Web Hosting Reviews & Ratings

October 13, 2011

Free Web Hosts – Several Good Choices

“There ain't no such thing as a free lunch” quipped one famous author.  As this applies to the web hosting world, there are plenty of “free lunches” that aren't worth even that price.  A free host is susceptible to just disappearing one day, or may impose on you enough restrictions that you may feel compelled to shell out a few bucks.  With web hosting so affordable these days it may be hard to think that any free host is worth the risk.

Not everyone has the same needs, though.  More importantly, not all free web hosts feel like free hosts.  If you accept that you (of course) aren't going to get the same level of features as a for-pay host, then there are plenty of free web hosts that are solid and reliable.  Let's take a look at a few options we suggest.

1) X10Hosting

X10Hosting has promised “Free Hosting Since 2004”, and their professional looking web site gives the impression of a company that has done so consistently.  They promise unmetered disk space and bandwidth: we're normally skeptical of this kind of claim, but they've gotten strong customer reviews.  They also include cPanel11 with their accounts.

2) ProfuseHost

ProfuseHost doesn't offer the same unlimited promise as X10Hosting.  If that really means that much to you, their lowest package that does is available for a puny $1.49/month (at their sister company ChimeHost).  Still, if free is what you are in the market for, then their accounts still come with a sizable menu of scripting, software and database options.

3) 1FreeHosting

If 1FreeHosting's fire-red website design doesn't catch your eye, the fact that they offer 10GB space, 100GB/month of bandwidth and no required banner ads for their free accounts might.  Their accounts also come with 5 free subdomains, 5 free MySQL databases and 5 free email accounts.

4) RackPage

RackPage also offers a good data limit combination, with 5GB space and a massive 300GB/month bandwidth.  If even that isn't enough, single users are allowed to have multiple accounts open at once.  Their supported scripting software includes PHP, Perl and Python, and they also don't require ads.

5) FreeHostingNoAds

Add FreeHostingNoAds to the list of free hosts that don't require banner ads.  Add to that 2GB of storage space and 10GB month of transfer.  Then add to that a long list of features that includes cron jobs, the ability to manage your domain's zone file and MX records, customer error pages, .htaccess modification and a free web site builder.  It all adds up nicely.

6) 0000cost

0000cost (that's 4 zeroes) is one of the few free hosts that will let you play with Ruby on Rails, the hot new web application framework.  Their free hosting service is only a few months old, but it bears noting that, for their low-cost paid accounts, they have partnered with iPage, one of the largest web hosts in existence.  This should help guarantee their long-term reliability.

Costs are so low on the web now that going cheap doesn't have to make you feel cheap.  If you want a quality web host available for the low, low price of nothing, check out one of the companies above.  They just might show you that “free” doesn't have to always come with a catch.

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