Deciding Between Free and Paid Hosting
There are many types of web hosting on the market as the options range from dedicated servers to niche variations like Windows and Linux hosting. For most customers however, the decision often boils down to these two choices: free or paid hosting. Indeed, free hosting really does exist and many customers are taking advantage of this option. However, there are a number of factors that must be considered in your decision to take the free or paid route. Let’s go over some of them.
Your Web Presence
The biggest advantage of free hosting is pretty obvious – no money is involved. Thus, if money is tight and you have come to the conclusion that this is your best option, free hosting may be ideal for you. In moving forward, you sign up for the service and now what? Before getting ahead of yourself, let’s first consider some of the disadvantages. We will start with the domain that allows visitors to find you on the web. When opting for a free web hosting solution, you will likely be provided with a domain name that resembles: “freehostservice.com/yourwebsite”. While this is okay for some users, it is not suitable for most, especially those trying to establish a business and credible web presence. For these customers, having ownership of their domain is crucial.
Resources and Features
Another disadvantage of free hosting is the limitations on vital resources and features. If you take this route, be warned that you will probably have very little disk space at your disposal. Once again, this isn’t necessarily a problem for someone who only needs a personal homepage that will be accessed by family and friends. On the other hand, if your plans call for a large number of files or pages, the amount of disk space provided by a free hosting service probably will not be sufficient for your needs. The same usually holds true for bandwidth, another important resource you can’t afford to be without. Bandwidth is crucial because it supports the visitors who come to your site as well as the activities they perform. The last thing you want potential customers to see when they visit your site is a message stating “This site has exceeded its bandwidth allowance.” If you were establishing trust within your audience, this is a surefire way to stifle it.
When taking a look around the hosting marketplace, you will observe features such as PHP, Perl, MySQL, FrontPage extensions and cPanel among others. These are offerings you generally don’t get with a free hosting plan. When you are not paying for the service, such features can be quite scarce and almost non-existent. This could send your plans to a crashing halt, especially if there is no way for you to incorporate a shopping cart and sell your goods or services online.
Conclusion
In the end, there are so many drawbacks to free hosting that listing them in a single article would be impossible. Therefore, it is recommended that you take careful consideration before making a decision. Professional web hosting services are very affordable these days and with a good company behind you, this could prove to be a worthy investment.
