Free Vs Paid Website Hosting
So you have decided to take a next step and decided to start a website online but have no idea if you should go the free or paid website hosting route. For many, they will go with paid web hosting because you will find tons of articles online that will try to scare you away from free web hosting providers. It is true free web hosting is not suitable for everyone but you will be surprised to find out that one can still benefit from free web hosting in many ways.
What is Free Website Hosting?
First, lets discuss free web hosting and its pros/cons. Free web hosting is basically where web hosting providers are providing free web space and free bandwidth for their clients. There is a huge range for free web hosting providers. For example, some providers only give basic site builders that anyone can use to put up few pages online. Such as, Google Pages and freewebs. You also have advanced free web hosting providers that offer tons of space, bandwidth, advanced languages support of php, cgi, perl, database support of mysql, email, ftp access etc. Our favorite advanced free web hosting provider is Profuse Host because they offer exact same features as paid web hosting for free.
Free Web Hosting Pros
- The main benefit of free web hosting is that it will save you money on monthly basis. So, if you were just bored one day and decided to start a website, you can just go to one of the free web hosting providers and just sign up. You don’t have to worry about paying monthly fees.
- Most advanced free web hosting providers now offer “free web hosting package” that comes with no forced ads or any required posting in forums. For example, Profusehost offers a package that comes with 200 MB of space and 5 GB of bandwidth. Having 200 MB is alot if you are just planning to have a site with just text and images. Therefore, you can just start a wordpress blog and earn money from that blog without spending a dime on web hosting
Free Web Hosting Cons
- Support is a the number one issue that keeps most people away from free web hosting providers. Now that doesn’t mean that all free web hosting providers lack any kind of support. There are tons of free web hosting providers that offer same level of support of paid hosting providers. Therefore, you will need to do your research if you decide to go the free web hosting route.
- Many free web hosting providers will place limits on your account. For example, file size limits, limits on email, limits on file types etc. Most common one is file size limit where free hosting providers will limit the file size to 1 MB.
- Uptime can be an issue with some free web hosting providers. Server problems are common with both free and paid hosting providers but chances you will encounter less problems with paid hosting providers.
What is Paid Website Hosting?
I don’t think i have to too much into this but paid website hosting is basically where you pay a monthly fee and in return you get all these lovely features for hosting your website. So, lets just jump straight into pros and cons of paid website hosting.
Paid Website Hosting Pros
- 24/7 Dedicated support is available with majority of paid website hosting providers.
- No limits like file size or forced ads. You are welcome to do use your website for business or just a site for fun.
- Lower prices. Web hosting used to cost a lot but today the competition had driven the cost for most shared website hosting packages down. You can easily get your site online for around $3-$4 per month with tons of space and bandwidth.
- Uptime guarantee that is usually around 99%. 100% uptime guarantee is hard to achieve but most paid hosting providers do offer at least 99% uptime guarantee which is sufficient for most websites. Now if you are one of those folks who prefer 100% uptime, be ready to fork over tons of money on monthly basis.
Paid Website Hosting Cons
- The only con that I can think of is that you have to pay monthly for your website hosting package
Hopefully after reading the article, you have a better idea about free and paid website hosting. I personally started out with free website hosting and eventually went the paid website hosting route. My site was basically a hobby site but it made sense to buy paid website hosting package for business related site. So, if your site is non profit, personal, hobby based, you should look into free website hosting. If you are thinking of starting a business and earn money from that site, you should look into paid website hosting.
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