11 Best Free WordPress Hosting Services for 2023
For all the folks considering starting their blogs or websites, here’s a way to do it at almost nil cost. Go with WordPress, a popular content management system that’s free to download and use. And, if you opt for free WordPress hosting, you can have your blog up and running without as much as opening your purse strings.
At the outset, it must be said that if you’re serious about your blog or website, it’s always better to locate them on the servers of a reputed hosting service. When it comes to hosting, be aware that you get what you pay for. Having made that clear, there remain many reasons why you may yet opt for free WordPress hosting:
- As a newbie, you want to try things out before putting money on the table.
- You want to test your WordPress skills and work at improving them.
- Many hosts also use the domain name for free, making it even more attractive.
- Some hosts also allow you to install themes and plugins and experiment as you wish.
- The speed at which the website loads and SEO are not so important to you at this stage.
- Your website is receiving limited traffic and is not so content-heavy.
- You do not intend to make money with your website.
- It’s free. What can be a better incentive to try out free WordPress hosting?
If you’re looking for the cheapest way to run your blog, free WordPress hosting may be your best option. It’s an ideal way to get started with little or nil investment. You can learn WordPress and then move on to a professional blog on a premium host.
However, if you’re particular about website security, speed and performance or expect technical support from your host, free WordPress hosting may not suit you. For help choosing a host, check out our WordPress Hosting Guide.
Here’s a list of the more reliable free WordPress hosting service providers:
1. WordPress.com
What better home for your free WordPress site than WordPress.com. It comes from Automattic, the team behind WordPress. With a free account, you get 3GB storage space and a WordPress.com subdomain. You can choose from the hundreds of free themes and plugins and customize basic design. Not only that, all the essential features of the powerful Jetpack plugin are packed into the free plan.
A website on WordPress.com enjoys a great degree of security with anti-spam protection built into every website. The step-by-step guide will also steer you while building your website or blog.
Most free hosting plans generally lack technical support. With WordPress.com, you’ll find support in the vast WordPress community. And if, at any stage, you need advanced customization features, you can always upgrade to their premium plans. As a bonus, WordPress.com has a wide reader base that you can tap into.
2. 000webhost
000webhost does exactly what it sounds like – it offers zero cost web hosting with PHP, MySQL and no advertisements. Many of the features it offers (including a feature-rich cPanel) are usually reserved for paid hosting plans, so if you’re looking for free hosting that offers you a greater control standard, this host is your best bet.
Better still, 000webhost offers a 99% uptime guarantee and a one click website installer designed to get you off the ground with WordPress as quickly as possible. They also have full support for PHP and MySQL, which means WordPress (and other content management systems) will work without problems. And if you change your mind about WordPress or want to try something more intuitive for first-time webmasters, you can take advantage of their easy website builder.
3. AwardSpace
AwardSpace offers free WordPress hosting which includes one domain and 3 sub domains. This is a good fit for blogs, and small or temporary websites. Their free plan is feature rich, packing in 1GB disk space, 1 MySQL database and one email with spam filter. It uses Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and allows FTP access. Moreover, it does not place annoying advertisements on your website.
The free Zacky website builder will help you design the website you want. Though traffic is restricted to 5GB per month, free users enjoy the same high-speed connectivity as the paying customers. You can also consider their Basic plan for the first year, which is not too expensive at $0.14 per month (payable annually). But before throwing your hands up in joy, be aware that the prices differ upon renewal.
With AwardSpace, you can enjoy your free hosting account for life without being forced to upgrade. The user-friendly control panel, customizable dashboard where you can rearrange features, and firewall and spam protection are additional features that make this hosting option attractive. And, to top it all, 24×7 customer support is also available to free customers. The detailed FAQ section, WordPress tutorials, and video tutorials can help you build and maintain your website.
4. Freehostia
Freehostia is a cluster of servers that’s load balanced to function as one. It offers 250MB of disk space to install WordPress using their one click Applications installer.
Besides, you get 5 hosted domains and 10MB MySQL storage. The free Chocolate plan allows you to set up 3 email accounts, permitting website traffic up to 6GB monthly. It packs in a MySQL database and free website templates to help you start building your website. They promise 99.9% uptime and do not demand any set-up fee.
5. x10 Hosting
Besides webspace and bandwidth, x10 Hosting offers many features to build a great website. This includes a website builder that helps account holders start building their website and an auto installer that installs over 200 scripts, including WordPress.
The optimized cloud platform with SSD servers ensures speedy loading and reliable performance. x10Hosting also offers the latest PHP, MySQL, and cPanel version to easily manage your website-related matters. The powerful control panel gives you control over your website.
The major advantage with x10 hosting is the unmetered bandwidth and disk space, which allows your website to grow unfettered. Moreover, you can always contact the 750,000+ community members when you need support.
6. Free Hosting No Ads
As the name indicates, Free Hosting No Ads is a free web hosting service that’s ad-free. With 20 GB disk space and 200 GB traffic, it includes a free installer that can automatically install WordPress on your server. If you need help building your website, the free website builder with sample templates will prove useful.
The free service includes password-protected directories and subfolders, website statistics, and 3 PHP versions to ensure no compatibility issues. Other cool features include a control panel for account management, phpMyAdmin for managing MySQL database, webmail to access your email, and more. And they promise not to delete your site so long as you comply with their terms of service.
7. Byethost
Byethost offers ad free balanced web hosting based on a network of interconnected servers. The Softaculous script installer, is included in the hosting control panel of each free account. This script installer helps to install 330+ scripts including WordPress, and deploys your files in no time at all.
The free hosting also includes FTP, PHP and MySQL. You can avail 1000 MB disk space, 5 parked domains, 5 add-on domains and automatic HTTPS SSL on all domains. There’s also 5 MySQL databases with unmetered MySQL space, 5 email addresses, free webmail and statistics relating to disk space, bandwidth and error.
The powerful Vista Panel helps in managing your website and domains. It allows you to add extra domains or sub-domains, create databases, runs queries, and import/ export data. With the help of the integrated file manager or the dedicated FTP account, you can upload files via the Vista Panel. And if you need help, you can contact the 24×7 free support.
8. Accuwebhosting
Accuwebhosting is yet another free WordPress hosting option that’s advertisement free and banner free. It’s highly secure with multiple layers of DDoS protection. Moreover, it’s well optimized for WordPress. You do not have to worry about installing or updating WordPress, as it’s done for you. If you need help with WordPress, you can refer to the helpful video tutorials on their webpage.
Furthermore, visitors will appreciate the fast-loading sites possible using pure SSD drives and hyper caching plugins. This ad-free service also packs in a custom domain name, a complimentary backup of your site, and control via a cPanel.
9. 100 WebSpace
If you don’t mind a small banner on each website page, you can consider 100WebSpace. They offer a free service with 100MB disk space and 3GB monthly traffic. What’s more, you get a multilingual control panel from where you can manage your account.
A single hosted domain, a one click applications installer and 24×7 support also form the package. The free website templates and instant activation make this service ideal for small websites that want to be up and running quickly.
10. Free Hosting
The name Free Hosting is inadequate to describe this service as it bundles in much more, besides free hosting. This totally ad free service offers free domain hosting, bandwidth, storage space, email and fully functional hosting accounts.
You also get many tools to build your website, including 330 ready-to-use personal or business website templates. Other features include no limit on file upload size, no setup fee, FTP access, maximum uptime and 24×7 support.
11. Biz.nf
Biz.nf is a great ad free hosting option to experiment with. It offers 1000MB web space, 5000MB for data transfer, webmail, FTP access and MySQL version5.
It’s easy to manage the account via the control panel. The website builder and instant account activation make it a suitable option for setting up a website quickly. If you face any issues, you also get 24×7 support, the same as paying customers.
There are several free WordPress hosting providers, but they all have some drawbacks. Either they are filled with ads, are very slow, or offer minimal resources like bandwidth and storage space.
WordPress itself is open source and completely free and will always remain free. However, most free WordPress hosting providers aren’t reliable and can decide to start charging you anytime. It is what you get with a free service.
Wix is free if you use it with Wix branded domain name. However, you can’t host a custom-built website or WordPress, just a website created with Wix website builder.
Most free WordPress hosting services come with limited resources, ads and very limited resources for your website that might potentially cause downtime or slow loading website.
The most affordable hosting for WordPress is Hostinger. It starts at $2.99/month and offers a free domain name and drag & drop website builder.
You can follow this blog post for the best hosting offers. Commonly, hosting providers offer a free service for a limited time which would be sufficient to test your website.
You can create a MAMP stack locally on your computer and work on your website within your computer. Once your website is ready, you can push it live on any hosting provider.
Final Words
Choosing a web hosting service is a crucial decision to make. Migrating a website can get very technical, and many things can go wrong. A wrong choice can mean that you need to shift your website to another server in the future. You may need the services of a developer, and you stand to lose a fair amount of SEO advantage that you have built up in the interim.
Also, setting up your professional blog or any high-traffic website on a free web hosting service is not advisable. Because it’s free, they can suspend your account anytime and without any reason, perhaps even without informing you.
Therefore, it’s important to be clear about setting up your blog or website, and choose an appropriate web host. If you need to look for better options, perhaps shared hosting is the place to start. Free WordPress hosting is a great choice in many situations, but it’s not a one-size-fits-all scenario. To understand the limitations of free WordPress hosting and do not hesitate to select one if it’s right for you.
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