Anjukeer
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- Aug 31, 2020
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Best free web hosting of 2020?
- 1. Infinityfree
Best overall free web hosting
Disk space: Unlimited | Domain hosting: Unlimited | Monthly traffic: Unlimited Bandwidth | Subdomains: Unlimited | Email accounts: 10 | FTP accounts: 1 | MySQL databases: 400
Unlimited storage/bandwidth
400 MySQL databases
Average load times
In the world of free website hosting, Infinityfree stands out for good reasons. It has a well-designed website that makes a positive impression and ticks the right boxes for us. Its homepage gets a C performance grade in our load time test but other than that, it looks pretty solid.
Infinityfree has been in the business for over six years, claims to have 300,000 users, and offers unlimited disk space and bandwidth (albeit with a very generous 50,000 daily hits). You can host as many domains as you want but you will only get 10 email accounts and one FTP to upload your content.
There are no hidden fees and despite its free status, you will get a 99.9% uptime guarantee (although that said, you are more or less on your own if your site goes down) and the popular Softaculous script installer with more than 400 applications.
We were surprised to see that this provider's features list includes 400 MySQL databases (where others give only a handful if any at all), a free DNS service, free SSL, and free Cloudflare CDN. That's impressive for a free offering.
As expected Infinityfree also sells cheap paid-for hosting (Infinityfree Ultimate Premium) that offers unlimited everything for $6.90 per month, which is worth an upgrade as you will also get access to Cloudflare Railgun, which cuts load times significantly.
- 2. Byethost
Quick and easy hosting
Disk space: 5GB | Domain hosting: 1 | Monthly traffic: Unlimited | Subdomains: 7 | Email accounts: 5 | FTP accounts: 1 | MySQL databases: 5
Good support
Easy to use
Limited server space
Byethost is part of Byet Internet, a US-based provider of hosting, domain name, and reseller services. With more than one million websites hosted, Byethost claims that its free hosting service is "one of the most powerful networks dedicated solely to free hosting in the world."
Users are given 5GB of server space, unlimited monthly bandwidth, and MySQL / PHP compatibility. They also benefit from 24/7 tech support, which is obviously a boon, as well as access to Byethost's community and knowledgebase.
Furthermore, if you are ever interested in becoming a free web hosting provider yourself, Byethost operates a separate entity, that allows you to do just that.
- 3. Googiehost
A free host that gives you cPanel and Cloudflare
Disk space: 1GB | Domain hosting: 1 | Monthly traffic: Unlimited | Subdomains: 2 | Email accounts: 2 | FTP accounts: 2 | MySQL databases: 2
100GB of data
2 FTP accounts
Free SSL
The site doesn’t inspire trust
Worrying security errors
You could easily confuse Googiehost with Google host, a cheeky way of getting some attention. However, the eight-year-old Googiehost still remains one of the better options in a not-so-great bunch of free web hosting providers.
That said, the company’s website inspires little confidence. The small print copyright notice extends until 2021 rather than 2020, presumably to protect against potential infractions by time travelers. Also, odd grammatical mistakes abound – Lastest, Trusted, Powerfull – that sort of thing (and at the time of writing, there are apparently '2,12,020' users all over the world).
Still, it’s not all bad. This is the only provider here to come with cPanel and Cloudflare, albeit in its free form. However, note that we experienced a few instances where the dreaded “your connection is not private” popped up on our screen when trying to access cPanel. That’s never a good sign as Chrome is identifying it as a “not secure” property.
Googiehost’s revenue model relies on some of its free websites converting to paid-for affairs via Interserver.net. Plus it does run a few banner ads on the control panels and on its own website – but not on the users’ sites.
A last caveat: You need to provide a reason for the firm to accept your website, a special version of Recaptcha, and a surprising way to weed out spammers.
- 4. FreeHostingNoAds
A good alternative to Googiehost
Disk space: 1GB | Domain hosting: 1 | Monthly traffic: 5GB | Subdomains: 3 | Email accounts: 1 | FTP accounts: 1 | MySQL databases: 1
Largest file size limit
Straightforward installation
3 subdomains
Very limited 1-click install
Limited disk space and bandwidth
Free Hosting No Ads delivers just what it says on the tin: Free web hosting without any adverts. The brand is owned by Runhosting, an established web hosting provider that offers unlimited disk space and unlimited traffic for as little as $2.39 per month.
As expected, though, FreeHostingNoAds offers a small subset of what you get with a paid-for account and uses the same dashboard as Batcave (1GB/5GB/1 domain) and FreeHostingEU (200MB/4GB/5 domains). The latter are two other free web hosting providers that share an identical set of features with FreeHostingNoAds, and may well be part of the same family.
An SSL certificate, which will give you the all-important security padlock in browsers, will set you back an eye-watering $30. The control panel, via Zacky Tools Installer, is extremely limited, with either Grav, WordPress, or Joomla being offered as one-click installs. However, you will be able to install your own should you want to do so – but bear in mind that the file size limit is only 15MB.
Creating a new account is straightforward, but we were slightly concerned by the fact that the account emails landed straight in our spam box, a sign that some sites hosted by FreeHostingNoAds might be on a deny list.
