Top free website hosting services in 2024 (2024)

Starting your own business can come with a lot of expenses that can strain your budget, especially if you’re launching a small business out of your home. Maybe you just want to create a personal website to blog, show off photos or highlight your work experience and resume.

The top free website hosting services let you create a reasonably sophisticated site with a professional presentation on a smaller scale or allow you to trial their platforms without having to commit.

We’ve collated a list of popular free website hosting options for individuals and small businesses. Due to the limited availability of free website hosting services, this is not a comprehensive list of all available free website hosting services, nor have we tested these services. This list is simply comprised of popular free website hosting options that we believe are worth considering for your businesses.

For a complete list of recommended website hosting services backed by a data-driven methodology, check out our best web hosting services in 2024 list.

Featured web hosting offers

Bluehost

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (1)

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (2)

Learn More

Via Bluehost’s website

Price

Plans starting at $2.95 per month

Free domain included

Yes

Hostgator

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (3)

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (4)

Learn More

Via HostGator’s website

Price

Plans starting at $2.56 per month

Free domain included

Yes

Web.com

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (5)

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (6)

Learn More

Via Web.com’s website

Price

Plans starting at $2.75 per month

Free domain included

Yes

Top free website hosting services

  • Weebly: Ideal for novices.
  • InfinityFree: Unlimited number of sites.
  • 000webhost: Most scalable.
  • Firebase: Ideal for Google Cloud users.
  • Neocities: Excellent for fan sites.
  • GitHub Pages: Ideal for software developers.
  • Wix: Excellent graphical editor.
  • WordPress: Easiest to manage sites.
  • Blogger: Great for blogging.
  • x10hosting: Excellent e-commerce templates.

Ideal for novices

Weebly

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (7)

Storage

500 MB

Bandwidth

Unlimited

Email accounts

No

Why Weebly made our list

Weebly is a free web hosting platform that’s well suited to newcomers or novice web developers. The service offers a wide variety of tools and simple features to help you get started building a website, and the ease of use does not come at the expense of professional presentation. There are a variety of templates that are tailored to specific use cases or site themes, from personal sites to portfolios to show off your art or creations and blogs in a variety of formats.

Weebly also includes themes built to support an online store, each of which can be customized to showcase your specific product. Weebly offers the opportunity to speak to one of its sales agents, who can help guide you in how best to design your site or grow an online business.

Alongside a drag-and-drop website editor, the company offers email templates for connecting with current and potential customers, as well as analytics to help with SEO and track your site’s performance. There’s a shipping tool to connect to various carriers or distribution platforms, and Weebly lets you track your shipping costs and current inventory through its interface.

Learn More: Read our full Weebly review.

Pros and cons

Pros

  • SSL security included with free plan.
  • Several free e-commerce tools.
  • Free SEO tools.

Cons

  • No phone support with the free plan.
  • Free plan doesn’t include a custom domain.

Unlimited number of sites

InfinityFree

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (8)

Storage

5 GB

Bandwidth

Unlimited

Email accounts

No

Why InfinityFree made our list

InfinityFree boasts that it is a truly free web hosting service, with no credit card required for sign-up. It does offer a number of competitive features with its free plan, including a fairly generous 5 GB of storage space, unlimited bandwidth and PHP and MySQL support. The company allows you to bring your own existing domain name and also offers customers a free subdomain, though it should be noted that InfinityFree does not offer domain registration services itself.

InfinityFree also prides itself on its unlimited hosting feature, meaning you can create as many sites as you’d like on the platform for no additional charge. If you have multiple enterprises for which you want to create pages or build a site for your business as well as a personal site, InfinityFree will host them all for no additional cost.

InfinityFree also integrates well with other applications, including WordPress. Its Softaculous Installer is an automatic script installer with a library of over 400 scripts and is built to allow users to set up software like WordPress, content management systems (CMS) and other applications. It also promises to keep them up to date automatically.

Most scalable

000webhost

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (9)

Storage

300 MB

Bandwidth

3 GB

Email accounts

No

Why 000webhost made our list

000webhost is powered by the well-known web hosting company Hostinger and is a textbook example of a free plan that largely serves as a trial version for its multi-tiered paid subscription offerings. That said, even the free plan provides a number of welcome features that aren’t offered by many counterparts.

You’re able to create two websites, and the free plan includes Cloudflare protection designed to shield your site from DDoS attacks, as well as a free FTP account for file transfers and access to one Cronjob, so you can schedule activity to run at specific times and dates through delayed scripts and commands.

That said, the base tier offered by 000webhost has some restrictive limits on both storage (though the company promises SSD storage, theoretically improving read/write speed) as well as bandwidth (capped at only 3 GB). However, if, after trying the free plan, you decide that you want to step up to one of the higher tiers, there’s an impressive range of features and tools available to you.

Pros and cons

Pros

  • Cloudflare DDoS protection.
  • Free FTP account.
  • One free Cronjob.

Cons

  • Restrictive data cap.
  • Low storage limit.
  • No site builder with the free tier.

Ideal for Google Cloud users

Firebase

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (10)

Storage

10 GB

Bandwidth

360 MB per day

Email accounts

No

Why Firebase made our list

Firebase is Google’s web hosting service aimed primarily at developers. Google describes it as “production-grade web content hosting,” and it’s clear that it’s not a platform designed to welcome novices. However, for developers looking to deploy web apps or anyone looking to design a fully app-like site, Firebase offers a lot of very attractive features, including the free tier.

One of the standout features of Firebase is Google’s ability to deliver content quickly. Due to its global nature and its extensive content delivery network (CDN), the tech giant is able to cache any of the files you upload on SSDs all around the world. This means it can serve those files very fast, regardless of where your site’s visitors are located. Firebase will even automatically select the compression format for your data to optimize size and delivery speed.

Firebase also provides extensive content testing, so you can run any changes or new content at its own pace before deploying it to your live site. There’s A/B testing on an emulated backend, so you can thoroughly examine the content and ensure it’s ready to be served to your users. Firebase also makes it easy to push new content, letting you deploy new versions of your site or app with a single command.

Pros and cons

Pros

  • Speedy content delivery.
  • Content testing.
  • Free custom domain.

Cons

  • No email accounts.
  • Complex pricing structure if you upgrade.

Excellent for fan sites

Neocities

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (11)

Storage

1 GB

Bandwidth

200 GB

Email accounts

No

Why Neocities made our list

If you were browsing the web in the 90s, chances are you remember GeoCities, a web hosting service that allowed users to create simple, free sites. Neocities is a modern homage to those long-lost GeoCities sites and continues the tradition of offering free web hosting, primarily aimed at personal and fan sites.

It’s also a throwback to the largely extinct idea of web rings, connected networks of different sites that include links and navigation to one another. Neocities is a much larger version – a network of over 700,000 sites that can be searched from the primary Neocities page. It’s a great host for fan sites because the browser lets you filter by tags, like Pokémon or Marvel, and then surfaces any sites with those attached tags.

Though there’s no drag-and-drop editor, Neocities does offer a browser-based HTML editor and also gives you the option to use any desktop editor to then upload directly onto your Neocities site. The free tier provides 200 GB of bandwidth as well as 1 GB of storage and comes with a laundry list of other features. Its global CDN caches your site in various places all over the globe for fast delivery. You get a free subdomain to attach to your site, and Neocities offers an RSS feed and SSL at the free tier as well.

Pros and cons

Pros

  • Browsable tags system.
  • In-browser HTML editor.
  • RSS feed and SSL.

Cons

  • No GUI editor.
  • Lacks e-commerce features.

Ideal for software developers

GitHub Pages

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (12)

Storage

1 GB

Bandwidth

100 GB

Email accounts

No

Why GitHub Pages made our list

GitHub is a platform designed for developers to be able to write and edit code, and that code is stored in repositories – GitHub’s core feature. GitHub Pages is a hosting service that allows you to create a website directly from your GitHub repository, squarely aimed at software developers who need pages for things like project documentation, blogs or a handy place to share their work. It’s important to note that GitHub Pages can only be used to create static pages; there’s no support for dynamic content.

Instead, GitHub takes code (including HTML, Javascript and CSS) directly from a repository and creates a live site with it. This means users are able to make changes directly in the repository and then easily push the update to the live site.

Because there’s no drag-and-drop or visual editor of any kind, and because of GitHub’s clear emphasis on software developers, coding experience is a prerequisite. However, the ease of access and availability of GitHub Pages to anyone with an existing repository means it’s an ideal solution for developers looking for completely free, simple websites to support their products.

Pros and cons

Pros

  • Available to anyone with a GitHub repository.
  • Quickly push updates live.
  • Custom domains.

Cons

  • Requires coding experience.
  • Static pages only.

Excellent graphical editor

Wix

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (13)

Storage

500 MB

Bandwidth

500 MB

Email accounts

No

Why Wix made our list

Wix is perhaps best known as a platform for designing and building custom websites, but the company also offers free website hosting, whether you build your site on Wix’s platform or not. It delivers content through a global CDN with servers in various locations around the world in an effort to ensure that your content loads quickly. Wix also puts an emphasis on data security and protection. It promises 99.9% uptime for your site and offers backup for all of your data, as well as SSL, hacker testing and protection against DDoS attacks.

Wix is very beginner-friendly and a great place to start if you don’t have a pre-existing website and want to design one from scratch. Its basic website creation tools are also free, and its editor is easy to use and features a large library of templates to get you started. Wix also takes advantage of AI technology, which is capable of constructing a website for you. Called Wix ADI, it guides you through a series of questions and then generates a site based on your responses.

Beyond the surface tools available for website creation, Wix also offers a suite of more advanced tools under its Velo branding. Velo is a platform for developing web applications that’s open and versatile. It’s capable of connecting with or integrating third-party APIs, and though it emphasizes code, it also features a front-end visual editor and user interface to make managing and editing intuitive.

Learn More: Read our full Wix review.

Pros and cons

Pros

  • Suite of website creation tools.
  • Several security and backup features.
  • AI site creation option.

Cons

  • Ads on each page.
  • No custom domain at the free level.

Easiest to manage sites

WordPress

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (14)

Storage

1 GB

Bandwidth

Unlimited

Email accounts

No

Why WordPress made our list

While WordPress is best known as a home for blogs, the company has expanded into a robust website creation and web hosting platform, with free tools and premium plans available across a broad remit of services. WordPress sites offer a range of features, some of which are surprisingly generous even at the free tier.

The free plan allows you to create an unlimited number of pages and doesn’t limit the number of potential users. There are also tools to create newsletters for subscribers and an RSS feed that will automatically update your users when new content is available. The free tier also gives you access to some core SEO tools and site performance statistics. You can even set up paid subscriptions to your site or gate premium content behind paywalls.

If you’re looking for a host for an existing site or domain, be aware that WordPress doesn’t offer a purely free hosting option, though its hosting service does include a seven-day free trial as well as a 14-day money-back guarantee. If you do decide to upgrade to a paid hosting plan, the base option is $25 per month with 50 GB of storage space and unlimited bandwidth.

Learn More: Read our full WordPress review.

Pros and cons

Pros

  • Unlimited pages and users.
  • Newsletter and RSS support.
  • Paid content tools.

Cons

  • No free hosting for external sites.
  • No custom domain in the free tier.

Great for blogging

Blogger

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (15)

Storage

Unlimited

Bandwidth

Unlimited

Email accounts

No

Why Blogger made our list

Blogger is Google’s blog and web hosting solution and, as the name implies, puts a heavy emphasis on creating simple, easy-to-read blogs. While it may not provide adequate tools and support for more complicated sites or sites with other intents, it does offer an easy way to build attractive and highly functional blogs for personal or professional use.

You can start with a custom template — Blogger provides a selection of them backed by hundreds of background images. Alternatively, you can design your own template from the ground up. Blogspot will provide a free subdomain and also gives you the option to buy a custom domain if that’s your preference and you’re open to the additional expense.

While Blogger doesn’t offer any dedicated e-commerce functionality, per se, Google does leverage its AdSense platform. This means that Google can display ads (targeted at your blog audience) so that you can earn cash based on impressions. Blogger also includes some built-in analytics on the site itself so that you can track performance across some basic metrics. You can connect your site directly to Google Analytics for more robust performance and SEO tools.

Pros and cons

Pros

  • Explicit focus on blogs.
  • Monetization options through AdSense.
  • Custom templates.

Cons

  • No e-commerce tools.
  • Limited functionality for other site intents.

Excellent e-commerce templates

x10hosting

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (16)

Storage

Unlimited

Bandwidth

Unlimited

Email accounts

Yes

Why x10hosting made our list

x10hosting is somewhat of an outlier amongst free web hosting services in that it’s a fully-fledged website creation and hosting platform that offers both unlimited bandwidth and unlimited storage. There is a caveat on the storage side in that new users are only allotted 512 MB of storage initially but can have it increased as long as they abide by the company’s Terms of Service. Even with that disclaimer in mind, the lack of caps is very generous at the free tier.

x10hosting lets users start with one of 150 templates and includes a selection of e-commerce-specific templates if your intention is to build an online store or business. There’s also broad support for third-party integrations. x10hosting enables one-click installation of over 300 scripts and pieces of software, including WordPress.

Additionally, FTP support means uploading files and other content is easy, and the DirectAdmin control panel is designed to make site management user-friendly and approachable. x10Hosting Basic is the free version of x10Premium, and if you do decide to upgrade, you’ll gain access to unlimited domains, email addresses and 24/7 support.

Pros and cons

Pros

  • Unlimited bandwidth.
  • 150 site templates, including e-commerce templates.
  • One-click installation of third-party software.

Cons

  • No free customer support.
  • Free accounts limited to two databases.

Featured web hosting offers

Bluehost

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (17)

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (18)

Learn More

Via Bluehost’s website

Price

Plans starting at $2.95 per month

Free domain included

Yes

Hostgator

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (19)

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (20)

Learn More

Via HostGator’s website

Price

Plans starting at $2.56 per month

Free domain included

Yes

Web.com

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (21)

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (22)

Learn More

Via Web.com’s website

Price

Plans starting at $2.75 per month

Free domain included

Yes

Top free website hosting services comparison

Storage limitBandwidth capEmail addressWebsite builder

Weebly

500 MB

Unlimited

No

Yes

InfinityFree

5 GB

Unlimited

No

No

000webhost

300 MB

3 GB

No

No

Firebase

10 GB

360 MB per day

No

No

Neocities

1 GB

200 MB

No

Yes

GitHub Pages

1 GB

100 MB

No

No

Wix

500 MB

500 MB

No

Yes

WordPress.com

1 GB

Unlimited

No

Yes

Blogger

Unlimited

Unlimited

No

Yes

x10hosting

Unlimited

Unlimited

Yes

Yes

What is a free website hosting service and how does it work?

At the most basic level, a web hosting service provides a place to publish your website and make it available to users. When you sign up with a website hosting platform, you’re reserving physical space on a server where your website and all of its data and content will live. The host then ensures that the server remains running and available to internet users and distributes your site through web browsers.

Most website hosts will also provide additional services, like security features. Many website hosting platforms also offer the ability to create a website as well, some by way of graphical or drag-and-drop editors, others through HTML or other coding interfaces.

Benefits of a free website hosting service

It is technically possible to host a website yourself, but it requires a great deal of technical expertise, as well as significant resources, including the actual server and accompanying hardware and software. A website hosting service can provide a number of valuable benefits:

  • Equipment and software: A website host provides all the hardware and software necessary to serve your website to users, as well as the technical expertise to configure and deploy a web server.
  • Security features: Many web hosts will include a number of security features to ensure that your data and users’ data are safe and that your site runs smoothly. To start, look for SSL for encryption and protection against DDoS attacks.
  • Storage and bandwidth: Web hosts provide storage space for your files and data and bandwidth to transfer them to visitors; free website hosting services don’t charge you a fee that you would otherwise pay to an ISP.
  • E-commerce tools: Some website hosting platforms will provide you with tools to create and run an online store, including ways for customers to browse your products and check out securely
  • Website builders: Beyond just hosting your website, some hosts will provide the tools to build the site as well. These come in numerous forms; commonly, there are graphical interfaces or drag-and-drop editors that will be familiar and intuitive for PC users, but there are also code and command line builders as well.
  • Custom domains and email: Some website hosting platforms will also provide custom domains for your site, though this is fairly rare for free services. It’s much more common among paid hosting subscriptions, as are custom email addresses, which allow you, for instance, to provide a support@yourdomain.com address for user support instead of a generic @gmail.com or other provider address.

How to choose the top free website hosting service

Choosing the top web hosting service will depend in large part on the kind of site (or sites) you plan to create and your intent for them, as well as whether you have existing sites and domains or need to create sites from scratch.

Key features to look for

There are a number of top-level features you should consider when choosing a free website hosting platform:

  • Website builder: If you don’t have a pre-existing site, you may want to choose a host that includes a website builder unless you plan to use independent site-building software. The type of builder is important as well: if you’re not comfortable with coding, you’ll want to select a host that provides a drag-and-drop or graphical editor.
  • Bandwidth and storage: For simple, personal sites, data and storage caps may not be a significant factor, but if you plan to create a more complex, multi-page or e-commerce site, they can be very important.
  • Intent: The type of site you intend to run is also a crucial factor in choosing the right host. GitHub Pages, for instance, is only appropriate for sites focused on software development and peripheral intents, while Blogger is almost exclusively designed to host fairly simple blogs.

Customer service

Customer service can be an important consideration when you’re choosing a free web host, as many of them don’t provide customer support at the free level. If you run into issues with your site or technical problems with the host itself, you may be unable to resolve them or get clear answers as to the root cause.

This is a key difference between free and paid website hosting services, as most paid services will offer some level of technical support.

Software integrations

Third-party API and software integrations may be important to your site’s functionality, in which case you’ll want a host that plays nicely with other apps. Hosts like InfinityFree with its Softaculous installer or x10hosting with its one-click installation feature may be the better fit for your site.

Featured web hosting offers

Bluehost

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (23)

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (24)

Learn More

Via Bluehost’s website

Price

Plans starting at $2.95 per month

Free domain included

Yes

Hostgator

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (25)

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (26)

Learn More

Via HostGator’s website

Price

Plans starting at $2.56 per month

Free domain included

Yes

Web.com

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (27)

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (28)

Learn More

Via Web.com’s website

Price

Plans starting at $2.75 per month

Free domain included

Yes

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

A number of website hosting services will offer a free plan as one of their subscription tiers. These free plans are often limited in some way when compared to paid tiers; many won’t offer custom domains or 24/7 technical support, for instance. Free plans may also come with much more restrictive data storage or bandwidth caps than paid plans, though it varies greatly from host to host.

Some web hosts will also provide a free trial version of their platform. This can be either a free trial or come in the form of a money-back guarantee if you decide you’re dissatisfied with the service within a certain amount of time of signing up and want to cancel.

Safety and security features can vary tremendously between web hosting services. Important security features you should look for include SSL certificates, DDoS protection, site backup and hotlink protection.

While not impossible, a truly free domain name is rare and usually comes with caveats. Free domains are often not secure and frequently don’t provide access to other essential web services and tools. Also, many domains touted as free are actually part of a package of paid services or software and require some kind of ongoing subscription to maintain, while some are only free and available for a trial period.

Top free website hosting services in 2024 (2024)
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