Hi guys, Can you share your views on free web hosting? Is hosting our website on free web hosting provider worth? Can you name a few free web hosting provider sites?
Free hosting will result in slow loading as the servers would be rammed! 50/50 chance of the site always being down. Most offer unlimited free disk space which does not exist. Best to spend a few bucks on web hosting. You can get is cheap these days.
A big problem with free hosting (aside from the fact that many of them are advertisement supported) is that there is no accountability: if things go wrong there is no third party you can complain to (like when you pay for hosting with a credit card for instance), and you can't ask for your money back. If your site is important to you it is better to spend a few dollars on good paid hosting with a company that has a service level agreement/uptime guarantee.
To jump on the bandwagon here, I think the old adage applies quite well - "You get what you pay for" and with free hosting, you don't get much. Downtime, advertisements, lack of backups, etc.. are all possibilities and you're left with little recourse when any of those things happen.
You have to remember as well that there is little incentive for free hosts to stay in business. Most of them are not making enough money to pay for the servers/VPS/reseller accounts, whatever, so many times, they just up and quit. Some paid hosting companies do operate free hosts, or have free hosting accounts, in an effort to get people to upgrade to their hosting. If you are going to look for free hosting, those would be the ones to look for, as they have money from other means to bankroll the free hosting. As others have said though, you get what you pay for. Shared hosting is very reasonable these days. If you care about your websites, eat lunch out one less time during the month, and pay the $5 for a hosting account with a reputable company.
There are free hosting sites that give you a reasonable up time. But mostly they are unreliable. They might terminate your web hosting account at any time for no reason.
If you want to host a personal website and if you are not concerned about website uptime then feel free to consider a free web hosting provider. If you want to host a business website then paid hosting is the only option. Let us know if you are interested in paid hosting provider.
Free hosting offers mostly advertising, slow loading websites and minimal to no support. If you only want your site up and aren't concerned about its functionality or ability to capture traffic or a following of users than you may want to try free web hosting. But, as others have said, a high quality paid shared hosting account can cost less than $5 a month and you receive exceptional uptime, website control, 24/7/365 technical support, phone support and live chat with many host. If you have built your website and really want to share it with the world, grow your traffic and fan base as well as have it up and functioning with 99.9% to 100% uptime then you should consider opting for a well known, reliable and affordable paid shared hosting account.
If you are just starting out, have no money and want do some testing maybe use a free host, but only for as little time as you possibly can & move to a paid host ASAP. Otherwise save yourself the headaches and wasted time and go with a paid hosting compan from the start.
I dont agree with all claims that free hosting is slow and 50% of time the site is down. But, free web hosting does not provide support, do not ensure you any backups and in case of losing content this is your problem. Also very few free hosting companies offer support. You should consider if saving of $2-$5 each month worth the risk you are taking.
Free hosting is just a target for abuse. If you can afford to pay, do so. A free host targets nothing but abusers which could cause your site to go down more frequently, and end up costing you money in the long run.
Most free web hosts impose advertising on your website. This is done to cover the costs of providing your site the free web space and associated services.
I disagree - some free business hosting can actually be quite decent. Of course you have to search for the ones that have been around a while, and there are ones that don't operate with ads - but again they make their money by getting users to upgrade so don't expect full tech support. For starting out, free hosting is great but it depends on your needs. So many sites out there on paid hosting that are barely used or just to host a personal blog and there's really no point to paying.
What business in their right mind, would run their important business website on free hosting? Seriously... What legitimate business would not be able to afford the $5-10/mo. for decent hosting. I'm lost...