web hosting on google, what you will see are advertisements of the positives such as zero hosting and domain cost. The cons will hardly show up.

It is not until you have used the service for a while before you discover how limited it is. Many of these services will turn out not to be ‘free’ but a marketing strategy to get you to purchase their premium plans.

If you want to get a free web hosting service for your business, change your perspective and look for cheap hosting services rather than ‘free’ and limited ones.

There are so many reasons you should avoid free web hosting platforms. While they do not cost a dime, they will limit opportunities for you to earn money from them. They also look unprofessional and bad for your business image.

1. Slow Site Loading Speed

Slow load times lead to fewer sales
Source: Unbounce

Sites that use free website hosting are extremely slow to load. The reason is that multiple similar websites share the same server, and this causes a delay in loading time.

If you want a fast and responsive website, the free option is the wrong place to hunt. It is not uncommon for servers to crash because of the extra pressure put on them by numerous inbound traffic.

Free web hosting hurts your website’s SEO ratings. If you want to rank on the top page of Google for SEO, you need to look beyond the free hosting services.

Google checks the site loading speed as one of its SEO requirements. Because sites hosted on free hosting platforms are slow, it will negatively affect the way Google sees it.

2. Annoying Advertisements

Websites hosted with free web hosting services have no say in the type of advertisement displayed on their site. Also, they cannot monetize the site for advertisements. A good example is a free web hosting on WordPress, which does not allow users to run advertisements or input their codes.

Many of these free hosting services rely on revenue gotten from advertisements to survive. While you can make posts, customize themes (the free ones) and attract traffic to your site, it is the free hosting service that takes all the revenues for the ads it displays on your site.

Even if you do not mind them getting all the revenue from the ads displayed on your site, also know that is not the only concern.

Some ads displayed are unethical and opposed to the image you want to create. Ads from betting companies, porn, and dating sites are the common spectacles.

3. Unprofessional Domain Names

Getting custom names attracts a cost, and since free website hosting services do not charge you for it, they put their signatures to the domain.

Here is an example of a free hosting service domain name: “myschoolseo.free website.com.” You cannot remove the freewebsite.com, it attaches to whatever domain name you want to create with the service.

From a business point of view, the domain name is unprofessional and leaves a bad image with your potential customers. It can even attract the suspicion of fraud.

Although some of these web hosting companies offer an opportunity to switch over to premium, you will pay higher to upgrade compared to when you use paid web hosting services.

4. Site Disappearance

The terms and conditions attached to free web hosting services are not favorable for users. Many of these companies clearly state that it will not be held responsible for the loss of your site for whatever reason.

There is no mechanism available to protect users in the scenario that the company shuts down abruptly. You are at the mercy of the company to recover the data stored on its servers.

You can also lose your web address the company ceases to function. Free hosting sites give sub-domain, instead of a full domain. It makes it impossible for you to recover your web address or create it elsewhere. You simply have to rebuild from scratch.

5. Vulnerability to Hackers

Free websites are vulnerable to hackers because of their low or non-existent site security or firewall. Free web hosting services do not invest much money into protecting their domains and are an easy target for hackers.

If your site gets hacked, it is difficult to recover it. Many free web hosting services do not even have active customer support you can contact for help.

6. Illicit Selling of Your Information

Morally, free web hosting services do not have a right to sell your information to third parties. However, they do this frequency without your permission. Remember it is free, and they have to make money to run their companies.

They can sell your personal information such as your email address, date of birth, profile, and even your domain name to third-party websites.

If you get those unsolicited emails that somehow know you too closely, and you did not subscribe or send them your email address, your personal information may have been sold.

In their terms and conditions, which nobody ever reads, they grant themselves immunity from criminal charges. You can sue them but it is a waste of court time, remember, you agreed to their terms and conditions!

7. Limited Site Building Tools

There is a limit to what you can do with a free web hosting site. Many website hosting companies do not allow you to run WordPress and even the few that allow you to put limitations on it.

First, they are only a few themes you can choose from. These themes are not very creative and do not have enough customization options. They can defeat the purpose of your site and make it look even more unprofessional.

You cannot install the necessary plugins you need to improve your website experience with free web hosting.

Best “Almost Free” Alternatives to Free Web Hosting

Small businesses go after free web hosting services because they cannot afford the cost of self-hosting or premium hosting plans.

It makes zero business sense for a company to spend more money on web hosting than it can afford. Ideally, your web hosting fees should be only a small portion of your business expenditure.

The choice for small businesses many times seems like choosing between free web hosting services and premium web hosting services. In between, there are excellent “almost free” web hosting services that small businesses can afford.

What are these alternatives to free web hosting? They are reputable web hosting services that offer “almost free” web hosting for small businesses to build their website.

They offer more professional domains, quality customer support or access to an active community, access to website building tools, faster-loading speed, and strong site encryption than the free services. The good news is that they are cost-friendly and within your business budget.

If you are serious about growing your business online presence, the paid web hosting service is your best bet. Some offer amazing discounts and a free domain with their services.

1. Bluehost

Best Web Hosting Site for Small Businesses

Bluehost

Bluehost is arguably the largest and most popular web hosting service in the universe. It is also one of the oldest, operating since 1996. Over two million websites are using Bluehost as their web host.

If you want to build a site with WordPress, Bluehost is the right hosting service for you. It has been recommended by WordPress since 2006. The web hosting company has affordable pricing plans and numerous other benefits for small businesses.

You enjoy access to its customer support team 24/7 and get a quick response. It is a reliable service that keeps your website available on the web throughout your hosting coverage. There are no downtime or crash issues.

It is a great service for beginners who are new to owning a website. They offer access to step by step guide articles and video tutorials for easy learning.

With the high-performing service, your website will load quickly within seconds. It will help boost your site’s SEO chances. A single second delay in loading time can cost you a 7% drop in conversions. Add two seconds to it, and you can lose more than half of your site’s visitors.

Bluehost also has a fast loading time and favorable outlay on mobile devices. How it performs on mobile is also integral because about half of web traffic worldwide, 50.81% comes from it.

It uses the Secure Layer Socket (SSL) encryption to keep your site safe from hackers. It is the same technology used by banks. You are assured of the safety of your site.

Pricing

Benefits

  • Reliable web hosting service with no downtime
  • Access to 24/7 customer support
  • Free domain for a year
  • Low pricing options
  • WordPress hosting
  • Easy to transfer your existing domain name to Bluehost

2. Hostpapa

Best Shared Hosting Plan for Small Businesses

HostPapa - homepage - Christmas Offer

Hostpapa is an affordable web hosting service for individuals and small businesses. There are over 500 thousand websites currently hosted with Hostpapa.

The web hosting service offers free domain. It is easy to use, there is no need for a learning curve. You can use its range of web building tools to customize your website.

Its dashboard is cool and easy to navigate. There are tons of tutorial videos available to help you familiarize yourself with the service.

It works finely with WordPress sites because of its pre-installed WordPress and Jetpack packages. Hostpapa’s servers offer a fast loading experience for websites. With faster loading speed, you can retain traffic longer and boost your SEO ranking on Google.

With its professional customer support team, users enjoy access to round the clock assistance. You join the Hostpapa community once you sign up for any of its plans.

Hostpapa has over 400 plus free apps you can download and use to build your websites. There are apps for building shopping carts and blogs.

Security is one of the strongest features of Hostpapa. It uses updated firewalls, intrusion technology, and SSL encryption to keep your site safe. The absence of an SSL certificate on your website is bad for Google SEO. When people visit your site, they get warnings that it is unsafe, and this results in lost traffic.

The web hosting service uses Solid State Disks (SSD) to store data as opposed to the traditional HDDs (Hard Disk Drives). SSD is thrice as fast and reliable as HDD. It translates into faster loading speed for your website, improving your user’s experience.

Pricing

Read more Hostpapa pricing

Benefits

  • Free domain transfer and website migration
  • Lightning-fast loading speed
  • Free SSL certificate
  • Customer support via support tickets, live chat, and phone.

3. Hostgator

Best Website Hosting with Excellent Customer Service

Hostgator homepage

Hostgator is a reliable website hosting company that offers quality and affordable web hosting services for the market. It entered the web hosting industry in 2002, and today is one of the most popular choices in the industry. There are 2 million-plus websites on Hostgator.

It has a fast loading speed, which helps your site’s SEO rankings and visibility. The quick loading time helps you retain your traffic longer. A slow website is a huge turnoff for potential customers.

With a guaranteed uptime of 99.99%, it keeps your website running, with almost no downtime. If you are not satisfied with the service after 45 days, you can cancel your plan and get your money back.

Its customer support is professional and responsive. It is available 24/7. Hostgator employs over 850 plus customer support experts to serve its users.

When you opt for any of its plans, you get a free domain for a year. It has several free website building tools you can use to customize your website. WordPress installation is easy on it.

If you have a website on another web host, you can take advantage of its free site transfer feature. It has an unmetered bandwidth for all its plans, allowing unlimited traffic to your sites.

Hostgator offers a free SSL certificate which assures your visitors that your site is secure and not a malicious one.

Pricing

Read more Hostgator review

Benefits

  • Free domain for a year
  • Free site transfer to Hostgator
  • Free SSL certificate
  • Fast website loading speed
  • Access to 24/7 customer support

4. Dreamhost

Best Website Hosting Service for WordPress Sites

DreamHost - homepage

Dreamhost is an easy to use web hosting service that has been in existence since 1997. It is one of the world’s oldest and still existing web hosting companies. It currently hosts over 1.5 million websites.

WordPress recognizes Dreamhost as a reliable website hosting service. It is capable of running web hosting for WordPress sites.

Websites hosted on the web hosting platform have lightning-fast loading speed, thanks to its use of SSD for data storage. SSD is twice as fast as the traditional HDD used by many web hosting services. It is also more reliable.

Dreamhost offers an amazing 97-day money-back guarantee. If you decide to opt-out of the plan within 97 days from purchase, you will get your money back. It has the biggest guarantee in the industry.

Security is a priority for the company. It offers advantaged security features such as multi-factor authentication and SSL certificate.

Pricing

Benefits

  • A free domain name for a year
  • Email hosting
  • Fast web servers
  • Unlimited storage and bandwidth

5. Hostinger

Cheapest “Almost Free” Web Hosting Platform

Hostinger homepage

Hostinger is the cheapest “almost free” web hosting company for individuals and small businesses. Despite its low price, it still offers quality web hosting services.

Users get the advanced security support they need to operate smoothly on the web. It backs up users’ data daily to prevent its loss and offers an SSL certificate.

This service has specific WordPress plans which appeal to users. It is one of the biggest web hosting platforms in terms of users, with over 29 million people using it.

It has a professional customer support team that is readily available 24/7 to offer assistance to users. They are available for communication in 20 different languages!

Hostinger uses SSD hardware, which gives you a quick website loading time. A quick website reduces your bounce rate, helping you retain your traffic.

Pricing

Benefits

  • 30-day money-back guarantee
  • Fast performance
  • Easy to use
  • Free domain for a year
  • WordPress optimization

What are the Best Free Web Hosting Sites?

There are tons of sites for free web hosting and domain. While you may want to go for free web hosting sites to reduce costs, it is not recommendable if you want to monetize or grow your online presence.

Free web hosting services are slow and offer you unprofessional domains for free. There are a lot of limitations and restrictions on what you can do with a free web hosting site.

It is human nature and best business practice to always look for the cheapest “value” option possible. While most free web hosting services are a waste of your time, there are a few that are worth it.

If you are comfortable with using a subdomain, and its performance is not important, a free web hosting option is ideal.

1. Wix

Free Website Hosting Service with the Best Website Building Tools

Wix.com homepage

Wix is primarily a website builder. It is also a popular web hosting platform, with both free and premium plans. On Wix displays ads on the top and bottom of your website. The only way to remove these ads is to upgrade to their paid web hosting plans.

With its free web hosting plan, it only gives a subdomain with ‘wix.com’ an unremovable part of it. The basic plan does not grant you access to adds-on such as Google Analytics, Yoast SEO, etc.

Wix has a limit on the storage and bandwidth you can use with its free website. Your website only gets 500MB storage space and 500MB of bandwidth. It also offers 50MB of cloud storage.

As a website builder, it offers access to 500+ high-quality templates for users for free. You do not need coding experience or hire a web designer, thanks to its ready-made templates. The templates are built with HTML5, which makes them responsive and quick to load on mobile devices.

Editing content on your free website is easy with its robust tools. It allows you to drag and drop anything you want to add from its web building tools on your site.

It is a reliable and dependable service with an uptime warranty of 99.9%. The option is great for small businesses who want to test owning a website without paying the premium free.

Customer support is available for free accounts, but it takes time before you get a response. Wix customer support team prioritizes emails from paid accounts.

Pricing

Read more Wix pricing

Benefits

  • Access to one of the best website building tools
  • Free ready-made templates to customize from
  • Decent disk space and bandwidth limits (500MB)
  • Easy scalability if you want to upgrade later to its premium plans

2. 000WebHost.com

Free Website Hosting Service with Zero Ads

000webhost homepage

000WebHost is a free hosting service from Hostinger. It uses the Zyro website builder to make it easy for users to build their free sites within minutes.

The free hosting service does not post ads on your website. Your visitors will not see a single ad on your site. It is great for small businesses as it gives the site a professional look. However, at the backend, you will get ads prompting you to upgrade to Hostinger plans.

It also comes with a custom subdomain name extension “000webhost.com” If you are concerned about it looking unprofessional for your business, you can purchase a domain name and integrate it to your free site.

The free hosting has a limitation of 300 MB disk space and 3GB bandwidth. They are sizable for most website owners. It can delete your data or suspend your site if you exceed your apportioned limit. You can always upgrade to its premium plans to increase the limits or remove them.

Caching plugins do not work well with the 000WebHost free plan, they have a history of breaking down unexpectedly when in use. It is advisable not to use caching plugins on your site with this web hosting plan.

000WebHost makes it easy to install content management systems (CMS) like WordPress and Drupal automatically. WordPress installation may take a longer time compared to other free web hosting sites. It supports the latest versions of PHP and MySQL.

For a free website, it has a dependable uptime of 99%. It does not offer daily or monthly backup, it is advisable to back up your data yourself to avoid loss.

There is no dedicated customer support option available for users, however, there is a community forum where you can ask questions and find answers.

Pricing

000webhost Pricing

000WebHost is a free web hosting service that does not require you to set up a credit card. It has four plans: free web hosting, simple shared hosting, premium shared hosting, and business shared hosting.

The web hosting service is completely free and excellent for new businesses. You can always upgrade to the single shared hosting for increased disk space and bandwidth and access to an email account and 24/7 customer support, and still maintain a low maintenance cost. It charges $0.99 a month.

The premium shared hosting is excellent if you are running multiple websites. You get a free domain and weekly backups. It costs $2.59 a month.

The business shared hosting plan offers daily backups, 100 GB of disk space, and other benefits of other plans. It is available for $3.99 a month.

Benefits

  • Zero display of ads on your site
  • Opportunity to use your domain name instead of its custom 000webhost.com extension.
  • Great uptime of 99%
  • Free Zyro website builder
  • One-click WordPress and other content management systems (CMS) installation.

3. InfinityFree.net

Best Website Hosting Service with Unlimited Storage and Bandwidth

InfinityFree.com homepage

Infinity Free is a free hosting service that allows users to host their websites without paying a penny. It is the initiative of iFast Net, a web hosting provider.

The striking feature that differentiates Infinity Free from other web hosting services is its unlimited storage and bandwidth. Instead of putting a cap on them, it grants users as much storage and bandwidth as they can use. However, it has a generous daily limit of 50 thousand hits.

With the hosting software, you can use your domains, without having to worry about using an annoying and unprofessional domain extension. You can also pick a free subdomain from up to 25 available domain extensions.

Another lovely feature is its zero display of ads on your website. The absence of unsolicited ads on your website helps you reduce your bounce rate. Most free web hosting platforms turn your sites into a marketing zone, with ads popping up all over your website.

However, the platform is not ads-free. On your dashboard at the site’s back end, you will get different types of ads. The good news is that it is private to you and not displayed on your website.

Infinity Free is a fast hosting service that delivers a strong performance speed, with an uptime of 99%. It helps you retain your traffic with its fast loading time.

You can install over 400 apps with the Softaculous Script Installer. There is no complexity, you only need a few clicks. It supports popular hosting apps like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, MyBB, PrestaShop, and phpBB.

The free hosting service offers 400 MySQL Databases, free DNS service, free Cloudflare CDN, and free SSL certificate. It also supports one file transfer protocol (FTP) account.

Pricing

InfinityFree.com pricing

Infinity Free is a free hosting service, it is not a demo or requires you to set up a credit card to use. It is completely free with no expiration time.

If you want access to more web hosting functionality for your website, it has two premium plans: the super-premium and ultimate premium.

The super-premium costs $3.99 monthly while the ultimate premium costs $6.90 monthly. The premium plans offer unlimited daily hits, more server power, more FTP, and email accounts.

Benefits

  • No ads displayed on your website
  • Unlimited disk space and bandwidth
  • Free SSL certificate that assures visitors that your site is safe.

4. Sites.Google.com

Best Web Hosting Service for Team Collaboration

Sites.Google.com homepage

Google is one of the household names on the internet. The chances of you meeting someone who has never heard of google or used its product is 0.0000001%.

The Google Site is another online service offered by Google that helps small businesses and individuals build their websites for their different needs.

As with other Google products, it is a quality and easy to use service. You do not need any knowledge of web designing or building to create the site. It integrates seamlessly with other Google products such as AdSense and Analytics.

There is no limit on disk space and bandwidth, you can put as much information on your site and draw unlimited traffic to it. It is a free service with no expiration date, you can use it forever.

Google Sites does not display ads on your site, making it look more professional to your clients. It has a single plan, its free plan, which means you do not have to worry about upsells.

Signing in to your Google Site account is easy. You need to have a Google account to use the service. Once you log into your google account, you can easily find Google Site in the G-suite. There is no additional username or password requirement to log in to your site.

Google saves sites created with it directly to your Google Drive account. It is a convenient way of backing up the data on your site. You can access it through any device and at any location.

Saving to Google Drive makes it easy for you to download your site information and transfer it to another host if you need to make the switch.

Google deals directly with all the security issues concerning your site. It also has a distant loading speed. You can use its support page to sort out difficulties you have with the site.

Compared to other free website builders, Google Site has only nine templates. There are no templates or integration options for running an eCommerce store. It has a good range of customization tools such as calendars, maps, tables of content, and sheets. You can freely add them to your web page.

Users cannot use their custom domain. Your Google Site URL is always in this format “https://sites.google.com/[yoursitename].” Customer Support is also non-existent with the tool. You have to depend on document tutorials and help from the community for assistance.

Pricing

Google Site has only one plan: the free plan. You do not need any credit card to open an account, all you need is a Google Account. If you already have one, you can start building your website on Google Site for free with no registration.

Benefits

  • Easy to use
  • Customized layouts and templates
  • Backups automatically to Google Drive

5. AwardSpace.com

Best Free Web Hosting Platform with Ads Monetization Feature

AwardSpace homepage

Award Space is a web hosting platform that has been around since 2004. It is popular for its free web hosting services, and also offers premium hosting. According to Award Space, it has 2.5 million-plus customers.

Its free plan gives you access to one website and two subdomains, without you paying a penny. With a disk space of 1GB and 5GB of bandwidth, it is one of the best free web hosting platforms available. It gives you access to your bandwidth stat so that you can judiciously manage its usage.

The hosting service makes it easy for users to install Content Management Systems such as WordPress. You can opt to use its Zacky Website Builder if you have no prior experience building a website.

Award Space does not place ads on your website. It is great for small businesses because it provides room for them to place ads and monetize them. Other free website hosting sites do not let you monetize your sites, Award Space is an exception.

Customer support is available 24/7 to attend to users’ complaints. While it may prioritize premium customers, its availability is a plus in the event you have any issue with your website.

Pricing

AwardSpace pricing

Award Space offers a free web hosting service without a trial or expiration period. It also offers three premium plans with unlimited disk space and monthly traffic, and free SSL and HTTPS support.

The basic plan costs $0.08 a month and allows you to host up to two websites. The Web Pro Plus allows you to host up to ten websites and cost $4.57 a month. The Max Pack Plus costs $5.83 a month and allows you to host unlimited websites.

Benefits

  • It allows you to place ads to monetize your site on its free plan.
  • It keeps your website available with almost non-existent downtime with a high 99.9% uptime
  • It does not display its ads on your site

6. FreeHosting.com

Best Free Web Hosting Site with Multiple Applications

FreeHosting.com Homepage

Free Hosting as the name suggests offers free web hosting services for websites. It also has a paid web hosting plan that offers more functionality than its free hosting.

The hosting service supports only one website per account and does not offer a subdomain. You can import your domain name or have it look for one for you.

Its free plan has a disk space limit of 10 GB and unmetered bandwidth. These space and bandwidth limitations are a nice offering for a free service. Small businesses with little traffic and content can use it to save costs.

If you want to integrate other adds-on, you can pay for them separately and add them to your website. Some of these available adds-on include an SSL certificate and an additional mailbox.

There are over 170 ready-made templates for you to choose from. They are easy to edit. It uses the cPanel to give you easy management of your account.

Free Hosting has over 400 web applications you can use and install with a single click. Users get a free email address and unlimited FTP accounts.

Ads are not a problem with this hosting service. It will not display any ad on your website. It is a fast and reliable service that promises lifetime access to its free web hosting services.

Pricing

FreeHosting.com Pricing

Free Hosting has two plans: the free and the paid hosting package. The free entails you to create an account with Free Hosting to get access to its hosting services. You do not need to set up a credit card for future purchases.

The paid hosting package costs $7.99 a month. It allows you to host multiple sites, grants you unlimited disk space, MySQL database and email accounts, and unmetered bandwidth.

Benefits

  • Free access to over 400+ apps
  • No ads from Free Hosting on your website
  • Lifetime free hosting
  • 24/7 customer support service via Live Ticket

7. Freehostia.com

Free Website Hosting for up to Five Domains and Cloud Storage

Freehostia.com homepage

Free Hostia is one of the best free hosting sites for individuals and small businesses. It has a unique name for its free plan called the ‘Chocolate.’

The free web hosting site has its website builder that allows you to design professional-looking sites quickly without a single charge. You can also install Content Management Systems (CMS) like WordPress and Joomla with one-click.

Free Hostia hosts up to five domains for users for free, one of the best deals you can get from a free web hosting site. You can open up to three free email accounts. It has a limited disk space of 250 MB and a monthly traffic bandwidth of 6 GB.

With its load-balanced server cluster hosting style, it has a faster performance speed than other free hosting services. It also offers free cloud storage services.

It offers 24/7 customer support via live ticket to assist users. There is also an FAQ section, full of commonly asked questions and answers.

Free Hostia offers both PHP & MySQL database support, it offers only one MySQL database. Websites hosted on the platform are ad-free.

Pricing

Freehostia.com pricing

Free Hostia has a free plan called the Chocolate free web hosting plan. If you want more powerful solutions for your business, it has three categories of premium plans: VPS, Semi-dedicated Servers, and Dedicated Servers.

The Virtual Private Servers start a starting plan of $14 a month. The Semi-dedicated Servers start from $29.95 a month; while the Dedicated Servers have a starting plan of $40 a month.

Benefits

  • Hosts up to five domains
  • No ads displayed on your website
  • Free cloud storage for better data backup
  • 24/7 customer support via Live Ticket

8. WordPress.com

Wordpress.com homepage

WordPress is the world’s most popular website builder. The majority of websites online are built using WordPress. Apart from being a website builder, it also offers hosting services for websites.

WordPress.com offers a free hosting service that gives you access to its website building tools. You can access 100s of its free customized themes to use to design your website. These themes offer room for customization and adds-on such as calendar, social media buttons, comments, blog stats, Twitter timelines, and others.

The free plan gives you access to 3GB of storage space and bandwidth. If you want more storage space, you can easily switch to its premium plans. The free plan only supports WordPress subdomains.

It displays ads and its ‘Powered by wordPress.com’ link on your website. With WordPress free plan, you cannot display ads on your site, leaving little room for monetization. However, you can apply for its WordAd program to earn a commission from ads displayed on your site (only for high-traffic sites).

A pre-installed Jetpack is available for you to use. If you want to install additional plugins, it does not support it. You can also not import custom themes.

With your free WordPress account, you get access to the largest website building and hosting community, the WordPress community. The free website builder and hosting service powers or builds over 35% of websites globally.

Pricing

Benefits

  • Access to hundreds of free templates
  • WordPress does your security and backups for you
  • Generous disk space and bandwidth limits

Free Web Hosting Sites FAQ

How does web hosting work?

Web hosting is an important requirement for websites. Your website cannot be accessible live on the internet without web hosting. There are hundreds of companies that offer web hosting services for website owners.

Web Hosting simply means a place where you store your website contents for easy access on the internet. Since you cannot host your websites by yourself due to the cost and technicalities involved, you need a web hosting service to do it for you.

When you purchase or use a web hosting service, you are getting some allocated space where your website contents are automatically stored. The place where these website contents are stored is called servers.

The server runs 24/7 without interruption so that when anyone wants to access your website, they can access it through any web browser such as Google Chrome, Opera, or Firefox. Once you type in the domain name, your web browser instantly connects to the server that hosts the website.

Servers require lots of hardware and software, and maintenance to function optimally. This explains why website owners subscribe to third-party web hosting services with quality servers to host their website.

What kind of web hosting do I need?

Discovering the best web hosting for your needs is a tricky path for new website owners. First of all, you have to quantify your needs as there are different types of hosting with varying capabilities. The two main types of web hosting are free and paid.

New website owners with small needs who want to save cost can try out free web hosting plans. The free plans come with lots of limitations. 

A better alternative is the “almost-free” web hosting plans, which are affordable at budget-friendly prices. They also offer more capabilities such as higher storage space, bandwidth, and security features.

The different types of premium web hosting according to needs are shared hosting, dedicated hosting, VPS hosting, managed WordPress hosting, and eCommerce hosting.

By default, the shared hosting plans are the cheapest of the premium plans. The “almost-free” web hosting plans fall into this category. It is a great option for small businesses who want more freedom than what the free service offers.

The dedicated hosting plan is great for business or individual professional sites that record a high volume of traffic. It is on the expensive mark, but the best for handling heavy traffic to your site.

The VPS hosting is different from shared hosting by allocating spaces to different websites, instead of pooling them together in one server. You still share a server with other uses, but the difference is that each user gets their own allocated space.

Managed WordPress hosting is fantastic for WordPress users. eCommerce hosting is suitable for eCommerce businesses. They have tailored features for your online store including WooCommerce integration.

Should I use free hosting sites if I want to make money with my website?

Some free hosting sites let you have some degree of monetization, while others have so many limitations, it is almost impossible to make money from it.

One of the chief ways to make money is through ads. Many free hosting sites such as WordPress.com do not allow you to place ads on your website. Even the ones that do have limits that block you from generating sustainable revenue from ads.

Google AdSense is a popular means of earning money through ads. However, to earn money from it, you need a lot of traffic. Free hosting sites have caps on the number of traffic you can receive, thus reducing possible income from it.

Affiliate programs do not produce the best results with free hosting. You need to attract lots of traffic to your site and convert them to click your affiliate link and buy to earn lots of commission. Unfortunately, the bandwidth limitations of free hosting services limit what you can earn.

Also, opening an eCommerce website with free hosting can make you money but it limits how much you can grow. As long as you remain within the allocated traffic, you can run your eCommerce site with free hosting and generate revenue.

If you want to make money with your sites, free hosting sites are not ideal. While you can make some money from the free that lets you place your ads on it, you can only make a limited amount. “Almost free” and premium web hosting services are better options.

What are the biggest limitations of free website hosting services?

Free website hosting services offer individuals and small businesses the opportunity to put their websites for free on the internet. Since the hosting service costs the company money to maintain, you can expect it to have lots of limitations compared to the premium web hosting services.

The biggest limitation is that it is almost impossible to monetize your website. Every website owner wants to receive returns from their website. Free web hosting services make it hard for monetization. It has limitations on everyone, on ads, bandwidth, and storage space.

Customer support with a free web hosting service is almost non-existent. Even when you use the free web hosting plans of reputable web hosting companies like Hostgator and Bluehost, it prioritizes requests from premium accounts above yours. 

Many of the top features of the web hosting service such as adds-on and plugins are not available for websites under the free hosting plan. Some of these plugins are useful for your site.

Free web hosting services never make it to the top for google rankings. It does not matter how good your SEO game is, you cannot optimize your site to rank for Google search terms. Search engines like Google consider free websites as less reliable sources than paid websites.

How do free web hosting sites earn money?

Free web hosting sites offer free hosting services for websites. They spend money and resources to maintain their servers. Are they a charity organization or do they have other ways they earn money?

While they do not collect a dime for their free web hosting plans, they make money through other ways, using their customer sites as products.

The easiest way free web hosting sites earn money is by displaying ads on your website to earn commissions. It also displays its name tag on it, to promote itself. Some truly free websites are ads-free such as 000WebHost and Award Space. The latter even allows you to monetize your ads. 

Free web hosting sites also offer premium plans and prompt you to upgrade from the free to its paid hosting. It puts lots of limitations on its free plan to give you a few of its services and to help fasten your switch to its premium web hosting plans.

Create Your Website and Start Earning Money with It

Free web hosting services are a great way to quickly launch your website with zero costs. However, if you want to start earning money from it easily, the paid web hosting sites are a better bet.

Bluehost is a recommended web hosting service to use to create your website and monetize it. It is an almost free web hosting site with its cheapest plan starting at $2.95 a month.

There are numerous ways for you to monetize your blog or website with Bluehost. You can leverage high paying affiliate programs such as web hosting, website affiliate, travel, personal finance, and VPN affiliate programs to earn money from your site traffic.

Selling your products or services via your website is a great way to start earning money from it. You can sell online courses, physical products, or membership programs.

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Anastasia Belyh

Editor at FounderJar

Anastasia has been a professional blogger and researcher since 2014. She loves to perform in-depth software reviews to help software buyers make informed decisions when choosing project management software, CRM tools, website builders, and everything around growing a startup business.

Anastasia worked in management consulting and tech startups, so she has lots of experience in helping professionals choosing the right business software.