Writer: Toby Sembower
Editor: Lillian Castro
Reviewer: Christina Lewis
We all love free stuff — whether it’s free tacos, free beer, or even a free T-shirt we know we’ll never wear. When people hear the word “free,” we just can’t help ourselves.
Why should free web hosting be any different? While there are certainly times you should use paid hosting plans, sometimes you just want to throw your latest project up quickly and be done with it — at no cost to you.
If that sounds like your situation, you’re in luck. Below, I’ll take an in-depth look at how to save money with the top free (and cheap) web hosts on the market.
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Best Free Web Hosting Sites
Free web hosting is typically best suited for personal websites and pet projects where reliability and performance aren’t terribly important. Generally speaking, a free web hosting service will require you to use one of their subdomains — meaning your website will reside at something like sitename.hostingcompany.com.
With a free hosting provider, you won’t have unmetered bandwidth, a custom domain name, or any of the other useful components of a premium website hosting plan.
Developers or business websites should only use a free hosting provider temporarily — such as while quickly testing new technology or getting familiar with the host’s management tools.
Take a look at 2025‘s best online promotions for hosting services we’ve already covered, or read on to see what the experts have to say about each free web host below.
1. InfinityFree.com
InfinityFree offers free hosting solutions for website owners who don’t have the upfront cash to invest in their online presence. The web host boasts more than 500,000 happy users who use the platform to host PHP and MySQL sites.
While you won’t get access to fancy features like a custom domain and email support, you also won’t have to pay a dime. What’s more, InfinityFree never places pesky ads on your site.
- Storage: 5 GB
- Domain: Free subdomain or bring your own
- eCommerce: Supports WordPress & eCommerce plugins
- Bandwidth: Unlimited
- Email: No
- Website Builder/Design: 1-click WordPress installs; other apps available via Softaculous Autoinstaller
InfinityFree stands quite a bit taller than its free hosting competitors. It offers unlimited bandwidth and a 99.9% uptime guarantee, which is on par with most paid shared hosting plans.
I wish the company would also include email inboxes, but there are certainly plenty of free email hosting services to choose from to pair with your hosting account.
2. x10hosting.com
The veterans at x10hosting pride themselves on giving free hosting customers a stable and high-performance environment with the latest versions of PHP, MySQL database, and cPanel.
Featuring cloud infrastructure, x10hosting promises to be fast, reliable, and secure.
- Storage: 500 MB
- Domains: Free subdomain or bring your own
- eCommerce: 1-click installs for eCommerce platforms such as Magento
- Bandwidth: Unlimited
- Email: 3 free accounts
- Website Builder/Design: Website builder with more than 150 templates; other programs available via cPanel installations
Unlimited bandwidth is a major plus for x10Hosting, along with a support community of more than 750,000 members. The free host currently stores and processes more than 122 million files for its customers.
For more than 20 years, x10hosting has delivered surprisingly elevated free web hosting. Where else are you going to be able to find high-powered solid-state drives with a free website builder that comes with more than 150 templates?
3. GoogieHost.com
GoogieHost impresses on all accounts. This web hosting provider has an astounding 4.3 million registered users — and it’s no surprise why. The company offers oodles of free features you would normally see with paid plans only.
Most notably, GoogieHost has LiteSpeed servers equipped with NVMe SSDs, 24/7 customer support, a free site builder, cPanel, and one-click installation of hundreds of scripts with Softaculous. Here’s a deeper look at its free plan.
- Storage: 1 GB NVMe SSDs
- Domain: Free subdomain or transfer your own registered domain
- eCommerce: Support for WordPress and plugins
- Bandwidth: 100 GB
- Email: Yes
- Website Builder/Design: Yes
GoogieHost has almost 15 years of experience delivering free plans to students, developers, and bloggers on a budget. If you’re looking for a free host with premium features, you should put GoogieHost at the top of your shortlist.
The host promises an uptime of 99%, which is lower than the industry standard for paid plans, but on par with competitors. However, if you’re not using your website for business purposes, the extra downtime may not be an issue for you.
4. WordPress.com
Who better to turn to for free WordPress hosting than the company behind the ultra-popular content management team itself?
The open-source version of the publishing platform requires site owners to purchase and configure a web hosting plan, but WordPress.com removes all that hassle by pairing the popular system with plenty of online storage and support.
- Storage: 1 GB
- Domain: Free subdomain
- eCommerce: Yes
- Bandwidth: Unlimited
- Email: No
- Website Builder/Design: Free website themes, plus 1-click installs
One of the most well-known brands when it comes to getting online, WordPress powers 43% of all websites. The biggest knock on WordPress is that it’s not as simple as some of the drag-and-drop site builders such as Wix and Weebly.
But with hundreds of themes and customization options to choose from, WordPress gives users an extraordinarily high ceiling with which to create and grow an online presence.
5. Weebly
Weebly is a remarkable web design and hosting service that can help customers get online quickly and easily. Whether you’re building your first static website or exploring options for an online business with complex functionality, Weebly will take wonderful care of you, your brand, and your wallet.
Weebly’s templates are among the most polished and modern you can find, and even the free tier includes essential eCommerce features: shopping carts, inventory management for unlimited items, and automatic tax calculations.
- Storage: 500 MB
- Domain: Free subdomain
- eCommerce: Yes
- Bandwidth: Unlimited
- Email: No
- Website Builder/Design: Free website templates, plus 1-click installs
As your site grows, the well-known free website builder also offers a variety of premium hosting plans that integrate with the company’s brilliant drag-and-drop platform. Its premium plans offer features such as a custom domain name, a free SSL certificate, unlimited storage, and priority customer support.
Alternatively, you can also find Weebly included with other premium hosting brands as a free add-on — combine the extra computing power with the user-friendly website builder at no added cost.
Weebly’s free plan has no ads, but Weebly does include its branding in the footer of your website.
6. AwardSpace.com
A pioneer in the free website hosting industry with more than 20 years of experience, AwardSpace relies on free hosting to grow its customer base.
The web hosting service provider’s free plan, which comes without ads, allows newcomers to test the hosting platform and see if they want to invest in more features over the long term
- Storage: 1 GB
- Domain: Free subdomain or custom domain for purchase
- eCommerce: No
- Bandwidth: 5 GB
- Email: 1 email account and spam filter
- Website Builder/Design: No, but Joomla and WordPress installers are included
Customers can start their free web hosting experience with PHP, MySQL, a one-click application installer, and email-sending power. The storage and computing resources are solid, if not spectacular, but I appreciate the other built-in tools.
Where AwardSpace really shines is making the transition from free hosting to premium services as smooth as possible. The web host’s Basic Plan is priced competitively at $3 for the entire year.
The cost-effective upgrade from free web hosting unlocks a treasure trove of enhanced features, including unlimited disk space and traffic, plus a free SSL certificate and 24/7 support that promises a response within an hour.
7. Freehostia.com
With interesting plan names, Freehostia’s Chocolate flavor offers free cloud hosting. The load-balanced server cluster platform is up to 15 times faster than more traditional shared hosting setups.
While the 250 MB of storage is a little small, it’s hard to argue with Freehostia’s 24/7 support and ad-free environment.
- Storage: 250 MB
- Domain: 5 hosted domains
- eCommerce: 1-click cart installations of several top platforms
- Bandwidth: 6 GB monthly
- Email: 3 email accounts
- Website Builder/Design: Free website templates, plus 1-click installs
The free host’s server clusters operate like cloud hosting, promoting above-average reliability and performance. Freehostia monitors its servers at all hours and makes the necessary improvements and patches happen for users automatically.
Even better, Freehostia gives customers plenty of avenues for growth. The free web hosting plan’s one-click application installer can easily lead to a successful WordPress site that grows to need one of Freehostia’s premium plans.
The free web hosting provider is one of the few options that connect customers with a low-cost VPS or dedicated server, so definitely give Freehostia a look for free web hosting!
Best Web Hosting With Free Trials
Some web hosts are worth your time, while others are bogus. By doing your research on sites like ours, you can learn about all the latest deals and discounts available with high-quality hosting providers.
What’s more, some hosts offer free trials to let you test the waters before committing. Here are some of the best ones:
8. Kamatera.com
Monthly Starting Price $0.00
- Customize your cloud environment for FREE
- Work with a dedicated account manager
- Dozens of Windows & Linux OS choices
- Complimentary live chat support open 24/7
- Launch in less than 60 seconds
- Get started on Kamatera now.
Laura Bernheim
| Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30-day FREE trial | 20 GB SSD – 4 TB SSD | New or Transfer | 3 minutes |
30-Day Free Trial | Credit Card Required
For those who need more computing power, be sure to check out Kamatera. The web hosting company’s 30-day free trial enables site owners to leverage up to 1 TB of SSD storage or 32 GB of RAM to go alongside 5 TB of bandwidth.
Simply customize your web server as needed (up to $100), and enjoy a premium web hosting service for free for the first month.
Kamatera operates in 24 data centers across the globe, ensuring your project will be readily available to visitors wherever they are.
I can’t say enough positive things about this high-powered web host, especially when it comes to modern infrastructure and the ownership you enjoy to make it your own. Plus, unlike pretty much every other free web host on this list, Kamatera offers around-the-clock support.
9. Cloudways.com
Monthly Starting Price $0.00
- Try managed cloud hosting for FREE for 3 days
- Optimize costs with custom server configurations
- Scale server resources up and down as needed
- FREE SSL certificates, site migrations, and CDN
- Use code HOSTINGADVICE for 25% OFF
- Get started on Cloudways now.
Alexandra Anderson
| Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3-day FREE trial | 20 GB SSD – 4 TB SSD | New or Transfer | 8 minutes |
3-Day Free Trial | No Credit Card Required
My new favorite to recommend, Cloudways presents a sweet deal for developers looking to spin up a project quickly at a minimal cost. Users are given their choice of vendor: Amazon Web Services, DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr, or Google Cloud.
People who want the performance of major cloud providers but not the complexity will enjoy Cloudways’ intuitive platform.
Taste the power of the industry’s leading cloud providers for free for the first three days of service. Unlike Kamatera, Cloudways doesn’t require a credit card to sign up for the free trial.
10. Wix.com
Monthly Starting Price $17.00
- Start designing FREE for 14 days
- FREE domain with most plans
- Drag-and-drop templates, specific to industry
- Exhaustive knowledgebase of articles
- Huge app market available
- Get started on Wix now.
Alexandra Anderson
| Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14-day FREE trial | 2 GB – Unlimited | FREE (1 year) | 4 minutes |
14-Day Free Trial | No Credit Card Required
A strong, browser-based website builder, Wix.com reigns supreme if you want a simple, drag-and-drop interface for building basic sites (e.g., portfolios, small sites, etc.).
While it’s not for those who are looking to work out their coding skills, house various video files, or host an app they’ve been tinkering with, Wix leads the way when it comes to easy setup and robust features.
Note that upgraded email allowance, a custom domain, and advanced eCommerce features are available from Wix by upgrading to a paid hosting plan. While the customer support isn’t always great, Wix continues to offer services fit for beginners.
Best Value in Web Hosting (Cheapest: $1.00/Month)
I urge customers seeking a free service to cough up a few dollars a month to take advantage of premium services. The jump from zero dollars is minuscule compared to the upgrade in customer support, uptime or reliability, and website management options.
And while these shared hosting packages aren’t free, they come with features that do bear the $0 price tag such as a complimentary SSL certificate and a free email account. The higher the tier of your plan, the more free add-ons you score, naturally.
My favorite cheap hosts pose the ideal compromise between affordability and quality of service:
11. Hostinger.com
Monthly Starting Price $2.69
- Unlimited everything, from storage to databases
- FREE site builder & WP performance upgrades
- FREE daily or weekly backups
- Custom control panel and auto-installation scripts
- SSH access & unlimited FREE SSL certificates
- Get started on Hostinger now.
Laura Bernheim
| Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 days | 25 GB SSD – 100 GB NVMe | FREE (1 year) | 3 minutes |
12. Bluehost.com
Monthly Starting Price $1.99
- Cheap shared hosting from a trusted provider
- Ideal for hosting a WordPress website
- FREE Weebly website builder and Cloudflare CDN
- Unlimited traffic and 24/7 live chat support
- Get 75% off today with our Bluehost coupon
- Get started on Bluehost now.
Ryan Frankel
| Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 days | 10 GB SSD – 100 GB SSD | FREE (1 year) | 5 minutes |
13. IONOS.com
Monthly Starting Price $1.00
- $1/month for 12 months
- No hidden fees, pay just $12 at checkout
- Easy setup and 24/7 expert support
- FREE domain or transfer, plus FREE SSL certificate
- Unlimited storage and databases with most plans
- Get started on IONOS now.
Alexandra Anderson
| Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 days | 10 GB – Unlimited | FREE (1 year) | 4 minutes |
14. DreamHost.com
Monthly Starting Price $2.59
- Automated malware scans
- Unlimited domain hosting
- Unlimited email accounts with POP/IMAP/SMTP
- FREE eCommerce store tools and PCI compliance
- Streamlined proprietary control panel
- Get started on DreamHost now.
Laura Bernheim
| Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 97 days | Unlimited | FREE (1 year) | 4 minutes |
15. A2Hosting.com
Monthly Starting Price $1.99
- Free Cloudflare CDN and SSD speed boost
- Optimized caching and 1-click installs
- Unlimited email, domains, and databases
- Advanced security and free HackScan
- 24/7 support via phone, chat & tickets
- Get started on A2 Hosting now.
Alexandra Anderson
| Money Back Guarantee | Disk Space | Domain Name | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 days | 10 GB SSD – Unlimited SSD | New or Transfer | 4 minutes |
See More Cheap Hosting Services >>
What Is Web Hosting?
When I talk about web hosting, I’m referring to the companies that rent you space on their servers so that your website is accessible online. Without web hosting, your website is essentially “stuck” on your computer. A server connects it to the online world, allowing others to visit it.
There are dozens of types of web hosting, but the main ones include shared hosting, VPS hosting, cloud hosting, and dedicated hosting.
Learn More About the Types of Web Hosting Here >>
What Are the Pros and Cons of Free Web Hosting?
While it’s easy to set out thinking you want 100% free web hosting, part of my job is to illuminate the fine print. You get what you pay for with a free service, which often means additional fees, storage and bandwidth limitations, and pesky ads.
Pros
- It’s free!
- Free hosts are usually easy to set up.
- Many free solutions have site-building tools.
- No commitment.
Cons
- Free plans have strict resource limitations, which may lead to poor performance.
- You don’t get a custom domain name
- Lack of customer support.
- Ads may be placed on your site.
- No advanced features such as email, developer tools, and site analytics.
While the free hosts I recommend guarantee you can keep your free hosting as long as you’d like, you will want to take advantage of additional (paid) features as your site grows.
Serious site owners should strongly consider opting for a reputable, affordable, full-featured web hosting provider.
Many hosts will include a free domain, free email account, a boatload of storage, and tons of eCommerce tools for the ridiculously close-to-free price of between $1 and $5 per month.
Who Should Use Free Web Hosting?
Given the resource limitations, free hosting is best for individuals, students, and developers working on personal projects. For example, if you’re building a personal website to display your résumé, that’s a great reason to use free hosting.
On the flip side, if you’re building an online store for your eCommerce business, you definitely don’t want to use a free plan. Investing in a paid plan with better features is 100% worth it for the reliability, features, and improved performance you get.
What Features Should I Look for In a Web Hosting Provider?
Uptime, bandwidth, RAM… what do all these terms mean? Well, each one plays a role in your hosting experience.
Here’s a rundown of the basic and not-so-basic things you want to look for:
- Uptime: Measured by a percentage, uptime represents the amount of time you can expect your site to be online — 99.9% is the industry standard, but higher is better.
- Bandwidth: Bandwidth is essentially the amount of data that can be transferred from your site to a user in a given time frame, usually a month. Plans with unlimited bandwidth are best.
- RAM: RAM stands for Random Access Memory and stores data your website needs to access quickly.
- Disk Space: Disk space refers to the amount of space you have to store your website’s content like files, photos, and videos. Look for a host with solid-state drives for the fastest load times.
- Domain: A domain is your website’s name, such as “HostingAdvice” in HostingAdvice.com. Paid plans usually give you a free domain name for your first year.
- Control panel: A control panel is software you can use to manage your website and your hosting plan. cPanel is great for most users.
- Customer support: Ideally, your web host should offer 24/7 support through multiple channels, including phone, chat, and email.
- Scalability: Scalability refers to your web host’s ability to grow with you. Find a host that offers multiple tiers of plans with increasing RAM, disk space, and bandwidth.
This list isn’t exhaustive, but it’s a great starting point to help you understand the most important features to look for.
How Do I Choose a Web Hosting Provider?
Choosing a web hosting provider may seem confusing if this is your first time — but don’t sweat it. Follow these steps:
1. Determine what kind of site you want to have: Is it a low-traffic site for your personal portfolio? You probably just need a simple free or cheap hosting plan. Are you building a high-traffic online store? Consider using WordPress hosting or a virtual private server.
2. Calculate your budget: Web hosting can cost as little as $0 or hundreds of dollars a month. Figure out how much you can afford to spend. Your budget will help determine the features and add-ons you get. For example, if you want managed hosting, you should expect to pay more for it.
3. Compare features: Not all hosts are created equal. If you want speed, look for a host with NVMe SSDs. If you prefer having convenience, look for a host with one-click installations and a website builder.
4. Read online reviews: Find out what real customers are saying online. Also, be sure to check review sites like HostingAdvice for more in-depth insight into each host.
5. Make a choice: Make a shortlist of your top 2–3 hosts and choose the one that suits your website best!
If you’re still feeling unsure, know that most shared web hosts offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, which lets you try the host risk-free
Ready, Set, Start Hosting!
Whether you’re testing out some of the best web hosting services or looking for an easy, non-committal entry into having your own website, free hosting is a great opportunity.
What better way to get your feet wet than with a free hosting service? Once you’re familiar with a host’s services and programs, then you’ll likely want to consider upgrading to unlock even more features and value.
I wish you well as you go out and build your online presence — whether it’s for free or basically, almost, itty-bitty-bit-more-than-free.
If you want to see more options, be sure to check out our top recommendations for cheap web hosting.
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