Free or paid hosting?
What is free web hosting?
Free web hosting simply means web server space that’s available to you at no cost. Free hosting comes in many format but usually your website will be hosted on a subdomain – something like xyz.freehost.com.
Advantages and disadvantages of free web hosting
Free web hosting poses both pros and cons. The best part of free web hosting is, well, F-R-E-E. Unlike old times, free hosting nowadays come with loads of advance features (PHP, CGI, MySQL, and even unlimited email forwarding) – which is more than enough for standard websites. If you are looking for a zero-cost hosting solutions then a free web host is your choice. Free hosting services are often used for personal, non-profit organization, newbies and students’ websites. If you aren’t planning to make money from your web site, free hosting is the perfect solution.
On the other hand, most (but not all) free web hosting providers will clutter your websites with advertisements. Also, free web host is not a long term solution for those who are serious with their website as the turnover rate in this business is very fast. Also, it’s unbelievable to get 24/7 customer support when it comes to free hosting (the supports, after all, comes free).
What about paid hosting?
The option with paid hosting is not bad at all. Although you’ll need to pay for the hosting, the hosting price is not that high when compare with the features you are getting. Take Bluehost for example, users get unlimited disk storage, bandwidth, 24/7 live chat supports, as well as addon domain capacity for just $6.95/mo. Also, paid hosting allows you to get features (like Fantastico, multi domain hosting, and stats reporting) that you can’t get with free web hosting.
Free or paid hosting?
Before you decide between free or paid web hosting, you must be very clear with the basic requirements.
What type of website are you hosting? Is server reliability an important issue to you? Do you have enough budget for a paid shared hosting? Do you need extra guidance in webmastering? Will you need a lot of technical supports when it comes to web hosting? Do you need detail web statistics reporting system at your web host? Do you need extra scripts supports like ASP.net, MySQL, Java scripts, TomCat, or Ruby on Rails? It will be easier for you to decide which type of hosting is more suitable for you once these basic questions are answered.