Free Web Hosting

Why Free Web Hosting? Is it actually free?

As the name suggests, free web hosting is a non-paid web hosting service. There are many web hosting providers who provide tools and interface to create an account which is absolutely free and those sites can be accessed via sub domains which they provide for that particular account.  If you wish to access the website with your own domain name then you need to register your own domain name.

Apart from these fully free hosting providers, there are also some providers who provide certain services free of cost with some paid services.

How a Free Web Hosting works? Why would one provide services for free?

The single and ofcourse biggest benefit of such hosting is that it is free of cost. Well you might be amazed why on the earth are they providing a free service. What kind of business is theirs? Are there any hidden charges which would come up later once the website is set up and in a point where you cannot refuse to pay, since all the effort to create that website would go vain.  No, that’s not true here. 

These services are absolutely free.  Features and resources are limited ofcourse. These type of companies let you create sites with them and later place various kind of ads on your sites which is their source of income here.  Some of them might share the revenue earned with you and some may not. It all depends of the individual providers. You need to make sure what type of service do you want before you sign up. Some providers may provide partial control on such ads like to move them in any corner of the page, re arrange the colors, fonts and sizes etc. But unlike paid hosting services, you will not have full control over your website.

Such service is suitable for the sites are just for sharing public information where security is not a concern and the sites are shared with only limited people and has limited traffic.

There are some providers who provide free service which can be upgraded later. You can use such service when you are experimenting with some ideas. If your idea gets successful, you can upgrade later for obtaining more resources and features. 

• Some of the major differences between free and a paid web hosting services which will give you a better understanding about what is free web hosting service and whether it’s worth to opt for such free hosting for websites?
•  Advertisements on your website are controlled fully or partially by the web hosting company that provides you with the free web hosting. It might be any type of ads like pop-ups, banners, pop-under or any other advertisement on your site on which you do not have control.  Also, the revenue earned is owned by the provider, or they might give only some percentage of the revenue earned through your site. But, in paid web hosting, you have full control over your website. They will not be able to place any ads and even if you place any ads, you will be the sole owner of the revenue generated and you need not share it with anyone. 
• There won’t be customer service. 
•  Limited Bandwidth and disk usage which can be reason for frequent downtime. 
• Most importantly, Limited security: Such accounts a much vulnerable to hackers and other fraudsters since the security limited. 
•  Low bandwidth and lesser data transfer capacity makes free website hosting vulnerable to greater downtime whereas paid website hosting gives you optimum bandwidth and data transfer for maximum uptime.

If you want to have a site for which security is not a major concern, can be managed with limited resources and if you do not intend to earn any revenue from it, then free hosting is the right option for you.