Pros and Cons of Free Hosting

Written by Brad Traversy | 09 May 2010

It’s hard to imagine having too many complaints with something that is “free”, but if you are considering a free web hosting provider for your web site, there are a number of pros and cons to consider before moving forward.

The Pros:

For a small, individual site, free hosting may be the right solution. After all, why pay for hosting a site that is just a few pages and is not making you any money?
Free servers are also a great way for developers to get their feet wet in working with scripts and servers, allowing you to experiment with a variety of coding and scripting methods with no worry about how their impact on the larger server.
Free web hosting services usually provide you with most of the sitebuilder tools you will need, which are usually user-friendly and easy to navigate. It may also help you decide what is most important to you in a hosting company before committing to a larger plan.
Of course the biggest “pro” to these servers is that they are FREE!

The Cons:

First of all, these servers are usually not nearly as reliable as shared or dedicated hosting, leaving you vulnerable for more potential downtime and slower loading of pages.
Restrictions on how large your site can be are also restrictive, and you probably will have very little available bandwidth.
You must allow advertisers to place advertising on your web site, which is how free hosting companies make money.
Most free hosts do not provide free customer service or support, and usually provide a phone number you can call for fee-based support.
The control panel on free servers is somewhat limited too. Often, they will intentionally limit commonly used scripts, creating the need to use FTP to upload these scripts. To further complicate things, some of these servers have limited FTP capabilities too, which will limit you from full functionality.

If you are considering a free web host, it is important to take all the pros and cons into consideration before making a decision. While “free” can be very enticing, you will need to determine if it is really worth the risk for your web site or web-based business.