Provider
Free Trial
Our Score
User rating
YES

(1172 User Reviews)

YES

(794 User Reviews)

YES

(1284 User Reviews)

YES

(592 User Reviews)

YES

(472 User Reviews)

YES

(739 User Reviews)

Whenever they are just starting out, many people are looking for the best free website hosting alternatives. Emphasis on the term “free” there - many individuals assume that, by trying out some free service, they are going to get a good feel on what is web hosting, in general, and will thus, have an easier time deciding on what it is that they want and need.

That can’t be further from the truth.

In this article, I’ll tell you why that’s the case, and then suggest some of the best ALMOST free hosting providers for you to check out. While this may seem like a play on words, trust me - once you truly look into the meaning of the word “free” when it comes to website hosting, you’ll know exactly what I mean.

Our list today will look, as follows:

Best Free Website Hosting: Defining the Terminology

Right, then - in order to get to our list of the best free website hosting providers, we need to determine some terminology, first… And then mention why this article will actually consist of ALMOST free hosting services.

Website hosting free” - this is something that a huge number of people who want to create their first websites are looking for. As mentioned in the introductory part of this article, these people tend to believe that, by finding the “best free website hosting”, they are going to “get a good feel” for what web hosting, in general, is all about.

Yet again - this is very far from being the case.

There is a saying in life - if it’s too good to be true, it probably is. This applies to the vast majority of situations in life, and web hosting is no different. Another popular saying - “you get what you pay for” - will also fit here, too.

In short, free web hosting sites are a myth. Don’t get me wrong, they do exist - but they are far from being quality services that would help you understand the industry better, and further your knowledge in the field of web hosting, in general.

Very few high-end hosting providers actually offer their users free trials, or some free plans to try out. The ones that do, however, are a great example of the latter saying mentioned above - once you take a look at the free plan, you will immediately understand that, quite frankly, you’re not going to be able to do practically anything with it.

Truth be told, that’s actually the best-case scenario, too! If you were to use some free web hosting and domain websites, you could even get scammed out of your money - they’d ask you to register a credit card for “later payment”, and then charge you, with making getting your money back a complete hassle.

Now that we’ve got that established and out of the way, granted that we’ll be discussing the “best free website hosting”, what does the word FREE mean, in this article?

Simple - if a web hosting provider has a money-back guarantee, and is priced below the $7 mark, we’ll consider this to bealmost free”. This is simply because, for that price tag, you can definitely find some high-quality hosting services that will actually leave a good lasting impression on you, and with the refund policy, you will be able to get all of your money back, if you find that the service doesn’t suit you.

With that said, and the terminology figured out, let’s move on to our list of the best free website hosting services.

1. Bluehost - Amazing Price VS Quality Ratio

Ranks #1 out of 7 Hosting Providers

Verified Staff Pick

63% Off

Discount for Bluehost Hosting

Grab this special intro offer and receive 63% off Bluehost discount for its web hosting services. Pay as low as $2.95/mo. Offer applies for the first term only.

Expiration date : 23/12/2024
2910 People Used
Only 90 Left
Rating
5.0

Bluehost is one of those hosting brands that are surely going to pop up in all of the top-rated hosting provider lists - even though the terminology might be different, the best free website hosting list is no exception.

Quite frankly, this is because the company has a great price VS quality ratio in regards to the hosting services that it provides.

Whenever you’re looking for the best hosting, in general - no matter if it’s web hosting free or paid -, one of the first things that you’ll always want to check out is the uptime of the site. Uptime determines the period of time your website is going to be up and running, and reachable by any and all potential visitors. It’s the most important criterion to evaluate!

Well, Bluehost has got that covered rather nicely - the company offers its users shared hosting services with an uptime of 99,94%. That’s quite above “decent”!

Quite a few people who are looking for the best free website hosting are doing so in order to start running a website with WordPress (since you can actually download WP and create a site with it for free, with only needing to pay for hosting). Well, if you’re one of those people, you’re in luck - Bluehost is completely WordPress-compatible!

Bluehost is simple to use, so will surely be a fitting pick for complete beginners in the industry (these people make up the majority of individuals looking for free web hosting sites). It also provides users with 24/7 customer support, which is surely going to be appreciated when you run into some sort of an issue, or have questions, in general.

The only real concern that Bluehost’s users have has to do with the company’s speed statistics - as in, how fast sites hosted with Bluehost will load up for any potential visitors. The speed is reported to be great for US-based website creators, but if you live in a different region of the world, this might be an issue - Bluehost houses all of its servers within the US, and thus, elsewhere-based sites can experience some speed problems.

What is the Price of Bluehost Hosting?

Bluehost is a company that does not offer the “best FREE website hosting” services. However, some of the pricing options for the brand's shared hosting plans are super-low, and thus, it makes our list rather easily. On top of that, there’s also the aforementioned money-back guarantee for you to consider, too!

Bluehost’s pricing options are:

Definitely a very affordable hosting solution for anyone who’s looking for free web hosting sites, especially given the quality of service that you are going to receive with each of the plans! Note, though, that the entry-level plan doesn’t offer any periodic backups - if you don’t want to risk all of your work, you’re going to need to purchase a more-advanced plan.

Visit Bluehost
...or read our Bluehost review

2. HostGator - Very Affordable Hosting With Top-Notch Services

Ranks #2 out of 7 Hosting Providers

HostGator is a very popular website hosting brand that does often make the lists of the best ALMOST free hosting, simply due to the fact of how truly affordable it is.

Evidently, HostGator can be given as an example of a service that is very affordable, yet still top-notch!

As you might expect, the company has all of the essentials sorted - it wouldn’t be on this list of the best free website hosting if it didn’t, now, would it? Using HostGator’s shared hosting services, you can expect an uptime of around 99,95%, and site loading speeds in the realms of 750-850ms.

These numbers are, admittedly, truly amazing! This is especially true in regards to site loading speeds - anything below a second can be considered to be superb, and HostGator has got that beat, no sweat!

Apart from the essentials, though, if you’re looking for free web hosting and domain, you will also be happy to hear that HostGator has an integrated website builder of their own, in addition to allowing people to use WordPress. No matter what it is that you’d pick, as far as HostGator is concerned, your experience should be very straightforward and simple - it’s a very easy-to-use web hosting service!

Admittedly, some users of the platform will tell you that a lot of the truly-useful features available with HostGator are going to be locked under some of the higher paywalls. This isn’t ideal if you’re looking for the best free website hosting! That said, though, if you like what HostGator has to bring to the table, you might decide to purchase one of the pricer plans, later on.

What is the Price of HostGator Hosting?

So - while not providing web hosting free of charge, HostGator does come very close to it, at least as far as this list of the “best free web hosting services that aren’t actually free, but are close” goes. Choosing HostGator, your pricing options are going to look like so:

All of the plans fall below our earlier-established $7 per month mark! On top of that, those are definitely some great price tags, when you take into account the actual services provided by HostGator!

Visit HostGator Hosting
...or read our HostGator Hosting review

3. GoDaddy - A Great Choice for WordPress Enthusiasts

Ranks #3 out of 7 Hosting Providers

Do you want some great uptime statistics? Is site speed something that’s really important to you (hint: it should be)? Are you keen on building a website with WordPress?

If you’ve answered “yes” to most of those questions, then GoDaddy might just be the right pick for you! Not only that, but the company fits in perfectly within our list of the best free website hosting services of the year, granted the super-low entry-level plan price that it provides.

Let’s take it from the top, though.

GoDaddy offers its users uptime statistics of around 99,93%. While that might not be the best numbers within the industry, it’s still some very decent uptime, and you shouldn’t experience any notable issues when it comes to downtime.

The website loading speed statistics are also “up there”, with the average website loading up completely in around 1,3 seconds. Nice!

As you can see mentioned above, GoDaddy is seen as a great option for those who want to build a website the old-fashionedway, with WordPress. This is simply due to the fact that the hosting provider offers over 150 different apps, many of which will make your WordPress-related experience much nicer.

As far as free web hosting and domains go, though, the features do actually transfer to other areas of the hosting service, too, and aren’t necessarily WordPress-exclusive. For example, GoDaddy has got a built-in website builder for you to use - if you’re NOT actually a huge fan of WordPress, don’t know a lot about coding and web development, and want to keep things as simple as possible, this might be a great solution for you!

What is the Price of GoDaddy Hosting?

If you do decide that GoDaddy is the best free website hosting solution for you (well, not “free”, but as far as the context of this article is concerned, you get the idea), you can try out the service for as low as:

$1 for an entry-level plan is amazing! It truly does make the hosting service in question almost completely free of charge, so if you need the best free web hosting, GoDaddy might surely be the right solution for you!

Visit GoDaddy Web Hosting
...or read our GoDaddy Web Hosting review

4. Hostinger - Extremely Affordable, Free Plan Available

Ranks #4 out of 7 Hosting Providers

Verified Staff Pick

90% Off

Single Web Hosting + Free SSL

We know it sounds too good to be true but with this Hostinger coupon you can receive amazing 90% off single web hosting + get an SSL certificate for FREE!

Expiration date : 23/12/2024
3091 People Used
Only 9 Left
Rating
5.0

Now, Hostinger is one of the more-interesting picks for our list of the best free website hosting providers of the year. Why is that the case, you may inquire?

Simple - this is a web hosting service that DOES actually have a website hosting free plan available. Not only that, but Hostinger is often viewed as the most affordable web hosting solution on the entire market, in general!

A very peculiar service, that’s for sure! We’re just getting started, though. First, let’s take a look at the actual features of the provider.

Starting off, Hostinger has some decent uptime, and great site speed stats. Uptime-wise, the company’s numbers shouldn’t fall below the 99% mark. There are some complaints found online that talk about the uptime fluctuating, sure, but the number should always sway around this specific mark. Not the best uptime, but still decent!

Site loading speed-wise, though, things are a lot better - anyone looking for the best free website hosting should consider the fact that Hostinger-hosted websites take around 1,2 seconds to load, from start to finish. Note that we’re talking about full load times, and not TTFBs - that’s actually great!

On top of that, something that you will see mentioned almost everywhere is the fact that the company is ideal for beginner web hosting enthusiasts. It’s extremely simple to use and navigate through, the dashboard (cPanel, hPanel - call it as you will) is intuitive and doesn’t overbear you with complex terminology and features, and everything is seemingly but a button’s click away from being accessible.

Now, then - as far as the actual best free website hosting is concerned, as mentioned earlier, Hostinger does have a free plan available. With this free plan, you will receive the chance to host a single website, with 300MB of HDD (not SSD!) storage, and the capability to support around 300 monthly visitors. There is no free email, SSL certificate, nor domain name - everything needs to be bought separately.

The catch here is that, if you were to purchase all of those things separately, you would be paying an insane amount of money for an almost completely-redundant hosting plan. While web hosting free is cool and all, you’re much better off purchasing an actual, paid hosting plan.

What is the Price of Hostinger Hosting?

If you’ve come to the conclusion that web hosting free options don’t really suit you, and you would actually like to receive some decent services for a very low cost, you’ll need to check out the price tags that are available with Hostinger:

No matter how you look at it, the fact of the matter remains the same - Hostinger is surely one of the most affordable hosting providers in the entire industry! With plans starting for as low as $0,99 per month, there is no reason not to check the hosting service out!

Visit Hostinger
...or read our Hostinger review

5. A2 Hosting - Very Fast Hosting, Great for More-Intricate Websites

Ranks #5 out of 7 Hosting Providers

While A2 Hosting isn’t exactly a name that many people would expect to see in a list of the best free website hosting companies (even if the list is comprised of ALMOST free hosting services), the web hosting features that A2 offers are actually rather affordable, especially when you consider all of the features that they bare.

To start things off, A2 is, admittedly, a very fast web hosting provider. Meaning, if you chose to create a website with the service in question, you can expect your website to load in around 800ms. That’s some truly fantastic speed, especially considering the fact that you yourself can optimize your website for it to load in an even faster manner!

Following that, A2 Hosting does also provide some surprising uptime statistics, too. Users claim that you can expect the uptime of your site to sway around the 99,96% mark, on average. Good stuff!

Following that, you then have some of the more-standard features that you’d come to expect from a high-end hosting provider - various guarantees, free website migration (this is significant!), helpful customer support, email accounts, SSL certificates, and so on.

Truth be told, A2 Hosting is actually one of the perfect examples of what I meant when I was talking about “high-end hosting services” at the beginning of this article! While the service is technically a paid one, when you consider all of the core, essential features that you receive, the price becomes very much justified!

This is especially true when you consider that the absolute majority (perhaps even all) of the free web hosting sites out there will not provide you with additional free domain names, SSL certificates, and other features - features that are key for your site’s success, and that you would have to then pay for, either way.

What is the Price of A2 Hosting?

Best free website hosting-related tangents aside, if you like what A2 has to offer, and are thinking about using the company’s hosting services for your own website creation and hosting needs, all that’s left to figure out are the pricing options of the service in question! They are, as follows:

Granted all of the things that we’ve discussed above, A2 is surely priced very adequately! Same as all other hosting providers on this list, the company does also have a money-back guarantee, too - if you’re not satisfied with the quality of service that you’ll receive, you can always get a full refund!

Visit A2 Hosting
...or read our A2 Hosting review

6. Hostwinds - Amazing Uptime, Helpful Customer Support

Ranks #6 out of 7 Hosting Providers

While Hostwinds is, admittedly, one of the less-known names in regards to website hosting, ironically enough, it is often seen as one of the best hosting providers in the industry, at least according to the individuals that have chosen to use it.

Why is that the case? Well, to be frank with you, there are actually quite a few reasons worth mentioning and considering.

First things first - uptime. Hostwinds can be proud of possessing some of the best uptime statistics on the entire market, not to mention among the best free website hosting providers - 99,97%. Numbers like these ensure that you should have no issues with your website being down for some reason, and the actual downtime percentage is less-than-noticeable, in general.

Following that, it’s worth noting that Hostwinds allows users to utilize a pretty wide array of features. The company uses SSD storage, the latest versions of the cPanel, has various auto-installations, and even a free dedicated IP address. If you value the security of your own, personal information, this is significant!

On top of that, by choosing Hostwinds, you will also receive unlimited disk space and bandwidth, too - while not being a free web hosting and domain service provider, Hostwinds surely does offer a lot of free features to its users!

Last but definitely not least, it’s worth mentioning that the company’s support team has been universally praised for being super-knowledgeable in regards to Hostwinds and web hosting service, in general, and for providing users with quick and actually-helpful answers to their inquiries. Good support is harder to find than you might think - and it’s definitely not something that you could expect from even the best free website hosting sites (actually free ones, that is)!

On the negative side of things, Hostwinds is reported to have a limited number of servers available for you to host your website on. This, in turn, leads to mediocre website loading speeds. That’s surely not ideal, but it’s not really a deal-breaking issue, either.

What is the Price of Hostwinds Hosting?

If you’ve decided that Hostwinds is the right web hosting provider for you - whether it be from the perspective of web hosting free services, or else -, all that’s left to do is to figure out the pricing options for the shared hosting services of the company in question. They are going to look a little something like this:

Evidently, Hostwinds isn’t the most-affordable hosting provider on this list. This is especially-so-evident if you were looking for the actual best free website hosting options! That being said, though, the services offered by Hostwinds still fall into the $7 per month budget that we’ve referenced at the beginning of this article, and the brand in question does also have a money-back guarantee, as well.

All in all, apart from being a higher-priced web hosting brand, Hostwinds is surely one of the best hosting providers out there!

Visit Hostwinds
...or read our Hostwinds review

7. SiteGround - A Top-Tier, Easy-to-Use Hosting Provider

Ranks #7 out of 7 Hosting Providers

If you’ve just started with your website hosting adventures, chances are that you might not have heard about SiteGround before. However, if you’ve already spent some time researching the topic, and know your ABSc of hosting, you should be aware that SiteGround is a true industry veteran, and is often viewed as being one of the better options in regards to hosting services, in general.

Now, a notable point to make here is that the company has barely made it into our list of the best free website hosting providers, due to the pricing options of its plans. Out of all of the almost-free services on this list, SiteGround is among the priciest. That said, if this isn’t too big of an issue for you, then it’s surely one of the top providers that you should be looking at!

What makes SiteGround so good, you may wonder? Well, let’s take a closer look.

First of all, the essentials. SiteGround is considered to be at the very top, uptime-wise. By using SiteGround, you can expect uptime statistics of around 99,98%. That’s truly astonishing! Simply put, you shouldn’t worry about any potential noticeable downtime, ever - it’s one of the best uptime stats in the whole industry!

Website loading speed-wise, things are also rather decent. The numbers should range at around the 1,1 second mark. For the vast majority of shared hosting enthusiasts, this is going to be more than enough!

Shared hosting aside, it’s worth pointing out that, same as all other hosting brands on this list, SiteGround does offer its users alternative hosting options, too - if you’re not a big fan of sharing server resources with other people, there are alternatives!

On top of all of that, SiteGround does also come with a wide selection of free features - ones that you would hardly ever find with any of the website hosting free providers out there! These features will include things such as an SSL certificate, CDN, daily backups, unmetered traffic, and more.

What is the Price of SiteGround Hosting?

Focusing on the shared hosting plans of the company in question, as mentioned earlier, SiteGround might just be one of the most expensive options on this list. The pricing that you can expect will look a little something like this:

As you can see, the beginner-oriented plan just barely fits our $7 benchmark. The point remains the same, though - if you’re looking for a reliable hosting provider with a good reputation and years of proven top-notch hosting, SiteGround is surely one of the better picks!

Visit SiteGround
...or read our SiteGround review

Conclusions

While this list of the best free website hosting services was, admittedly, a bit different than you might have expected upon initially visiting it, I would like to stress the point I made earlier once again - web hosting free services are, much more often than not, not worth the time and the effort. You are much, MUCH better off seeking out a low-priced hosting provider, trying it out, and getting your money back later, if you don’t like it.

That being said, if, at some point, pricing becomes less limiting of an aspect for you, do make sure to check out our list of the best hosting providers on the market. With the brands mentioned on this list, you can be sure that you’ll receive only the top-quality services!

Table: The pros and cons of Squarespace and Zyro

Lastly, you could also learn a bit about website builders, too! With the best builders out there, you could start creating amazing-looking websites, for some very low costs - with things like hosting being taken care of for you!

With that, I thank you for reading our list of the (sort of) best free website hosting providers! Until next time!


Recent Best Free Website Hosting User Reviews

5.0/5.0 - Hostinger User
2024-11-23

Very happy

I totally recommend Hostinger the fact that it is multilanguage its great. The price for the first great it's very affordable.

Evaluation
Price
UI / UX
Support
Features
Speed
5.0/5.0 - Hostinger User
2024-11-11

Best platform

A great way to build a website. I liked that the hosting its included. I wish the customer support was faster for technical issues.

Evaluation
Price
UI / UX
Support
Features
Speed
5.0/5.0 - Hostinger User
2024-10-29

Improved

Wow! Much better than goDaddy, I think it's easy to use but sometimes I would get lost. I think it's worth the money.

Evaluation
Price
UI / UX
Support
Features
Speed
4.8/5.0 - Hostinger User
2024-10-21

Amazing hosting

Hostinger supports WP, that made it possible for me to host my blog, it's the cheapest option I found online.

Evaluation
Price
UI / UX
Support
Features
Speed
4.8/5.0 - Hostinger User
2024-10-07

Free domain

Hostinger gave me the domain for free for two years, this was great and saved me money. I have nothing bad to say, the speed could improve.

Evaluation
Price
UI / UX
Support
Features
Speed

FAQ

Are the best free website hosting services worth it?

No, they are definitely not worth it. Even the best free website hosting providers are going to give you very low resources to work with - so much so, that you are frankly going to be stuck without really being able to do anything with your newly-created website (since you'd have to buy things like SSL certificates and domain names separately). You should always stick to reliable web hosting companies!

What's the difference between free and paid web hosting?

Free web hosting brands itself as a good way to "get a feel" for what hosting is all about. The reality, however, is far from that - you receive very limited amounts of site hosting resources, with none of the perks that you would actually get if you were to pay for the service. Thus, it's a much better idea to utilize a high-end hosting provider to host your website, straight from the get-go.

What are the main features of the best web hosting services providers?

The two core features that every single web hosting service provider should possess are top-tier uptime statistics, and high site speeds. There is a certain industry benchmark for both of these features, and all of the high-end hosting services should at least reach it. Additional features include automated backups, SSL certificates, unlimited storage, 24/7/365 customer support, and WordPress compatibility.

Can I transfer an already-existing website from one hosting service to another?

Yes, you can! The majority of the high-end website hosting providers will allow you to transfer your website completely free of charge. In most cases, you can also expect the customer support teams of these companies to help you with the transferring process, so that your website would remain intact all throughout it. This service, however, does often end up costing some money - the initial migration process, though, is often free.

Do web hosting services come with integrated website builders?

Some of them do, yes. This is something that solemnly depends on the website hosting service of your choice - the better-known hosting providers do often come with integrated site builders, with some more-prominent examples being Hostinger and HostGator. While the website builder integration is situation-dependent, you can expect the absolute majority of hosting services to support WordPress.

How is MyBestWebsiteBuilder different from other website builder review sites?

MyBestWebsiteBuilder aims to provide reliable and factually-correct information to all of its readers. Whether it be website hosting or the site builders that are related to hosting, in general, we provide readers with well-researched reviews that combine our own, personal experiences & observations with those expressed in the hosting service user feedback left online.