Tips For Choosing Free Web Hosting

Setting up a self hosted wordpress blog involves a lot of things.  One of them is choosing the right web host.

According to wiki,

A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to make their own website accessible via the World Wide Web. Web hosts are companies that provide space on a server they own or lease for use by their clients as well as providing Internet connectivity, typically in a data center. Web hosts can also provide data center space and connectivity to the Internet for servers they do not own to be located in their data center.

At present there are thousands of web hosts providing web hosting service. Some are cheap, some expensive. Some are meant for business, some for individuals. Some specialize in forum hosting, some in wordpress, etc. The varieties are endless. So how do you find the one that’s right for you and satisfies your needs ?

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There are 2 types of hosting services :

1. Free Hosting
2. Paid Hosting

Many new blogger’s with zero income (Students like me) are searching for free hosting solutions. Although its right on their part to look for something free however very few ‘free’ hosts are there who actually give things for free. Before going in for a free host, look into the following matters so that you wont regret your decision at a later stage.

For A Free Host, Make sure that :

• There is no hidden Adware, Spy, Trojans, viruses, etc on free host’s server.
• There is no policy for forced advertising on your pages.
• Unacceptable server down times.
• Does not have complicated control panel.
• Satisfactory support.
• Allows you to use your own domain name.
• Allows full domain server management.
• Allows full email management.
• Has fantastico installer(for  free scripts like WordPress, Joomla, Mambo, etc).
• Allows 4-5 % of CPU usage.

This being said, i too was using a free web host during initial stages of blogging but had to transfer to Expertrio (Current host) due to CPU usage issues. My previous host i.e beaconhosting was good and i hosted TechVorm on its servers for a period of 40 days but as soon as the traffic grew, issues regarding CPU usage came to my knowledge and due to which my blog faced a down time of 3 days.

There are very few hosts that actually provide cost free hosting and one of them was beacon hosting (which now is pod hosting and sucks big time). You will find many free hosting providers promising you unlimited space, unlimited bandwidths, etc but most of them are fraudulent and force you to make a purchase (like buying domain name) via their portal in order to host site for free.

Pssts.. If you know of any such reliable free web host or want to share your opinion about them then don’t hesitate and comment below.

UPDATE : One of our blog reader Jeremy has shared with us cons and pros of some FREE hosts. Check them out,

• Zymic – They have volunteers that talk to you on IRC chat. I always like that in a “company” – I feel like I can trust them more. Three free MySQL databases, about 5GB file space, and 50GB bandwidth. Ad-free, free subdomain, and FTP allowed.
  Cons: They won’t let PHP scripts communicate to remote servers. This means that some parts of WordPress don’t work, and quite a few of its plugins (like DISQUS).

• 000webhost –  Lots of features, only 1500MB file space though, 100GB bandwidth, free email accounts, Fantastico autoinstaller, and much more features.
  Cons: Only 1500 space, and occasionally you will see a text link to 000webhost.com on your site.

• Byethost – This has many features too, 5500MB (~5GB) file space, 200GB bandwidth, 50 MySQL databases, Fantastico, and more.
  Cons: Any 404 page redirects to an ad page, and Web of Trust lists those 404 pages as “red”/dangerous.