Why Use Free Hosting?

You can usually get hosting for just a few $$ these days, but still, what is the point when you can get it for free? There are hundreds of free hosts out there that can save you a lot of money and offer a top service and have a great up-time record.

When looking for a free host you should really spend some time sifting through all the offers and choosing the best one for you and your website.

These are some of the things to look out for when choosing a free host:

Space - How many MB or GB is the free host offering you?

Bandwidth - How much monthly bandwidth can you consume?

Advertisements - Will the free host force ads onto your site?

Languages - Depending on the language you have coded your website in you will need an appropriate hosting that supports that language (PHP, ASP etc)

Databases - Does the host support your required database? E.g. MySQL - If so, how many databases do they offer you? How many databases will your site require?

Email - Does the free host offer you email? Can you setup multiple email addresses? If so, how many?

Up Time - Does the site have a good up-time record? Spending a lot time designing/coding an amazing website would be completely wasted if the hosting servers kept going down and no-one could visit your site!

If you take the time to do a little research before choosing your free host then you can certainly save yourself a lot of money. Consider all of the items that are mentioned above, and as long as they meet your requirements of a host then go for it! One major thing to look for is regarding forced advertisements. You may have a great looking site but your free host may force a large banner along the top or bottom of your site and completely ruin the design. Try and find a host that does not force advertisements, there are plenty around! - by James I Davidson