If you are a blogger or a newcomer in the blogging industry, then you must have thought that there would also be some web hosting who give their services for free.
Some of you might also have been using them. InfinityFree and 000WebHost are some of the generally used free web hosting providers.
But there’s a question that would have been coming on your mind, that is “free vs. paid web hosting- Which hosting to use? ”.
Both pain and free web hosting are very useful, but it depends upon your needs that which one should you go for now. So below there are mentioned some of the advantages and disadvantages of free and paid web hosting and also which one should you go for.
What is a free web hosting?
These web hosting providers let you host your website for free, forever. But it’s not that true because if they provide their services for free, then they are not going to earn. So, it just seems that they are letting you host your website for free, but actually they aren’t.
They only don’t ask you for money, but in exchange, they use your website to get a link to their website which helps in ranking their own website.
They also show their ads on your webpages, which eventually helps them generate earnings.
Just imagine you have a business on something and you have made a website on your business. And, have hosted your site on a free hosting website. They are going to show ads irrelevant ads which can destroy your branding and irritate your visitors.
Some of the free web hosting providers are:
- 000WebHost
- InfinityFree
- x10Hosting
- AwardSpace
- FreeHosting
What is a paid web hosting?
These web hosting providers let you host your website for some bucks. They have a lot of options depending upon your needs. You get an option to host your website with low traffic to massive traffic and their cost depends upon the type of services you choose for.
If you are a beginner, then you can go for cheap rate shared web hosting and if you have massive business which has a lot of traffic, then you can go for Virtual Private Servers (VPS) or Dedicated Servers. They are very reliable and the best option for those who are serious in blogging or business.
Some of the Paid web hosting providers are:
- Bluehost
- HostGator
- Hostinger
- SiteGround
- GoDaddy
Advantages and disadvantages of free web hosting:
There are more disadvantages of free web hosting than advantages.
Advantages:
- Free of cost – Obviously, the free web hosting providers let you host your website for free. It is a great advantage for newcomers in this industry. If you are new to the blogging industry, then you should go for free web hosting.
This will let you test your website. You can host multiple numbers of sites here and try them. If you are a starter, then a free web hosting provider would be an excellent choice for you.
And also if you are a professional blogger or you are serious in blogging then also free web hosting provider is very useful for you. You can do a lot of things in the free web server. You can use it to test different things for your website.
Disadvantages:
- Forced Advertisements – Free web hosting providers don’t have any way to earn an income that is why they force ads on their customer’s website. They are not charging you money for the hosting, but somehow they need money for keeping their servers running. And generating income by showing ads on a customer’s website is the easiest way to generate revenue.
- Lack Of Customer Support – As expected, free hosting providers have terrible Customer Support. Obviously, they aren’t making enough money that they can power their customer support system. That is why they don’t have a great customer support.
- Uptime – Free web hosting providers have drastic up-times. Some of them even regularly go down for one or two hours daily. They need to do maintenance of their servers, and when they are not getting paid then surely, they won’t care about customer needs. They do their maintenance without shifting the websites to another server.
- Limited Bandwidth and Disk Space – They provide web hosting for free, but most of them just offer minimal disk space and bandwidth. And when bandwidth is limited then obviously, you cannot scale your website. This is because they place a lot of customers on a single server. This is why they have to provide limited bandwidth and disk space.
Advantages and disadvantages of paid web hosting:
There are more advantages of free web hosting than disadvantages.
Advantages:
- Reliability – Paid web hosting providers web servers are in excellent condition and have a high up-times, sometimes up to 99.99%. You need to pay to use their web servers, and this is because they can afford to give you better services.
- Customer Support – Paid web hosting companies have professional customer support because they can afford to pay the employees who work for them. And they already include their cost of customer support in the plans so that they can provide you 24×7 support.
- Scaling – companies Maybe your website is small today, but there will be a time when you will have to add more pages, elements, etc. to your site. And maybe your website needs more bandwidth to serve the huge traffic. In this condition, paid web hosting providers to have a lot of options to go for.
- Security – Paid web hosting providers invest a lot in security and a better firewall. No doubt, security breaches are going to happen one day, this is why
paid hosting providers prepare with the best available security features and the latest technologies so that they can defend against the attacks of the hackers.
Which one should you go for?
Now the most important question comes in that which one of the paid and free hosting providers will be best for you. By reading the above advantages and disadvantages, you must have got to know that a paid web hosting provider is a lot more reliable when compared with a free web hosting provider.
It’s clear with the number of disadvantages of free hosting provider that you can never scale your website on a free web hosting. It might seem that free web hosting is free, but it takes a lot more back in exchange. For saving a few bucks, you might end up in losing a lot more dollars.
Currently, the expensive days have gone. Some paid web hosting providers give reliable web hosting in such a cheap rate that you need not have to go for a free hosting provider.
If you are starting up and not sure what is your future in the blogging industry and you want to try out, then you can go for a free web hosting provider.
Or also if you are already in this industry and want to customize your website, then you can have a free web server where you can copy your website and start customizing it.
But if you want to be serious in this industry, then you will have to go for a paid web hosting. Without a good service, you can never scale your website. And paid web hosting providers to have a lot of services to give for small to large sites.
Wrapping It Up
It would be better to start with the best option available for you. Web hosting prices are beginning with a single buck, and they are providing excellent quality services.
Then why should you go for free web hosting which has terrible services when you can get such excellent quality service in a single buck.
I hope that this article would have cleared all your misconceptions and, you would be starting your journey with the best available and affordable services.
Help your friends and colleagues who have similar questions and misconceptions by sharing this article. Don’t forget ‘sharing is caring.