10 of the best free web hosts that’ll get your site up and running budget-style

Let’s go on a little field trip to the ’90s, back when the Spice Girls ruled the world, signing onto the internet was a very noisy affair, and texting on your phone wasn’t yet a thing. Ah, the precious memories.

Back then, the technology we know and love now was just beginning to force its way into our daily lives, and internet real estate was like pure gold. There were only a handful of free options for building websites — like GeoCities, Angelfire, and AOL — and man, they definitely looked like they were free. We’re talking bright and annoying colors, obnoxious fonts, and a bombardment of glittery GIFs if you were feeling really fancy. And, if you can imagine, you actually had to know a little bit of HTML coding to make that kind of website look remotely presentable (if we could even call it that). 

Fortunately, free web hosting services have come a long, long way from the infancy of the internet. In fact, crafting your very own sleek and professional website has never been easier (or cheaper!) than it is today thanks to an assortment of free web hosting services that take care of everything you need from start to finish. Best of all, you don’t even need to have any HTML or CSS coding to get started. Most web hosting services provide easy-to-use drag-and-drop interfaces that’ll inspire the confidence you need to create a site you’ll really want to show off to the world.

Whether you’re looking to launch your business, promote your personal brand or portfolio, or just have somewhere you can vent your thoughts for the whole world to see, a free web host can get you up and running in no time. Nowadays, just about anyone with a laptop or smartphone can build a website that’s fast and secure with their simple and easy tools. But, with all the options out there, it can be tough to find the best free web host that’s perfect for you. That’s why we’ve not only rounded up the best free web hosting services out there, but we’ve nailed down precisely what makes them better than others. 

What does a free web host do?

When it comes down to the bare bones of the matter, a hosting provider allows its customers to use their servers for storing files and content, and they usually offer some easy-to-use website building tools so you can put it all together in a visually pleasing package. All that stuff is then delivered to the world wide web in the form of your spiffy little website. 

Here, we’re talking about free web hosts, in particular, so you can get your internet presence established for a whopping zero dollars. Because of that frankly nonexistent price threshold, many of our favorite web hosting services did not make the cut for this roundup. However, that doesn’t mean that the free web hosts below are worthless. In fact, they’re pretty priceless. (See what we did there? Okay, we’ll stop.)

But seriously, the free web hosts that we’ve picked out offer precisely what you need to make a legit, good-looking home for yourself on the web, especially considering the fact that you won’t pay a dime for them.

Should I use free website hosting?

Nothing’s better than free, right? Well, yes and no. If you’re hoping to make your very first website and kind of just want to test out the internet waters a bit, a free web host can be an incredible option for you. It’ll help you learn the basics and figure out what you really want and need from your website, and many allow you to upgrade to bigger, more robust plans in the future if you find that you need more resources. Free web hosting is also a fantastic option if you don’t need to display a large amount of content, media, or information. For example, if you just need an online presence to act like a digital business card — with you or your business’s name and contact info — then there’s really no reason why you should sink any money into a web host as a free hosting plan will certainly do the trick.

However, if you’ve got a business that has a bit more growth potential, or you need to host a lot of high-quality media for a portfolio or the like, then a free website hosting service may not cut it for you. In these cases, it may be best to utilize a cheap web hosting site. These options are still incredibly economical at just a buck or two per month, and they should be able to offer you a lot more space to do what you’ve got to do. They’ll often provide far more ecommerce tools, as well, though a web host specifically made for small business websites may serve you even better.

That said, as long as you’re totally aware of what you’re getting for the price you’re not paying, then free site hosting is a fantastic choice. Fortunately, we’ve put in the research for you to find out which free web hosting sites are actually worth your time in our roundup below. 

What do you get with a free web hosting service?

When it comes to storage, some free web hosts might offer as little as 250MB which, honestly, is not much at all. However, if you just need a landing page to advertise your business’s services, hours, and contact info, then this amount of storage will work just fine for your needs. 

On the other hand, if you’ve got a lot of high-quality photos and videos to show off — maybe for an online portfolio if you work in the creative realm — then you’re going to need a lot more space. Some free web hosts will provide multiple gigabytes of storage, or even the holy grail of unlimited storage, so you should have no problem finding one to fit those needs as well.

Similarly, when it comes to bandwidth — or the amount of visitor traffic your site can handle — free web hosts run the gamut from 500MB to unlimited. You probably won’t run into many problems here, especially since many free web hosts fall on the “unlimited bandwidth” end of the spectrum. However, it is important to consider if you expect your site may see a ton of traffic at some point.

What about website builders?

A free web host is also likely to offer some easy website building tools, like a drag-and-drop interface that helps you create a good-looking site with a bit of customizability. If you have some coding knowledge, however, and you want to use it to really make your site your own, you will need to seek out a free web host with those capabilities.

Furthermore, if you intend for your site to function mainly as a blog, it would be best to consider a free web host with seamless WordPress integration, or opt for a WordPress hosting site with more robust options. WordPress, on its own, is already free, providing an open-source content management system (CMS) that’s perfect for creating attractive sites and blogs. WordPress allows you to do all of your website building and designing via their CMS, and you can host your site right there with them. But, if you so choose, you can take that content to a separate web host to gain a little more control over your site. A good web host for WordPress integration will ensure an easy transfer of content, and they’ll typically handle backend updates and all that other tech-minded stuff so you can focus solely on making great content.

What won’t you get with a free web hosting provider?

With a free web host, you shouldn’t expect to get your own domain, i.e. a website URL that looks like www.[domain].com. That sleekness and simplicity is a luxury you’ll have to pay for separately. However, you’ll probably be treated to free domain hosting so long as you’ve purchased your domain name somewhere else. If an individual domain is not necessary for your website, however, free web hosts almost always give customers at least one free subdomain. That is, your website URL will look more like www.YourWebHost.com/YourWebsiteName.

When it comes to site security, it’s actually somewhat rare — but not impossible — to find a free web host that will offer a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate at no cost. SSL is a protocol for authenticating and encrypting data, and ultimately instills visitors with the confidence that your site is safe to browse and conduct ecommerce. However, because ecommerce features are also not typically found at the free plan level for most (if not all) web hosting providers, then a free SSL certificate is usually not offered either.

The good news is that nearly all free web hosts do have paid plan options with these advanced features if your site demands them down the line. Just keep in mind that switching from one web host to another can make it difficult to migrate your content. So to avoid that potential headache, you may want to start off with a web host that has a free plan, but also offers plans with the features you think you may want in the future. Staying with the same host in the long-term will just make it so much easier to upgrade if or when it’s needed.

What’s the difference between shared hosting, cloud hosting, and other web hosting options?

When it comes to free web hosts, you’re likely going to be building your site on a shared server or, more specifically, a cloud server. Traditional shared servers host data on a physical machine, while cloud hosting utilizes multiple, interconnected servers that exist solely in a virtual environment (a.k.a “the cloud”) for better stability and dependability regardless of geographic location. In either case, your site will be hosted on a server alongside other people’s sites, meaning that you all share the same resources, such as storage and bandwidth. No one will be able to see your files or data — or vice versa — but you’ll essentially live on the same plot of internet land (or cloud, for that matter). This means that if someone else’s site gets a ton of traffic, it could affect your own site’s performance. 

Shared hosting and cloud hosting are essentially your only options for free web hosts. But, if you want to put a little money behind your site, a dedicated host can give you a server all to yourself so you would never have to worry about another person’s site slowing yours down to a crawl. You could also opt for a virtual private server (VPS) to share your site’s resources with a smaller number of other sites. The only downside to these more private options? They will cost you a pretty penny, as they’re really not even offered with cheap web hosting plans, let alone free ones.

So now that you know what a good web host does (and does not) provide for free, you should have a pretty good idea of whether or not it’s the right option for you. If you’re committed to building your own little — and we mean little — corner of the web with a free host, you’ll find that you actually have a seemingly endless number of options to choose from. Since most free web hosting plans exist simply to rope customers into paying for premium plans, however, not all free web hosts deliver on their promises. But don’t worry — we’ve got your back with these 10 picks.