I like to think nothing is ever free, especially when it comes to the internet. Even in person, it at least costs you time. In this post, we are going to discuss the highly competitive market of free web hosting.
The temptation
Best explained by our human nature’s endless search for the ‘easy way’, when we decide to create a website and are presented with different options of domains and web hosting packages from hundreds of websites on the internet, it seems like a no brainer to pick the free one… right?
The problem goes back to nothing is ever really free and here are some limitations you will encounter with free web hosting.
- The majority of the free web hosting offers are not giving you a site of your own, but rather allowing you to create a new subdomain of their website. WordPress is a great example of this. You can create a site with an address something like this: www.kiiff.wordpress.com. You see how ‘wordpress.com’ is still in the domain, because it is just a subdomain.
- If the free web hosting site falls in to a different category (one that does not create a subdomain for you) than it likely will do one of two things:
a) Force ads to be displayed on your website as popups or banners around your content.
b) This last category covers the free web hosting offers that are actually free.
What about the actual free ones?
Expanding further on the category of actual free web hosting offers. Websites at this level (ones that offer a client area, advertise like competitors of paid web hosting, etc) are the one’s to watch out for. These free offers may advertise similar features and functionality, but of course what they lack to compete with paid hosting is money. It’s no secret you can’t have a sustainable business without generating revenue.
Next time you are come across a website offering free web hosting, see if it’s even a registered business. This is a great way to tell (even if it’s a paid web host) that this is not a business, and the owner/operator of the website is not serious enough to make it one. Furthermore, they know if they do register it as a business than the only thing they can report is a net loss, and that’s just not good.
Is there a place for free web hosting?
Of course, otherwise they simply wouldn’t exist. The time to use free web hosting is if you are looking for a place to start and figure things out, or even to use a test website for experimenting with new ideas or content. If you use it as a testing/staging site you certainly don’t have to worried about breaking anything on your main site, and you don’t pay for extras you don’t need.
Final Notes
It’s simple really, the difference between free web hosting and paid web hosting is the quality of the service being provided. With a free service, you will not have 99% uptime, free SSL, nightly backups, Cloudflare with Railgun, and most of all, quality support. Check out our hosting packages here.