4.8 
Summary of Free Web Hostings
| Provider | Starting Price | Storage (GB) | Bandwidth | Free Domain | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | $0 | 20-4000 | 5 TB | No | Visit Kamatera |
 | $0 | 10-unlimited | Unlimited | Yes | Visit IONOS |
 | $0 | 30-110 | Unlimited | Yes | Visit Ultahost |
 | $0 | 100-200 | Unlimited | Yes | Visit Hostinger |
 | $0 | 15-40 | 30-90 GB | Yes | Visit HostArmada |
 | $0 | 10-40 | Unlimited | Yes | Visit FastComet |
 | $0 | 20-300 | Unlimited | Yes | Visit A2 Hosting |
What is Free Web Hosting?
Free web hosting is a service that allows you to host your website without any cost or through risk-free trials.
The service provides the necessary resources to make your website accessible online, such as storage space, bandwidth, and a domain name.
However, free web hosting often offers limited storage, bandwidth, reduced performance, and fewer features than paid hosting plans. It’s a good option for personal projects, small websites, or those just starting out and wanting to test the waters before committing to a paid service.
When to Choose and When to Avoid Free Web Hosting
| When to Choose Free Web Hosting | When to Avoid Free Web Hosting |
| Your site has low traffic (fewer than 1,000 visits per month). | Your site has high traffic (over 5,000 visits per month). |
| You’re building a personal blog or hobby site. | You run a business that requires high reliability and uptime. |
| You’re a beginner testing web hosting options. | You need advanced features like eCommerce support or custom databases. |
| Your budget is limited or non-existent. | You require robust security features and regular backups. |
| You need a sandbox environment for testing purposes. | Your website demands high performance and speed. |
| You’re okay with potential ads being displayed on your site. | You prefer an ad-free experience and professional appearance. |
| You do not need extensive customer support. | You need 24/7 professional customer support. |
| You want to avoid branding issues, URLs usually include the host’s name (e.g., yourname.thewebhostname.com), which can harm your SEO and credibility |
If free web hosting is not relevant to your needs, consider these alternatives:
- Shared Hosting —Ideal for small websites with limited traffic. Offers affordable plans with shared resources.
- VPS Hosting—Provides dedicated resources and greater control, suitable for growing websites.
- Cloud Hosting—Ensures scalability and reliability with multiple servers. Perfect for sites with fluctuating traffic.
- Dedicated Servers—Best for high-traffic websites needing maximum performance and customization.
- Reseller Hosting—Allows you to host multiple clients and manage their sites, ideal for web developers and agencies.
How to Choose a Free Web Hosting Service
- Budget vs. Costs—Ensure the service is genuinely free or offers a risk-free trial, and verify that there are no hidden fees.
- Scalability—Check if the provider offers seamless upgrade options to paid plans as your website grows, ensuring you won’t outgrow the service quickly.
- Security—Verify that basic security measures, such as SSL certificates and DDoS protection, are included to keep your site safe from threats.
- Customer Support—Evaluate whether adequate support is available, even if it’s limited to community forums or email, to ensure you have help if needed.
- Check for Ads—Many free hosting providers place ads on your website to cover costs. Ensure you’re comfortable with this, or find a provider that doesn’t display ads.
- Risk-Free Trials—Prefer services offering risk-free trials, which give me a taste of their premium features without committing financially.
- User Reviews—Research user reviews and expert opinions to gauge the credibility and reliability of the hosting provider, ensuring you choose a trusted service.
Free Web Hosting: The Best Options For 2024
Finding a scalable web hosting provider is especially important for websites that want to grow quickly and seamlessly. Kamatera is one such hosting provider, as it allows you to get more resources whenever you need them without your website going offline. Also, it allows you to pay only for the resources you use and has a 30-day free trial you can use.
- Overall Score: 4.8
- Pricing: 4.7
- Features: 4.8
- Performance: 5.0
- Support: 4.9
- User Friendly: 4.9
Pricing: With Kamatera, you can pay by the minute, hour, or month and pay only for the resources you use. You can try it out for free for 30 days, and its plans start at $0.005/hour or $4/month.
Features: Kamatera offers many powerful cloud features, such as a private cloud network, a cloud load balancer, a cloud firewall, managed cloud services, flexible, cost-effective cloud servers, cloud block storage, and more.
Performance: This provider offers a no single-point-of-failure network and a 99.95% uptime guarantee. Its data centers are spread out worldwide, covering North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
Support: As a Kamatera user, you’ll get 24/7 customer support via live chat, phone, and email. You’ll also get fast response times and access to professionals in the field that will help you with any and all issues or questions you might have.
User Friendly: Kamatera is easy to use as it comes with an intuitive user interface that is easy to navigate and a fast setup process. You can either choose one of the provided hosting plans or make your own, then manage everything straight from your dashboard.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Highly scalable resources that won’t affect your website’s performance when you’re scaling.
- Flexible payment options that allow you to only pay for what you use.
- A 30-day free trial that allows you to see if Kamatera is the right solution without wasting money.
Cons:
- Not ideal for beginners (but you’ll get ample customer support, and there are managed services that you can purchase if you need to).
IONOS is another great web hosting provider which you can try out risk-free for 30 days and decide if it suits your needs. It also offers super low prices, and even though the plans are cheap, they still include all the necessary hosting features and excellent security. In addition to that, you’ll get top-notch customer support, fast loading speeds, and reliable performance from the provider. And if you don’t like the services you get, you can get a full refund before the 30 days are up.
- Overall Score: 3.9
- Pricing: 3.9
- Features: 3.5
- Performance: 4.3
- Support: 4.0
- User Friendly: 3.8
Pricing: IONOS’ cheapest web hosting plan costs $1/month, and you can try it risk-free via the 30-day money-back guarantee. It includes hosting for unlimited websites, unlimited storage, unlimited databases, and up to 6GB of RAM.
Features: With IONOS, you’ll get many useful hosting and security features, such as daily backups and recovery, PHP, HTTP/2, gzip, Site Scan, DDoS protection, geo-redundancy, SiteAnalytics, a free SSL certificate, free professional email, a free domain for the first year, and more.
Performance: IONOS promises that your site will be up 99.9% of the time via its uptime guarantee. You can also choose your own server location, which can either be in the UK, US, or Europe.
Support: With award-winning customer support under its belt, IONOS is great for those who need frequent assistance. You can reach its customer support team via phone and live chat and use its knowledge base to find many different tutorials and guides.
User Friendly: Unlike many other web hosting providers, IONOS has its own custom-built control panel that is intuitive and easy to use. Also, it has a “Deploy Now” feature, which allows you to launch your website in three short steps.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- A 30-day return policy that allows you to try out IONOS risk-free before you commit.
- Super low prices and beginner-friendly features.
- Suitable for up-and-coming websites looking to grow quickly.
Cons:
- It doesn’t offer a free web hosting plan (but has a return policy).
Rating Based on Expert Review:
- Overall Score: 4.3
- Features: 4.2
- Reliability: 4.1
- User-Friendly: 4.4
- Support: 4.2
- Pricing: 4.5
Hostinger emerges as a standout provider in the free web hosting arena, offering a cost-effective solution for individuals and small businesses seeking to establish an online presence. Renowned for its balance between functionality and affordability, Hostinger’s free web hosting plan is particularly appealing for those starting their digital journey or looking to maintain a simple, low-cost website.
Features: Hostinger’s free web hosting includes essential features such as 1000 MB of disk space, 100 GB bandwidth, and a user-friendly website builder, making it a practical choice for small-scale websites and personal projects.
Reliability: While operating in the free hosting space, Hostinger maintains a focus on providing reasonable uptime and performance, ensuring that websites remain accessible and functional.
User-Friendly: Known for its easy-to-use interface, Hostinger enables even beginners to efficiently manage their websites, a key advantage for those new to web hosting.
Support: Despite being a free service, Hostinger provides reliable customer support, a significant benefit for users who may need assistance or guidance in managing their websites.
Pros & Cons
- Ideal for beginners and small-scale websites
- User-friendly interface and website builder
- Decent customer support for a free hosting service
- Limited resources and features compared to paid plans
- Uptime and performance might not match premium hosting offerings
HostArmada is a household name in the web hosting industry. It offers robust cloud web hosting built on a state-of-the-art cloud platform. And thanks to its cloud platform, it can offer stable and reliable performance that will ensure your website is online and always there for your visitors. You can’t get a free plan from this provider, but you can try out its services completely risk-free for 45 days.
- Overall Score: 5.0
- Pricing: 4.9
- Features: 5.0
- Performance: 5.0
- Support: 5.0
- User Friendly: 5.0
Pricing: The provider’s entry-level shared hosting plan costs $2.49/month (on a three-year billing period) and includes one website, 15GB SSD, 2GB RAM, and 2 CPU Cores. All its plans (except for the monthly ones) are also eligible for a 45-day money-back guarantee.
Features: With HostArmada, you’ll get a wide range of features and great value for money. Some of those features include a free cPanel Control Panel, free daily backups, a free domain, Imunify360, SSH access, automatic daily backups, malware scans & removals, WAF & IP Firewall, and more.
Performance: HostArmada’s state-of-the-art cloud platform offers super-reliable and fast performance. The provider also comes with a 99.9% uptime guarantee and data centers on three continents.
Support: This provider offers excellent customer support, available 24/7 customer support via live chat, phone, and a ticketing system. HostArmada’s knowledge base and Learning Center also have many useful tutorials and guides.
User Friendly: HostArmada allows you to use cPanel, an easy-to-use control panel, for free. Also, it gives your access to Softaculous and enables you to manage the DNS entries in your DNS zone via your dashboard.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Affordable plans with a wide range of free features and services.
- Super-fast and reliable performance.
- 45-day money-back guarantees on all plans (except for monthly plans).
Cons:
- You can’t get web hosting for free (but you can leverage HostArmada’s 45-day money-back guarantee as a risk-free trial).
Rating Based on Expert Review:
- Overall Score: 4.2
- Features: 4.1
- Reliability: 4.3
- User-Friendly: 4.2
- Support: 4.4
- Pricing: 4.5
FastComet stands out in the free web hosting market, offering a service that balances reliable performance with exceptional support. It’s an excellent choice for individuals, hobbyists, and small business owners who are looking for a no-cost way to start their online presence, without compromising too much on quality. FastComet’s free hosting plan is designed to provide a solid foundation for websites with moderate needs, making it a preferred option for those taking their first steps in the digital world.
Features: FastComet’s free hosting includes essential features like modest disk space, sufficient bandwidth, and a straightforward website builder, catering well to basic website hosting needs.
Reliability: Even as a free service, FastComet focuses on delivering dependable uptime, ensuring that websites are consistently accessible to visitors.
User-Friendly: The hosting platform is designed with user-friendliness in mind, making it easy for beginners to set up and manage their website with minimal hassle.
Support: What sets FastComet apart in the free hosting segment is its commitment to customer support. Users of the free plan can expect helpful and timely assistance, which is a significant value-add.
Pros & Cons
- Good performance and reliability for a free service
- User-friendly tools and interface, ideal for beginners
- Above-average customer support in the free hosting category
- Limited features and resources compared to premium hosting plans
- Disk space and bandwidth might be insufficient for larger, more demanding websites
Why Trust Our Recommendations?
At HostAdvice, we conduct independent, unbiased tests to evaluate free web hosting providers. Our in-house hosting experts and thousands of user reviews from around the globe ensure comprehensive and reliable evaluations. The selections are rooted in thorough testing and rigorous analysis.
We assess providers based on performance, reliability, scalability, support, and cost, meaning you can always our expert recommendations to find the best solutions for your web hosting needs.
How Do We Test and Rank?
We use advanced AI technology to rank free web hosting providers based on critical factors such as server performance, ease of use, customer support, and available resources (CPU, RAM, storage, and bandwidth). Our team of experts also evaluate security measures, including firewalls, DDoS protection, and SSL certificates, along with valuable extras like automated backups and integrated CDNs.
Additionally, we consider transparent pricing and user reviews to help you choose the best free web hosting provider that matches your specific needs and requirements. Our comprehensive approach ensures you receive reliable and up-to-date recommendations.
Final Recommendations
Free web hosting is perfect for personal blogs, small projects, and beginners exploring web hosting without financial commitment. It’s an excellent entry point, allowing you to create and manage a website at no cost. As your site grows, upgrading to paid plans will provide enhanced performance, security, and support.
Not all free web hosting providers offer the same features. When evaluating options, consider factors like bandwidth limitations, storage space, ads on your site, and the availability of subdomains. Additionally, check if they offer support forums, community resources, basic security features, and easy integration with CMS platforms.
Compare user and expert reviews to find the best free web hosting providers. Then, test the plan yourself to ensure it fits your needs before fully committing. This approach helps you select a provider that meets your specific requirements, ensuring the success of your online projects. Always check for trial periods or money-back guarantees to evaluate the service confidently.
