Top 5 Free WordPress Hosting Providers
When the developers of b2/cafelog (a blogging software) discontinued its development, they left a huge vacuum. It seemed tough at the time but the situation gave rise to an option that was to turn out as the leading blogging platform in the world.
Two gentlemen, Mike Little and Mark Mullenweg are the geniuses behind WordPress. Right from its first unveiling, WordPress was well received by the blogging community. That was 13 years ago.
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Mark Mullenweg once remarked that when you are building a start-up, first reflect on the qualities the people you enjoy working the most with have, then think about the new people joining your organization and their experience with you from recruitment to their first day of work.
And that is exactly what we will focus on to help us identify the best providers of free hosting for your WordPress site. We will zero in on the most awesome qualities of these WordPress hosting providers that make us love working with them and then assess our experience with them.
Keep in mind these providers mostly have built a bad reputation among their users. This bad reputation is warranted. From unwanted advertisements, lack of backup options or customer support to limited storage, bandwidth and hosting resources plus other excess WordPress free hosting limitations. These are all the grim reality of free hosting for WordPress.
Fortunately, we’ve singled out the best ones and scrutinized them for all those deficiencies and besides that, their services are well above average. So check them out, the best free wordpress hosting providers of 2017
Hosting Company | Storage Space | cPanel | Rating | PLANS |
---|---|---|---|---|
AwardSpace | 1GB | Yes | ||
X10hosting | Unlimited | Yes | ||
000webhost | 1.5GB | Yes | ||
Freehostia | 250MB | No | ||
Byethost | 1GB | Yes |
AwardSpace
With ten years experience in the web hosting industry, this German company has been offering free hosting since its inception; along with some paid options. The site guarantees 99.99% uptime and you are assured of no unwanted advertisements on your free site. Below is what you can expect:
- 1 Gb disk space
- I GB Traffic
- Joomla and WordPress Installer
- 1 email account
- 1 MySQL database
- 5GB Bandwidth
- 1 free domain with 2 subdomains
- FTP account
- Website builder
- Free data backup
Awardspace has invested shrewdly in proper customer support. Unlike other free web hosts who have flimsy customer support, it has a customer support center with frequent system notifications that may affect your site. They also have FAQ and a ticket system. In fact, its response time to a submitted ticket has registered to be even faster than some paid hosting providers.
When it comes to performance, they have nailed it by supporting programming languages like Ruby and PHP 5. It doesn’t hurt the site performance-wise to have 5 GB bandwidth and 1GB storage. Awardspace also offers a client and features friendly control panel which enables you to access your billing administration, database and emails among other functions.
They are also environmentally conscious. The Awardspace web hosting system runs on servers that are powered by wind energy.
X10hosting
Boasting of the kind of services you have come to expect only from premium hosting providers, x10hosting is considered one of the best in the wordpress hosting space. Utilizing SSD servers, they offer unlimited cloud hosting. Sounds unbelievable for a free web hosting site, however, for the 10 years they have been in the business, they have been known to deliver just that. Here is what to expect
- Unlimited storage
- Unlimited bandwidth
- I domain with 2 add on domains, 2 subdomains and 1 parked domain
- 3 email accounts
- MySQL database
- FTP account
- Website builder
- Auto Installer with more than 300 scripts including WordPress
With SSD servers, you can expect brilliant performance from this hosting site. Users have registered satisfaction with the speed and stability of the site owing to the SSD servers. To ensure your online presence is reliable, you have access to the latest versions of MySQL, PHP and cPanel so you can manage your site effortlessly.
Customer support has been factored into x10hosting despite the fact that it’s a free web host. The company has both written and video tutorials, tools and tips to help you through any hurdles. The site also provides customer support by sending update and support emails and by using user communities for advice and quick technical help. So any question you may have can be answered by a community of users who have experience using the site.
Although they also provide paid premium plans, their most popular component is the free web hosting.
000Webhost
This is one of the world’s leading free web hosting sites. The site offers the cPanel that is feature rich and you will not be receiving unwanted adverts on your site. Users have called it a “stress free experimental platform” while others consider its free hosting plan a generous one. So what can you expect from 000Webhost?
- 5 Gb disk space
- Website builder
- Fantastico auto installer including Joomla and WordPress Installation
- 5 email accounts
- 5 MySQL database and PHP support
- 100GB Bandwidth
- 1 free domain with 5 subdomains
- 5 FTP account
000Webhost has really taken steps to ensure that the customer doesn’t remain stuck when they experience problems on their site. They have a forum that features 000Webhost users; veterans and beginners alike. This offers the beginner a place to pose their questions and it effectively works as other users are more than happy to help. They even have forums in German and Spanish.
The site has registered 99.99% server uptime which is no mean fit for a free web host. The biggest plus about 000Webhost is that it offers most of the perks of a premium package for free and with very few limitations. Their interface is also user-friendly which contributes to ease of use for all levels of users.
FreeHostia
Another popular offering in this space is FreeHostia. Having confidently dubbed their free hosting plan the Chocolate plan, it’s no wonder so many people are partaking in it. For the five years Freehostia has been around they have read the market and know not to allow unwanted adverts onto your site. Let’s start with the key features you can expect.
- 6GB Bandwidth
- 3 PHP3/IMAP email accounts
- 1 MySQL database
- 10 MB data space
- 250 MB disk space
- 1 Domain
- FTP account
This is one of the very web hosts that is seen to be more deliberate about their customer support. Granted, as a free plan user you will not have precedence over a premium plan user. However, they do not disregard you as some other free web hosts do. They guarantee you an answer within 6 hours.
With regard to performance, the site offers the standard features of a paid plan. This translates to fast and reliable load times for websites and a decent server uptime.
Byet.host
Dedicated SSD servers have always worked well and that is why Byet.host is among the best free Web hosts worldwide. In fact, they offer quite a good number of the features you would expect on a premium plan. This is because their free hosting is powered by a customized software developed by their in-house team. Furthermore, you are exempted from irritating unwanted adverts with Byet.host. You can expect the following upon signing up
- 1 GB storage
- Domains with 5 add on domains and 5 sub domains and parked domains
- Website builder
- Softaculuos 256 script auto installer with Joomla and WordPress
- 5 email accounts
- 5 MySQL database and PHP support
- 50 GB Bandwidth
- 5 FTP account
As a leader in free web hosting, Byet.host has also led in customer support. However, as is the case with other free web hosts, there is varied customer support. Do not expect a quicker response that a customer on a paid plan would get. Although you will get a response, it may be a delayed one.
This site has good speed and stable servers. The SSD servers have performed as always expected. They also offer cPanel which very few free web host offer. So you can expect a good feature rich interface to work with when it comes to Byet.host. However, the process of signing up may be a bit tedious. But don’t let this scare you away, it is worth the effort.
Conclusion
The above gems have clearly established that there can be some trust in free WordPress hosting providers. It is important to establish that free web hosting plans are not the culprit here. A lot of money goes into being a web host. While companies like 000Webhost have found a way to subsidize the cost of free web hosting by taking from their premium plan earnings, not everyone can afford to do so.
Free hosting WordPress sites has its own set of challenges, none of which have anything to do with negligence. So when you focus on the good they actually achieve, which is to allow you to learn and have a feel of using a web hosting site for free before you pay for it, you realize they have actually done you a huge service.
And when that website starts to grow, you will likely have to switch to paid hosting. Whether you will need cheap or managed WordPress hosting, you will never go wrong with HostGator. Managed WordPress hosting could be a better option especially if you don’t wish to get your hands dirty. Watch the video below to learn about HostGator Managed WordPress: