12 Best Free Website Hosting Compared (2022)
Do you want to start up a new website and find the best free hosting for websites?
Because more and more people are looking for free hosting websites options, we have selected the best free hosting services and providers for 2022.
Remember that even though the best things in life are free, not all free website hosting offers are as good as others.
Here are the best free hosting companies and the best affordable web hosting services for 2022, with all of their main features, pros, and cons.
The “Truth” About Free Website Hosting Service
People today realize that setting up a website is the most efficient way to make their messages, businesses, products, and services reach a wider audience.
But not everybody is ready to break the bank when building and running a website. In fact, most of us prefer to find the easiest, fastest, and least expensive option for setting up a website and hosting it.
Today there are many hosting companies offering free hosting services. But please note that in many cases, there is a hidden catch in these “completely free” offers.
The truth of the matter is, though, that hosting is expensive to run and maintain, so you can’t expect that a free website hosting provider will be giving everything away completely free.
In some cases, the hosting company will compensate for its free website hosting sites and services by running ads on your website. In others, your website may have limited traffic, or you will be constantly urged to upgrade to a paid hosting plan.
These factors can be annoying for you and the visitors to your site and may hurt your website’s popularity or your business.
So, unless you create a very simple test site, relying on a free hosting plan and running a free website with hosting is not recommended, especially for business websites and online stores.
So, what should you do if you want to have a successful website but are on a tight budget?
No matter what type of website you plan for, we have selected the best free hosting for websites and almost free web hosting sites and solutions that will work for any need and budget in this article.
Each of the hosting providers on our list which offers to host a website for free, provides its clients a 100% guarantee that their website will remain free for as long as they want.
Then again, if you are planning to build and run a website with serious business or other intentions, we strongly recommend that you choose an inexpensive paid hosting plan instead of relying on a hosting website for free.
The majority of these hosting providers have low-cost plans which can cost as little as $2.75 to $5 per month and include a free domain name, SSL certificate for website security, email accounts, website building, and ecommerce tools and functionalities. This is a pretty good deal, especially if you plan to monetize your website.
For a sum as low as 2 to 5 dollars, your website will be safe, running smoothly and you will hopefully have access to useful tech support to resolve any bugs or problems with your site. Plus, you will still have complete ownership of your site, unlike most services that offer free website hosting.
This is why we have added the best free web hosting and the least expensive, almost free website hosting providers to our best free web hosting list as well.
Best Value “Almost-Free” Website Hosting
We have picked the best reputable hosting providers with hosting plans for all types of websites and budgets.
They are some of the best options for those looking for ways to start an online business or promote your existing small business to more customers.
Some of our top picks for the best affordable website hosting companies are officially backed by and recommended by the leading website building platforms like WordPress because of their reliability, high quality, and excellent services provided.
They are the best options for those who are serious about their websites and are looking for the best deal for hosting.
1. Bluehost
Bluehost is among the biggest and most popular website hosting companies globally. The hosting service is officially recommended by the most famous and widely used open-source website builder, WordPress.
Although it doesn’t offer web hosting for free, the hosting company offers inexpensive shared hosting. The basic plan is just $2.95 per month (for a 3-year subscription), including hosting for one website, 50GB of SSD storage, access to themes, a free domain name for 1 year, a free SSL certificate, and CDN, and 24/7 customer support.
If you have more than one website, there is another inexpensive Bluehost offer for you. The Plus plan costs $5.45 per month for a 36-month term and includes unlimited websites, unlimited storage, free Office 365 for 30 days, a free domain for a year, free SSL certificate, CDN, and themes, and access to swift 24/7 customer help.
You can sign up for the Choice Plus plan for added security, which costs just $4.95 per month and includes a free automatic backup of your websites and domain privacy for free.
The Pro plan costs $13.95 per month and includes everything from the other plans, plus a free dedicated IP address.
Users will receive a $100 boost for Google Ads, indexing with Google, guaranteed maximum uptime, and the ability to upgrade when your business starts growing.
Bluehost also offers one-click preinstalled WordPress for every website too.
For websites with high traffic, there are more expensive VPS hosting subscription plans offered by Bluehost.
2. SiteGround
SiteGround is another excellent hosting company that offers web hosting, WordPress hosting, WooCommerce hosting, and Cloud hosting for all preferences, needs, and budgets.
Each site comes with website builder options, one-click WordPress installation, updates, migration, and support. You can also have experts from the company to transfer an existing WordPress site to SiteGround for free.
SiteGround has some very affordable plans for starters, with the StartUp plan costing just $6.99 per month. This plan includes one website hosting, 10GB storage, unmetered traffic, free SSL and CDN, daily backups, unlimited databases, and WordPress. It is sold with a 30-day money-back warranty.
The other plans you can upgrade to include: the GrowBig plan costing $9.99 per month, and the GoGeek plan, which costs $14.99 per month and provides 40GB storage, speed boosting, easy staging, and backing up copies of the site during the development, access to the highest tier of resources, and priority support.
SiteGround offers special plans for students and faculty. The student plan costs just $1.99 per month, and the Faculty Partnership plan offers completely free web host sites and provides free accounts for the students for the course and LMS integration.
3. HostGator
HostGator is among the leaders in the hosting provider industry. The company has been providing high-quality services for nearly two decades now and is among the world’s largest web hosting companies.
HostGator has become such a successful hosting company because of its top-notch services and its affordable prices, reliability, and customer support.
You can get started with a Hatchling plan at HostGator for only $2.75 per month, and you will receive a free domain for a year, a free SSL certificate, WordPress installation from the control panel, free website transfer, unmetered bandwidth, and a guarantee for 99.99% uptime. This is one of the cheapest alternatives to picking a website with free hosting and with all limitations of free website host services.
The Baby Plan is the top-recommended option for new users. It includes unlimited domains and everything else offered with the hatchling plan and costs only $3.95 per month. There is also a very affordable Business plan with an introductory price of $5.95 per month and includes unlimited domains, free dedicated IP, an upgrade to Positive SSL, and free SEO tools.
All plans come with 24/7 customer support, unlimited disk space and bandwidth, the free HostGator website builder, free email accounts, and $150 Google Ads and $100 Bing Ads credits. Plus, HostGator offers an industry-leading 45-day money-back satisfaction guarantee.
4. DreamHost
DreamHost is among the first and longest-running hosting companies in the world. It was founded back in 1997 and is currently hosting millions of websites. It has been picked as “Editor’s Choice” by PCMag for 5 years as the best hosting service.
DreamHost offers excellent inexpensive hosting plans, including WordPress hosting starting at $2.59 per month, website hosting for $2.59 a month, and a dot COM domain name costing $6.99.
The WordPress Starter plan costs $2.59 per month (for a 3-year subscription) includes hosting for 1 website, a free domain, free SSL security certificate, preinstalled WordPress, WP Website builder, free WordPress website migration, and unlimited traffic.
The WordPress Unlimited plan costs only $4.95 per month and provides hosting for unlimited sites.
WordPress.org recommends this hosting service.
For website owners, the Starter plan costs $3.95 per month for 1 year. It includes 1 website, a free domain, unlimited traffic and bandwidth, preinstalled WordPress, free migrations, WP website builder, and 24/7 customer support.
The company offers a drag and drop website builder and quick start wizard, more than 200 themes, and SEO recommendations in real-time for its customers, so you can set up a website from scratch even if you have zero experience or coding skills.
5. Just Host
Just Host is another top pick when it comes to the best, almost free website hosting services.
The hosting provider offers low-cost hosting plans, which are perfect for starters on a limited budget.
The special intro price offered for the Basic plan is $3.95 per month. It includes 1 website, 50GB of storage, unlimited bandwidth, a free domain, 5 parked domains, 25 subdomains, 5 email accounts, a free SSL site security certificate, and 24/7 phone customer support.
The Plus plan costs $6.95 per month. It supports unlimited websites, disk space, unlimited storage, unmetered bandwidth, unlimited parked domains, sub-domains, email accounts, unlimited email storage, and $200 for marketing and ads.
The Choice Plus plan offered by Just Host also costs $6.95 per month and offers everything from the other accounts plus $200 for marketing and ads, $80+ in extras, spam, privacy, and backup protection.
If you want to upgrade, you can Go Pro for only $14.95 per month and receive everything from the other plans as well as hosting on a high-performance server and more.
Best Free Hosting Sites
If you still are willing to set up a website with hosting which is entirely free, there are some 100% free web hosts and free plan options offered on the market right now.
Here is the list of the best completely free hosting providers for 2022.
6. WordPress.com
WordPress.com is a very popular web hosting provider and platform which offers a completely free website hosting plan.
WordPress.com shouldn’t be confused with the famous WordPress.org open-source web builder, which is the basis of nearly 40% of all websites around the world.
With WordPress.com, you can sign up for a free website hosting plan, and you will get a wordpress.com subdomain, 3GB of storage space, free website templates, and email customer help from the support team.
If you decide to upgrade your free website hosting to a paid plan, you can subscribe to the Premium plan for $8 and get a domain name, custom CSS, Google Analytics tools, design tools, and more. The Business plan costs $25 per month, and the WordPress Ecommerce plan is $45.
WordPress.com offers built-in marketing tools, ecommerce tools, and a mobile app to manage and edit your site on the go.
7. Wix
Wix website builder is among the most popular website builders and web hosting companies in the world.
It offers a free hosting plan which includes an assigned URL and a wixsite.com subdomain. There are also Wix ads displayed on each page and a favicon in the URL. The free Wix plan comes with up to 500 MB disk space storage and up to 500MB bandwidth.
Suppose you want more storage, a custom domain name, unlimited bandwidth, Google Analytics, ecommerce tools, and premium customer support. In that case, you will need to upgrade from a free host to a Premium plan of your choice.
Related: Detailed Wix eCommerce Review
8. Weebly
Weebly is another leader in the website builder industry. The company offers one of the easiest to use web builders on the market, which will allow newbies and non-tech savvy users to set up their website in a matter of minutes.
Weebly offers new users a free site and then if they decide to upgrade to a paid plan.
The free web hosting plan includes ads displayed on each page, a Weebly subdomain, and up to 500MB of storage, plus access to a free website builder.
Weebly’s offer is among the best free plans offered on the market thanks to the access provided to a wide array of ecommerce tools and features, an ability to add unlimited products, in-store pickup, social media integration, gift cards as well as unlimited phone support.
9. GoDaddy Website Builder
GoDaddy is the leading domain name registrar and one of the top hosting companies in the world.
GoDaddy also has an in-house drag and drop website builder, which is incredibly easy to use even by beginners.
While GoDaddy’s free web hosting plan is actually a trial period, you will still get 30 days to try out the website builder and all tools available with the GoDaddy plans, thanks to the 30-day money-back guarantee offered by the site builder and hosting platform.
The paid upgrade options start from $9.99 per month when billed annually. They include SSL security, custom domain, 24/7 customer support, guidance, analytic tools, social media integration, email marketing of up to 100 emails per month, branded content creator, mobile app editing on the go, and a business email account address.
10. Squarespace
Squarespace is another top-preferred website builder platform that enables users with no coding or technical skills to build beautiful, professional-looking websites. Thanks to the drag and drop editor, and professionally designed templates, anyone can create a website quickly and easily.
While Squarespace doesn’t have a completely free web hosting plan, you can sign up for the free 14-day trial without entering your credit card information.
This means that you can build your mobile-optimized website using the Squarespace web builder and the templates offered. Still, you will have to upgrade to a paid plan if you decide to get your website running and make it public.
Squarespace is suitable for creating all types of websites, including personal sites, portfolios, blogs, online stores, small businesses, events, and more.
The paid plans start from $12 per month when paid annually for the Personal plan. The plan includes a free custom domain, SSL certificate, unlimited storage and bandwidth, basic metrics, access to the Squarespace extensions and templates, 2 contributors, SEO tools, and 24/7 customer support.
11. Google Cloud Hosting
You may not be aware that Google also offers cloud web hosting, but the fact is that the company has excellent hosting plans and solutions for all types of customers, needs, and businesses.
There are completely free web hosting plans for small businesses and students, allowing them to set up a website or online store and get started.
The free web hosting plans offered by Google Cloud Hosting are all pay-per-use based, and the free plans come with a $300 credit for new users. This sum is sufficient for setting up and running the free website for a year. The free web hosting plan provides Firebase, Google maps API, and other resources and tools. Google will not auto-charge your credit card when the free trial is over.
It is an excellent platform to choose if you want to test a website via a convenient free web hosting service.
You can set up any type of site on the Google Cloud Platform.
12. Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the platform behind some of the most popular websites. It is one of the best free web hosting web hosts for beginners and students who want to learn and expand their web development skills.
The AWS Free Tier plans offer 12 months of free use. They include a wide variety of plans that can help new developers master a wide variety of web development and web management skills.
AWS also offers always free web hosts plans and free trials for many of its plans, so you can browse through the options to pick the plans you may be interested in.
With the help of these useful free plans, you can work on your analytics, database, developer, machine learning, storage, computing, game tech, and many other tech skills.
Hopefully, we have helped you pick the best free web hosting provider and service for your specific needs.
Although using completely free hosting is tempting, it is recommended that you upgrade to a paid service if you want to have a professional and recognizable custom domain and to remove any ads or limitations to your website traffic, storage, and get access to valuable features and tools.
Thankfully, as you can see from our list, there are some excellent budget-friendly and reasonably priced hosting services and packages you can sign up for if you want to take advantage of all the tools and features offered by the hosting services without breaking the bank.
Good luck with finding the best free hosting service and with your new website!
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