{"id":21240,"date":"2019-03-13T15:35:39","date_gmt":"2019-03-13T20:35:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hostgator.com\/blog\/?p=21240"},"modified":"2019-03-14T13:24:10","modified_gmt":"2019-03-14T18:24:10","slug":"free-hosting-vs-paid-hosting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hostgator.com\/blog\/free-hosting-vs-paid-hosting\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Hosting vs Paid Hosting: Pros and Cons"},"content":{"rendered":"

You\u2019re finally ready to create your website. You\u2019ve figured out that one of the first things you need is web hosting<\/a>, and you\u2019re researching your options. Most of the recognizable brands in the industry charge a monthly fee. But you\u2019ve also come across a few free web hosting options.<\/span><\/p>\n

Is there any reason to pay for something you can get for free?<\/span><\/p>\n

In the case of web hosting, it depends on what your goals and priorities are for your website. But chances are, you\u2019ll want to go with a <\/span>paid web hosting plan<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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7 Disadvantages to Choosing Free Website Hosting<\/span><\/h2>\n

The simple fact of free web hosting is that the companies that offer it have to make money somehow. Not paying money for the service means accepting some kind of trade-off. What you\u2019ll be giving up (or putting up with) in order to get free web hosting varies with different services available, but there are some common issues to look out for.<\/span><\/p>\n

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1. Ads<\/span><\/h3>\n

This is one of the most common trade-offs with free web hosting plans. And it makes sense. Companies have to spend money for the space and technology required to provide hosting. If they\u2019re not getting any of that money back from you directly, they have to make it back somehow. Displaying ads on your website is one of the easiest ways to do that.<\/span><\/p>\n

And to be clear, these won\u2019t be ads you\u2019ll be making any money from. Any profits from your visitors viewing and clicking on these ads will go to the web hosting provider. If your website starts to get popular enough that those ads are driving real revenue, you won\u2019t get anything for it. <\/span><\/p>\n

For business websites or people wanting to build a personal brand through their website, ads can also serve as a distraction. They make your website look cluttered and drive attention away from what you have to say on the page and toward the ad image or copy. If you\u2019re trying to build a clear brand, ads muddy your message.<\/span><\/p>\n

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2. Shared Branding<\/span><\/h3>\n

Along with ads, some free web hosting companies will treat your website as a way to promote <\/span>their<\/span><\/i> brand. That could mean including their logo somewhere on your website. In a lot of cases, it means having their name as part of your URL, looking something like: yourname.theirname.com. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

As with ads, this makes it harder to communicate a clear and consistent brand to your visitors. It can be confusing for visitors who might have a harder time remembering your website URL, and makes it harder for them to see your website as having a unique identity.<\/span><\/p>\n

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3. A lack of customer support<\/span><\/h3>\n

As you might expect, if you\u2019re not a paying customer of a web hosting company, if affects the level of support you can expect to receive from their staff. Customer service employees have to be paid. If the company\u2019s not making much money from you, how much time and help does it make sense for them to provide? <\/span><\/p>\n

While some free web hosting plans say they provide 24\/7 customer support, you should be realistic in your expectations of how much help you\u2019ll receive for free.  <\/span><\/p>\n

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4. Common outages<\/span><\/h3>\n

One of the most important things a reputable web hosting plan must provide is a solid uptime. If you\u2019re not familiar with the term, that means the amount of time you can count on your website to be up and accessible to visitors. <\/span><\/p>\n

All web hosting companies will need to do maintenance at some point, and some will have outages based on technical problems. But well respected paid web hosting providers can generally promise a much higher uptime than free plans can. If you\u2019re creating a business website, or hoping to make money from your website with ads or affiliate links, then every minute your website is down<\/a> can mean money lost. With free web hosting, those minutes can really add up.<\/span><\/p>\n

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5. Limited pages<\/span><\/h3>\n

Some free web hosting plans put a strict limit on the number of webpages you\u2019re able to create under the plan. For those that only need basic websites, a plan that only allows for a few pages- or maybe even just one-may suffice. For most websites though, you\u2019ll need the ability to grow and create as many web pages as your site requires over time.<\/span><\/p>\n

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6. Limited bandwidth<\/span><\/h3>\n

How much bandwidth you have affects how long your site takes to load. And <\/span>slow loading times<\/span><\/a> have a big influence on how many of your visitors will stick around and how well you\u2019ll rank in the search engines.  Bandwidth is especially important on sites that have media elements like audio, video, or animation, which require more bandwidth to load. <\/span><\/p>\n

Free web hosting often comes with a big limit on the amount of bandwidth available. That means the more pages, elements, and media you add to your website, the more difficult it will be for your visitors to access it quickly and consistently.<\/span><\/p>\n

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7. Paid upgrades required for many features<\/span><\/h3>\n

Many of the companies that offer free website hosting do so as a way to get people to sign on in the hopes that they\u2019ll upgrade to a paid hosting plan once they realize the free hosting doesn\u2019t meet their needs. By limiting the features available in the free plan, they figure you\u2019ll realize over time that actually you need one of the subscription plans instead and choose to stick with the web hosting provider you started with for convenience. <\/span><\/p>\n

But most website owners will be better off taking the time to find the right provider and plan from the get go, rather than choosing a company today because it\u2019s free, and then settling on a paid plan they offer later that isn\u2019t necessarily the right fit because it\u2019s easier.<\/span><\/p>\n

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6 Clear Benefits of Paid Web Hosting<\/span><\/h2>\n

By accepting a minimal monthly fee as the cost of having a website, you can count on getting a few key benefits<\/a>: <\/span><\/p>\n

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