Free or paid web hosting?

Just finished your first website? So it's the time to look for some hosting and make a choise. Your first qustion probably will be whether to choose free or paid hosting service. Let's have a look at some advantages and disadvantages of these solutions.

Free web hosting:
(+) It's for free. You don't need to pay for domain name.
(-) Your URL will be something like username.freehost.com or freehost.com/username. As I noticed above, the advantage is that you don't need to pay for domain. But note that if you move your website to another provider in the future you can loose some or all your traffic (there are some solutions how to solve this problem but it is not the point of this article).
(-) Your provider will probably include ads to your pages - usually 1 or 2 banners, sometimes popup windows. If you plan to use banner exchange on your site read carefully their Terms and conditions. Some free hosts doesn't allow it.
(-) Free hosts usually allow lower bandwith then paid hosts and a lot of them don't offer futures like PHP and MySQL.
(-) A lot of free hosts change their Terms and conditions during some time. If your free host offers hosting wihtout ads now, don't be surprised when banner or popup appears on your site in the future.
(-) Sometimes happens that free hosts cancel their free service and longer offer paid hosting only. In this case you have only 2 choises - pay them or loose your website.


Paid web hosting:
(+) You can host your own domain. If you decide to change the web hosting provider in the future, you easily transfer the domain to the new provider and don't loose your traffic.
(+) Most paid hosts offer 24/7 support via email or live chat and some of them provide toll-free phone support.
(+) You can expect better uptime then on free host. Some paid hosts offer uptime guarantee.
(+) Paid hosts usually offer enough disk space and bandwith. Futures like PHP and MySQL are standard. Even if you are not programmer you can download plenty of free PHP scripts from internet.
(-) Paid hosting coast money :)


Before you make the decision if choose free or paid host you should answer this question: How big ambitions do I have with my website? If you are starting small personal page for your friends consist of a few *.html files then free host will be sufficient. In case you plan to run serious business website, need PHP, database and don't want ads on the site I recommend to look for quality paid host.

and what about something like website sponsorships? does it count as freehosting as well?

because i offers the nearly sama packages as paid hosting. just that they have to put in our google banner.

I would try both out and see what works the best for you

But you can get free domain hosting aswell like mine www.sferahost.com but free host are good to people who are just learning or just for hobby but also alot of businesses host on free servers. But it will have to depend on the size of the free host it there are lots of people or websites i would say the more relible the service.

Another thing some free hosts host on reseller accounts which is not good since thay might over use the account (like over sell) But it is upto you there are some free good and bad hosts out there just do your research.

Some free hosts have no ads; and allow you to use your own domain name.

You do wonder if the service might end, and what kind of performance you get.

But free hosting definitely a better option than it might seem. You can, it seems, actually get decent basic hosting for free.

Haven't really tested any beyond signing up, but see these two sites for more useful info on free hosts:
http://www.free-webhosts.com/ - decent info
http://absolutely-free-web-hosting.org/ - not working at the moment, but fwiw

Links thanks to Web Hosting Reviews:
http://whreviews.com/relatedsites.htm

Hey,
I was at this point a few years ago. Why should I pay for hosting when I can get it free from someone like geocities or angelfire ?

Of course, you get what you pay for. Free = ads, low space, no support. Paid = the total opposite.

All of this varies by website hoster you choose. - And by the way, nice article! Hope this blends into peoples minds.

I have tried free and pay hosting and honestly, you can do better with pay hosting if you find a good place that does not cost alot of money.

Some free hosts allow you to use a domain....

Id go with Paid solution. Better quality. More uPtime

I agree, its true.

I think there's nothing good in free hosting. Not worth it at all...

freehosting is not stable and takes time to get an account.

as above free hosters dont care what happens to your data , customer support or anything. It's free isn't it? go for paid. You will be much more happy for it

But some free hosts are stable during few years. If hosting provider is a big firm and offers account with weak parameters i think that host will be stable. Small hosting providers offers free web host with very good parameters, its suspicious. But i know some exeptions. Anyway free web hosting is for only amateurs sits because strangers big ad banners on site isnt good publicity for your'e firm (but some free hosts haven't banners or they are in the text links form).

In my point of view paid hosting is much better than the free hosting, but we need to be cautious while choosing for the paid hosting.

free means theres always a catch or a fine print. paid you actually have more control and fexibility

free is better far more then paid.

only if your broke and can't afford it

Free web hosting:
(-) Your provider will probably include ads to your pages - usually 1 or 2 banners, sometimes popup windows. If you plan to use banner exchange on your site read carefully their Terms and conditions. Some free hosts doesn't allow it.
(-) Free hosts usually allow lower bandwith then paid hosts and a lot of them don't offer futures like PHP and MySQL.
(-) Sometimes happens that free hosts cancel their free service and longer offer paid hosting only. In this case you have only 2 choises - pay them or loose your website.

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I think you might be stuck up in the past WHT. I know some excellent free hosts who contradict all your points. One Example of them is Mihopa Services who hosts my site. Mihopa has no ads, a fixed TOS, no compulsions to link back to Mihopa at all, full PHP & MySQL Support and a good amount of BW and Space which is amazing for FREE users.
Mihopa hosts my website Pokemon Gaming Sphere (Click on Profile for link) and I have faced no problems from them for the past 8 months. There are some other great free hosts like Kyletech (Currently Down), Jkaizer, etc. Most of them also run paid hosting simultaneously to earn money. Please check up stuff before you post. I would point out more hosts but my memory fails me.

Most paid hosts too give subdomains until you pay separately.

~ CC

I'd definitely go paid, even though going pay has its own particular headaches. But the headaches of a pay host are still better than that of a free host:

My plusses and minuses for free hosts:
[-] Shifting TOS: it has been my experience that free hosts-- even the established ones-- have no problems shifting their TOS whenever they feel like it. You'll be allotted 20MB of disk space one day and the next day find yourself with only 15MB. Ditto with bandwidth.

[-] Shifting quality of service: free hosts will also shift their quality of service, often at the expense of their users. Tripod UK was, hands down, one of the best free hosts on the planet. Then two years or so, kablooey! They added an instrusive side banner in a frameset, and something like three different types of ads on each page! This wrecked the BBS'es that Tripod UK's users had so carefully set up with its generous offering of PHP.

[-] Instability: Chrono Cr@cker, I think that it's great that you have so much faith in Mihopa, but I wouldn't put too much faith in it. I've been through more free hosts than I can shake a stick at. Here today, gone tomorrow. Or generous offerings today, forced upgrades and curtailling of services tomorrow.

[+] Easy and hassle free. You don't have to worry about the finer points of getting a domain name, FTP'ing; easy page builder eliminates worrying about knowing html, etc...

[+] It's free!

Paid hosting are far better than the free ones, it offers you much more freedom when you want to change something. And also as Hfguide was saying you can always wake up that your space has vanished, same with the bandwith, and so on. Regards

If you have a method to pay with, go with the paid solution - you'll find far better support and speeds. You can find a wide array of cheap hosts that offer quite alot on WHT or the internet by just looking.

Go with Free hosting if you have no method of payment only.

i run my own show cause years back free woudnt cut the cheese anymore but its way good for marketing ;)

I don't think free hosting is better in the least. NO way.

Way back in 1999, I first had my site on Geocities. It got hacked twice & I decided to buy a domain. I never looked back on a free host again. I'm glad I made this decision.

In the adult industry there are plenty of sponsorship programs that will offer you free hosting, MYSQL, with a domain, etc ... all you have to do is either

A) Generate X sales a day/week for them
B) Promote exclusively their products

Either way it's not a bad deal as you are going to want to fly sponsorship programs to make money off of in most cases. That is.. of course .. unless you are the sponsor in sorts - Than you would definately want a paid host as nobody will take you seriously if you are offering an affiliate program on free hosting anyways :)

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I think pay hosting is much more better then the free one and it don't cost much x_X i got many problem with the free hosting

Free hosting is good place for Storage and a place you can link back too !!

I consider Paid web hosting better than free hosting and with a domain name and a good brain you can really make some money.
I used free web hosting in the past and if they dont impose ads they offered me other problems like lost emails and server downtime.
When I choose a web hosting for my site I always check if someone really respond to the technical support and I try first to buy a domain from them and use it for some time if I dont need that hosting imidiatly to see if them will make any discrimination because I did not buyed also the web hosting package.

Paid, without a 2nd thought, always control your destiny...

depends how good and what the free host offers doesnt it ?

With free webhosting, you can never question your host if your website is down because you are not paying for the services and generally the TOS always suit the host.


Blessed.

free hosting is good to post a picture of your car .. trash your nieghbours :P~ no i dont mean that .. what i mean use free hosting for non seriouse reasons like having fun .. but if you want to get your business online go for quality paid ones

I would try only paid hosting..
Free hosting always includes a lot of banners sometimes even pop-ups..
If you want a clean site... don't go for free hosting..!

if u want a reputable site ads from free hosting are never good

Free Hostin = If you are in the first six month of your internet and hosting life.
Paid Hosting= anybody whose age is above six months.
It that simple and straight.
Best of luck.

It that simple and straight.

No it is not.

If you dont have the funds to open a clan website, church site, then you go to free hosting.

It's not that clean of an answer.

I was talking if you are willing to make a professional site.
Hope you get my point.
thanks

I made my first try (8 years ago...) with free web hosting but after that I bought a domain and now I've 20 domains...

Never even consider a site you make and maintain to be on a free host

Think like a business, you are building a brand, you are investing much time.
Why would you want it to possibly just dissappear one day without your
control?


Free Hosts are good for perhaps generating traffic to your main site
with no cost, other than that, no matter how simple your site may
be, there should be no thought to do so on a free host

I tried free hosting quality and reliability is the main concern and when you are going for paid service provider it seems hard to choose one becuase all seems to provide same feature at almost same price. Does any body know any good web hosting review service?