Are you looking for a WordPress hosting service? If yes, you will definitely come across the two options i.e. free WordPress hosting and Paid WordPress hosting.
There is a world of difference between what is on offer from a paid WordPress hosting and what you get with a free WordPress hosting. In our today’s post, we will take a look at the differences between free & paid WP hosting and try to figure out with which option you should go.
So, let’s start this interesting comparison.
Domain Name
Every website on the World Wide Web has a unique domain name that helps people recognize and find different websites quite easily. In order to create a website, you will require to buy a domain name that has your brand or company name.
Well, with most free web hosting services, it is not 100% achievable get your own brand name. Though you are allowed to use your brand name somewhere in the domain name, you will also have to add the name your hosting provider. And it will bring an unprofessional appearance to your business.
On the other hand, when you choose paid WP hosting, you can have your own domain with any unwanted hostname. See the example of the differences below.
With free hosting: youngclothing.freebiehostingservices.com
With paid hosting: youngclothing.com
As you can see free web hosting does not give a professional appearance to your online business it may impact how your customers will accept your brand.
Another major issue with the free hosting provider is that your free domain is always the property of the hosting provider. If the provider shuts down their services you will lose your domain name and all the traffic coming to your domain address.
Cost
There are a number of hosting providers that offer WordPress hosting for absolutely free. Since free WP hosting does not cause you anything there isn’t any monthly fee. If you are a newbie or learner who is learning WordPress you will find free hosting a good option.
On the other hand, paid WordPress hosting service comes with a wide range of hosting plans that you can choose according to your needs. Anywhere you can get an entry-level shared WordPress hosting plan at $3.95 for a month. If you want to get a huge discount on hosting plans you should look for special deals and offers such as best black Friday offers, Cyber Monday offers, etc. that providers run from time to time.
Support
For any webmaster, running a website can be a big challenge. There are several technical issues that may raise their heads anytime.
With most free WordPress hosting providers, you get the limited technical support. We notice that most people complain about the response time. Usually, free hosting providers take 24 to 48 hours to response the queries. It may be a big problem if you are website isn’t online.
In addition to this, most free WP hosting providers don’t have in-house expertise that is competent to solve WordPress-specific issues.
Speaking of paid WordPress hosting, you will be guaranteed that the hosting provider knows the WordPress inside out. Paid hosting providers are often available 24/7 through mediums like online chat, email support, and phone support.
It means if you accidentally delete any file or have any plugin incompatible issue, your website will be back to online in no time.
Bandwidth & Storage Space
Bandwidth describes the level of traffic and the amount of data transferring between your site, users and the internet. Everytime a user visits your site, it will use up some amount of bandwidth. Nowadays, most WordPress hosting providers offer unlimited bandwidth. It means, it doesn’t matter how many visitors are visiting your site, your site is not going to get any kind of trouble and will stay up always.
If we talk about the free WordPress hosting there is always a limit on the amount of bandwidth your website can use. However, if you are running a small blog or company’s website you will not encounter any issue even on the limited amount of bandwidth.
But if you have a website with lots of images and web pages or you have installed many plugins on it, you may notice that you’re running out of bandwidth and storage space comes with a free WP hosting.
Uptime
It is one of the key requirements of a website to stay online. If you’re running a professional website then you must host your site with a provider who maintains their servers in a way that stops them from breaking down.
With free WordPress hosting, you can’t always be sure that you will get good uptime. Nevertheless, if you want to go for a free WP hosting, you must check the uptime score of your provider. Uptime Robot is a good tool to check the Uptime score of a WordPress site.
Vendor Lock-In
Before you choose a free web host, you must check that if the company is not using free hosting as a honey trap. Free service attracts a lot of customers but since this service is very limited, usually webmasters need to upgrade to premium hosting plans.
To avoid this, you can take a look at reviews before signing up for any free WordPress hosting provider.
Usually, you don’t get such issues with paid hosting providers.
Which One to Choose?
Before you take a decision to place your site on the world wide web, you should decide which type of hosting you should go with. Considering everything together we can say that both free and paid WordPress hosting services are designed for different purposes.
Small blogs and personal web pages that have low traffic can be hosted on a free hosting. Whereas the paid hosting is an ideal choice for commercial projects. We would advise you to choose the host according to your requirements and budget.
If you any query regarding WordPress hosting you may ask us in the following comment section. We will be glad to hear from you.
