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Building the website of your dreams doesn’t have to break the bank. Free web hosting services offer the means to create a personalized internet space without costing you a dime. Furthermore, these platforms have features to make the process simple. Check out our top picks below.
Best Free Web Hosting Services
- InfinityFree – Best Overall
- Wix – Best for Scaling
- Weebly – Best for Ecommerce
- Byethost – Best for Processing Speed
- Bluehost – Best Paid Web Hosting Service
- Ionos – Best for Unlimited Disc Space
- NameCheap – Best for Website Building
Software
Disk Space
Bandwidth
SSL Certificate
Domains
Price for Paid Version
5GB
Unlimited
Included
Unlimited hosted domains and subdomains
$3.99 to $6.90 per month
1000MB
50GB
Included
5 add-on domains, 5 parked domains, 5 subdomains
$4.99 to $39.99 per month
InfinityFree doesn’t hide behind fees or ads, giving 5GB as you see fit for data storage. You can bring over a domain name from elsewhere, but you’ll have to do the sourcing yourself. The free web hosting platform contains a multitude of scripts but also allows you to put any programming skills to good use. InfinityFree does prioritize its top paid servers, limiting server power for those at lower tiers.
Why we chose it: InfinityFree gives you full access to its hosting tools ad-free at absolutely no out of pocket cost.
- Unlimited domains and bandwidth
- Ad-free
- Can import a domain name
- Limited server power
- No email accounts
- Maximum 50,000 daily hits
Pricing: InfinityFree has three tiers of service to choose from, with the first being completely free. You’re limited to 5GB of disk storage, no email accounts, and a daily cap of 50,000 viewers. The good news comes in the form of unlimited bandwidth and domains.
At a $3.99 monthly rate, the SuperPremium tier showcases unlimited disk space, 100 email accounts, and unlimited daily hits on your site. The Ultimate Premium plan for $6.90 per month makes everything unlimited and gives you the most server power available.
Wix makes web creation simple with more than 500 templates to choose from and a drag-and-drop builder to customize the look further. It has a somewhat limited free version between bandwidth and storage space. You’ll be stuck with a Wix-based domain and ads on your site unless you choose to venture into paid plans.
Why we chose it: Wix’s free web hosting service features a drag-and-drop website builder with paid options to scale your business as the need arises.
- Easy to scale and upgrade as needed
- Over 500 customization options
- Drag-and-drop builder
- Minimal storage and bandwidth
- No custom domains
- Wix ads
Pricing: A free forever plan allows you to build your site from scratch with the help of templates and tools. You won’t be able to store much, and Wix branding gives off an unprofessional vibe. Customer support tends to be on the slow side, and there’s no option for online payments.
However, Wix lets you quickly jump into one of its paid plans for personal or business use. Those building informational websites can do so for as low as $16 per month with a few gigabytes of storage and no Wix ads. Upgrading to a higher tier unlocks visitor analytics and ways to boost your site on Google’s search engine.
For $27 each month, you can build an ecommerce site with the ability to handle online payments, build customer accounts, and remove those pesky ads. A free domain allows you to create a custom website to make your site stand out.
The Business VIP plan has no limits on storage space or video content while providing customized reports for your online store. You’ll also get moved to the front of the line with priority customer care.
Weebly’s free plan is a solid introduction to retail-based businesses looking to take products to the online market. Its drag-and-drop builder makes website design a breeze. Ecommerce tools like a shopping cart, unlimited items, and inventory management make the process easy for you and your clients. You just need to get past a limited storage amount and watermark branding on everything you create.
Why we chose it: Weebly’s free plan has unlimited bandwidth and several ecommerce tools you can use to build a dynamic website.
- Drag and drop builder
- Several free ecommerce tools
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Weebly watermark on free websites
- Only 500MB storage
- No free domain
Pricing: Even at the free level, Weebly allows business owners to create a customized ecommerce site with all the tools needed to succeed. It’s possible to build a professional-looking online shop that customers will have no trouble navigating. You will have to settle with a Weebly domain name and its branding throughout your site.
Once you enter the paid tiers at $6 per month, Weebly gives access to a custom domain, although there’s an additional out-of-pocket cost to do so. Weebly’s branding fades away, giving your site a more personal and professional vibe.
Moving to the professional plan at $12 per month removes ads and hands you a free domain to use as you see fit. You’ll have added security and the opportunity to contact customer support by phone instead of email or chat.
At $26 per month, your site can make use of Paypal payments, marketing tools, and ecommerce insights. You’ll have a priority support line to sort things out if you encounter any issues.
Byethost: Best Free Web Hosting Service for Processing Speed
Price for paid plan: $4.99 to $39.99 per month
Byethost has hosted over one million websites through its free and paid plans. It’s hard not to enjoy fast speeds and 50GB of bandwidth to work with each month, even if you’re limited to 1GB of storage. You’ll need to keep file sizes under 10MB and may have to wait for a response from customer support when asking a question. Fortunately, Byethost’s free plan doesn’t subject you to any branding or ads, so you can truly personalize your site.
Why we chose it: Byethost shines with blazing-fast load times and 50GB of bandwidth each month and not a single ad in sight.
- Lightning-fast processing speeds
- Ad-free
- Free hosting tutorials
- Limited storage space
- Customer support limited to tickets
- 10MB maximum file size
Pricing: Byethost splits its paid plans into premium and business hosting to accommodate different demands. Premium hosting starts at $4.99 per month and removes limits on disk space. Bandwidth increases to 250GB alongside a boost to domains and 100 email addresses. For $7.99 monthly, you can make all those features unlimited.
Business hosting functions much the same way. For $19.99, you’ll receive 1000GB of bandwidth and up to 100 add-on domains. Paying $39.99 offers unlimited use of everything Byethost brings to the table.
Bluehost gives you plenty for free, from a domain to a consultation that helps you identify the hosting plan best for you. Hosting itself is not free but only runs $2.95 per month for a shared plan with unmetered bandwidth and 50GB of storage for your data. You’ll have to pay extra or bring your own marketing tools and work from one primary domain unless you plan to upgrade.
Why we chose it: Bluehost is one of the most affordable web hosting plans out there, offering unmetered bandwidth, decent storage, and a free domain for an entire year. To learn more about its features and pricing, check out our comprehensive review on Bluehost.
- Unmetered bandwidth for your site
- Can do shared or dedicated hosting
- Free domain for a year
- No completely free plan
- Marketing tools not included
- Only one primary domain
Pricing: The lowest you can go with Bluehost is shared hosting at $2.95 per month. This low-priced plan is great for startups and includes 50GB of storage space and 20 MySQL databases. Upgrading to the plus plan at $5.45 or beyond unlocks unlimited storage, MySQL databases, domains, and even some spam controls.
Bluehost also has virtual private servers (VPS) starting at $19.99 per month with the tools you need to build unique and dynamic websites. Your information gets stored on fast solid-state drives, and there’s no limit to the number of domains or websites you use. Depending on which tier you choose, you’ll have an increasing amount of storage and upwards of 3TB of unlimited bandwidth.
For those needing dedicated servers, Bluehost has you covered as well. Ranging between $79.99 and $119.99 per month, the web hosting provider awards you a dedicated CPU with a minimum of 1TB raid level storage. Your plan determines whether your network bandwidth is 5 or 15TB and how much RAM you have access to. Bluehost even throws in a free domain for the first year.
Ionos: Best Web Hosting Service for Unlimited Disk Space
Price for paid plan: $0.50 to $140 per month
Ionos doesn’t have a web hosting free trial per se, but a 30-day money-back guarantee is the next best thing. In addition, its business plan is only $0.50 per month for the entire first year. This middle-tier plan includes unlimited storage, bandwidth, and 24/7 customer service. You’ll also receive a free domain and email, but be aware that the email has a small amount of storage space.
Why we chose it: Ionos costs next to nothing for the first year while offering top-tier features to build your website. A 30-day money-back guarantee gives a no-risk look into everything the service has to offer. Read the Ionos review to learn more about its pricing and features.
- 30 day money-back guarantee
- Very low introductory price
- Many unlimited features
- Not completely free
- Price jumps after the first year
- Limited email storage
Pricing: While there’s no completely free plan, it’s hard to pass up so many tools at $0.50 each month for the first year. This level of service comes with several unlimited features such as storage, traffic, and bandwidth. You’ve given a free domain and email for signing on as well. Those into programming have several options at their fingertips as well.
Ionos also offers VPS for as low as $2 per month for 10GB SSD storage and 512MB of RAM. Plans and storage increase from there, topping off at $18 per month. Each plan contains dedicated resources, unlimited traffic, and 99.99% uptime.
The hosting service also features dedicated server options, with storage on HDD or SSD, depending on the plan. Pricing starts at $45 per month with a free domain and unlimited traffic. For $140 per month, you’re looking at 64GB of RAM alongside 800GB of SSD storage space.
Namecheap: Best Web Hosting Service for Website Building
Price for paid plan: $1.88 to $279.88 per month
Namecheap offers a 30-day web hosting free trial to test out its services before diving into one of its low-cost plans. You’ll have a reasonable 20GB and three domains to play with, even at the lowest level. Constructed around cloud storage, the platform boasts 100% uptime and frequent backups. However, phone support is lackluster, and the mobile app struggles to handle commands.
Why we chose it: Namecheap stands out as a free website builder and scripting tools that allow a vast range of customization. Check out our best website builders list if you want to build your website.
- Unmetered bandwidth
- Robust website builder
- Free 30-day trial
- Not completely free
- No phone support
- App is known to have issues
Pricing: Namecheap has a ton of pricing options that span from shared hosting to dedicated servers. After the 30-day web hosting free trial, you can continue service for as low as $1.88 per month. This low price point includes three websites, a domain, and 20GB of storage. You can increase these numbers for a few dollars more per month.
Additional plans come in the form of managed WordPress hosting from $4.88 to $13.88 per month. The plan provides a WordPress website and dashboard to manage it with ease. These services do have a visitor cap that you won’t be able to exceed.
There are two VPS hosting options, with the Pulsar plan coming in at $9.88 per month. Features include 2 CPU cores, 2GB of RAM, and 40GB of storage on an SSD hard drive. Quasar will set you back $17.88 monthly but doubles the cores and triples storage space.
You can even use Namecheap to set up a dedicated server, although plans are no longer cheap. Ranging from $49.88 to $279.88 for a single month, these plans are best-suited for those needing to maximize website speed for a large number of customers.
Methodology for the Best Free Web Hosting Services
Choosing the best free web hosting service is no easy task. Here are the features we studied to narrow down our selection:
- Disk Space: Disk space is essential for data storage across your website. This storage keeps all your documents safely in physical data centers that clients access when visiting your site. You’ll need to have enough for all the files you’ll ever need to use for visual effects and the code required to navigate your site. Furthermore, you may need space for information from users, including order submissions and documents you request.
- Bandwidth: Bandwidth provides the passageway on the information superhighway that consumers use to give and receive data from your site. Slow bandwidth speeds require more time for websites to load or consumer clicks to take effect. In this fast-paced world, even a few seconds of delay can spell the difference between a customer staying on your page or not. Alongside bandwidth speeds, some web hosting services will cap the amount of data your site can handle each month. Reaching this cap means users will no longer be able to visit your site until the month ends.
- Domains: A domain is your website’s unique moniker, and the address customers have to remember (or bookmark) to revisit your page. Using something unique and personal tends to resonate more with consumers looking for something special about your site. The best free web hosting services provide a free, customizable domain you can use to give your business a leg up on the competition. Domains are usually free for the first year, requiring an additional fee to maintain them after that.
- Security: SSL certificates encrypt data flowing to and from your website so that only one specific user can access it. These certificates protect personal information and credit card numbers to keep your clients safe from identity theft. With demand for SSL certificates on the rise, most free web hosting services will include one for free. It’s not advisable to choose a web hosting platform that doesn’t offer one.
- Uptime: Your website needs a good foundation to run smoothly. Top web hosting services have the features in place to provide 99 or 100% uptime to minimize the time users are unable to visit your online business.
- Ads: Free web hosting platforms may sneak in ads or branding in an attempt to recoup money lost by offering services for free. You can avoid these by paying, but the best platforms don’t bother with ads in the first place.
- Customer Support: A website may be the only means of revenue for online businesses. Any time a website goes down means a loss of income and customer frustration. When things do go awry, you want to know who you can get in touch with to fix the problem as soon as possible. Most services don’t throw a lot of customer support toward free plans, limiting interaction to a forum or support tickets. Look for the ones that offer chat or phone access as well.
- Price: Free web hosting services will only get you so far. If you want your business to grow, you’ll eventually need to update to a paid plan with more features and functionality. Even if you’re not ready for this stage, planning ahead can save time and headaches when switching plans in the future. The last thing you want to do is bottleneck yourself into a plan you don’t need or have to switch providers and rebuild your site from scratch.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for Free Web Hosting
This FAQ addresses some of the most common questions surrounding free web hosting services. Read on to hear the answers.
So What’s the Best Free Web Hosting Site?
Web hosting services are essential for anyone looking to introduce their business to the internet. While a majority offer only paid services, some feature rudimentary free plans to get your site up and running. Once you’ve generated a stable flow of clients, it’s best to look beyond free services to allow your business to continue growing.
Noah is an American copywriter on a mission to help clarify the nuances of the business world through unique insights stemming from backgrounds in both engineering and the medical field. When not working, you’ll likely find him running or traveling.
