Who Can Use Free Website Hosting?

You can't have a website without website hosting - but sometimes that hosting is prohibitively expensive. If you're looking for a way to do it more affordably, you might be surprised to learn that many of the free site hosting services aren't actually as bad as you might have heard them to be - just so long as you're realistic about your expectations, of course!

They're pretty simple and straightforward, in that they offer many of the same benefits as a paid host (the ability to register a domain name, albeit one that is usually very restricted; the chance to publish a website on the internet at large; some space to upload your files and some bandwidth to let people see them) but they do it for free. This means that they need to make a few allowances and adjustments, of course; you won't have as much freedom, you won't be able to take control of the adverts that are displayed and you're likely to have a pretty limited amount of space.

Who Should Consider Free Hosting?

There are all kinds of reasons you might want to look into free web hosting - and here are a few of them, to give you an idea of the target audiences of the free hosts.

  • If you're learning how to build websites, code for the internet, and improve your graphic design skills, you ideally want somewhere to do it that's public - so you can easily show other people for help and advice - but that doesn't cost you any money. Free web hosting is, therefore, the perfect choice; you can always upgrade later if you want a portfolio.
  • If you want lots of flexibility to share photos, videos and news with your friends and family without being restricted by the enforced layout of a blog, a website of your own could be just the thing - and you won't need more than something free for this use.
  • If you're running a non-profit or a charity, you're likely to find that you have a word to spread and no money with which to spread it. Free hosting is therefore a good choice.

It's really very easy to use a free webs host to share data and information with the entire world - and you'll have a lot more flexibility than you'd see in a blog or other limited-format site.

Features of Free Hosting

It was once the case that you wouldn't have had FTP access or the ability to use PHP software on most free web hosts, but that's changing rapidly; these days, the distinguishing features between free and paid are in terms of bandwidth, disk space and control over advertisements, with other features left mostly in place.

Which host is right for you will depend on individual services as much as it does with a paid host, so you'll need to be careful to look at the options before you choose. There are definite benefits to going free, though - not least that you'll easily be able to create more than one site if that's what you wish to do, as you won't have to worry about how much money you can spend.

It's also worth bearing in mind that you should consider trying out a free site before paying for more features; this could help you gauge whether or not you're on the right track before you lay your money on the line.