There’s no running away from the fact that everyone needs a website. It is true that the small business owners, startups and new entrepreneurs are allured with the concept of free web hosting as it cuts down the overall cost to some extent. It’s essential to explore key distinctions between free hosting vs paid hosting to find the solution that meets your specific requirements.
Free Hosting for Beginners
Getting started with the free hosting solution offers a low-risk opportunity, allowing you to test with basic tools without any upfront cost. That said, growth can be limited by minimal bandwidth, fewer customization choices, and a lack of support. Free hosting for beginners works initially, but complex projects demand features that are part of paid solutions.
Go through the 10 points mentioned below, they will help you decide what is best for you!
– Reliability
Reliability emerges as the central aspect in the debate of free web hosting vs paid web hosting. Generally, the free web hosting platforms do not provide the same uptime like the one provided by the paid web hosting companies. This is because a proper server infrastructure is required to provide good uptime and speed to websites. So if you opt for a free web hosting platform, you might experience downtime to your website at some instances or it may also happen that a free web hosting platform might not be completely capable of handling the traffic spikes on your website. After all your business is made from the convenience of your customers and visitors. Slightest incontinence because of a slow website or because of a website that is down at random times could mean loss of customers. Most of the professional web hosting platforms guarantee 99% uptime which is a necessity for your business website.
– Search Engine Rankings
Every business wants to achieve a higher search engine ranking, but it is important to understand every factor that affects the search engine rankings of your website. At times, free web hosting providers display irrelevant ads or unprofessional links on your website that affect the stature of your website. Moreover, the free hosting platforms are also known to be used by the spammers for creating dummy websites. All these factors are noticed by the search engines, and this has an adverse effect on your search engine rankings. The businesses that opt for professional paid web hosting services will never encounter these issues; they will have better search engine rankings and also a reputed online visibility.
– Bandwidth And Storage Space
Professional web hosting providers like MilesWeb provide a wide array of web hosting packages that have different variations of bandwidth and storage space. You can make an appropriate selection according to your website requirements. The free solution often includes limited bandwidth and restricted storage in terms of free vs paid hosting. Providing sufficient bandwidth and storage space to the customers requires a complete infrastructure working in the backend; therefore, it is obvious that a genuine web hosting company will charge for it. Share on X If you opt for a free web hosting package, everything might look good in the beginning but as your website grows and when you need to unload or transfer video files, photos or other media files, things will start getting difficult for you. With limited hosting resources and with limited amount of support for growth from the web hosting company, your website will often encounter issues like slowing down and downtime.
– Support and Assistance
It is a fact that the free hosting providers do not offer immediate support for technical issues. It is not mandatory that every website owner has complete technical knowledge, therefore in the absence of a timely web hosting support, you might have to deal with many technical and customer issues instead of focusing on business growth. Lack of technical support is especially a significant issue for the websites that work with MySQL databases, PHP and Pearl scripts. With paid hosting services, every business has access to 24/7 technical support, thus making their work easier and hassle free.
– Customized Error Pages
With a free web hosting platform, you won’t be able to create customized error pages. Error pages are utilized by the web server to let the visitor know that there has been an error, this might happen if the visitor types the wrong URL of a page or tries to access a page that is not present in the website. With a free hosting account, the web hosting company’s stock error page will be displayed to the visitor, and this page will not give them any directions to find what they are looking for. The result – the visitor will be confused and he/she will leave your website.
This is not the case with a paid web hosting account! A paid hosting account provides you complete control over your website and your hosting account. You can design customized error pages for your customers/visitors and display them when a visitor tries to access a wrong page or page URL. With a customized error page and directions to navigate to some other page, the visitor will not feel lost and will try to explore your website further. The result – you won’t lose a visitor who got on your website by typing a wrong URL.
– Free Is Not Really Free!
A free web hosting company also needs to earn right? After all they also need money to run the company! What do you think how will a company that offers free web hosting packages earn? The answer is – through advertising!
If a free web hosting provider is not charging you for the hosting account, then the provider will surely place ads on your website to earn from them. You have very little or almost no control over the ads shown on your website pages. What if a competitor’s ad or any other inappropriate ad is shown on your website? Can you take the risk?
Along with increasing customers, you are also building the reputation of your website and you surely don’t want to put it at stake with the display of irrelevant ads on your website. This will never happen in a paid hosting platform as you are in complete control of your website and you can display only what you want on your website.
– Free Web Hosting Won’t Last Forever
While using a free web hosting service, you do not have any guarantee that the web hosting company will be there for a long period of time. At some point, even a large free web hosting provider might think to pack up. It is not that a paid web hosting companies don’t shut down, a paid web hosting company might shut down as well. But with a paid web hosting service, you will have a web hosting account through which you can download your complete website so that it can be hosted elsewhere, you are completely covered in a paid hosting service. You can easily take the backup of your website so that it can be uploaded to the new hosting account and your website will be up and running soon.
– Website Speed
Website speed is one of the most important aspects for retaining customers today! No one likes to wait for a slow website as there are many other alternatives. If your website is hosted on a free web hosting account that does not provide enough resources to your website functions, then your website will load very slowly and if a customer or visitor tries to access something on your website, it will take a lot of time for them to get there. What will happen here is that you will lose your customers or visitors to a competitor who is hosted on a professional shared server, VPS or a dedicated server. Selecting a reliable paid web hosting service guarantees a faster page loading time, one of the key advantages of premium hosting.
– Website Building
You can build your website on both – on a free web hosting platform and on a paid web hosting platform as well. However, in case of a free web hosting platform, you will have to restrict yourself to the basic attributes for creating your website and there will be limitations on the way in which you can create the functionalities of your website. On the other hand, a professional paid web hosting package comes with a website builder tool or a CMS like WordPress, Joomla, Magento etc. with which, you can easily design your website like you want to and the complete process of designing your website is simplified for you as there are no limitations.
– Website Security
We are living in an era when the hacking attempts are also improvising along with the improvisation in the security technologies; therefore, whether your website is small or big, website security is of paramount importance. If you opt for a free web hosting account, there are chances that the web hosting company won’t be responsible for your website security. What if your website gets compromised? are you willing to lose your data and your customers because of bad website security? In order to safeguard your website against hacking attempts, it is important to opt for a web hosting provider who takes complete responsibility of your website security. For instance, MilesWeb offers various options like SSL certificates, web application firewall, Remote Backup Service and SpamExperts for securing your website.
Conclusion: You Need To See The Bigger Picture!
Free might sound good now, but is it really good in the long term? Think about it! Your website is your hard work and your ideas put in action, so isn’t it better to go for a reputed web host? you might think that you are saving a lot of money by opting for free web hosting but the small issues with your website might get bigger with time and you will find yourself spending more time on solving website issues rather than focusing on growing your business. Sign up with a web hosting company that knows website management completely and the one that is there for you when you need to talk to them, this is a better way of moving forward! Share on X A web hosting company that charges for its web hosting packages is a better option because they are dedicated towards providing the best service and the best hosting solutions to you.
FAQs
1. What are the typical limitations I should expect with free web hosting in terms of storage and bandwidth?
If you’re relying on free web hosting, be ready for several limitations on server resources, particularly for storage and bandwidth requirements. Free hosting providers allocate limited space and set traffic caps to reduce server load. They’re acceptable for simple portfolio projects but unsuitable for content-heavy applications. In a free hosting vs paid hosting scenario, the paid version takes the lead as it offers extra storage choices and security measures, providing stable performance even during traffic surges.
2. What are the key benefits of choosing a paid web hosting plan over a free one?
The advantages of premium hosting span beyond the basic feature of removing ads. As a part of paid plans, you get consistent uptime, better SEO capabilities, and top-notch support. When considering free vs paid hosting, paid hosting emerges as the best solution for businesses that require professional-grade performance. If your website’s objective demands lead generation and higher sales, opting for paid hosting services is essential for success.
3. While free hosting has no initial cost, are there potential long-term drawbacks or hidden costs for users?
Though free hosting appears cost-effective, it often carries hidden trade-offs, like forced ads, slow performance, and limited security measures. The hidden drawbacks of free web hosting vs paid web hosting can result in visitors’ loss and missed business opportunities. Investing directly in a paid hosting solution can turn out to be the key step for a website’s success.
4. How does the scalability of paid hosting compare to free hosting?
Purchasing a free hosting version can make your website struggle to manage sudden traffic spikes. With premium paid hosting, you can access authoritative access to dedicated resources without downtime, complementing your website’s growth. Running a data-driven website will require paid hosting support, as it offers essential features to manage the website load effectively.
