Inside this Article
What We Look For in the Best Free Cloud Hosting Services1. Kamatera: 30-Day Free Trial to Build and Test a Custom Cloud Instance With Impressive Speed2. HostArmada: Outstanding Shared Cloud Performance at Affordable Prices3. Cloudways: Put All Your Cloud Hosting Needs in One Place4. Liquid Web: Possibly the Best Customer Service in Cloud Hosting5. ScalaHosting: Beginner-Friendly Cloud Hosting With an Anytime Money-Back Guarantee6. Amazon Web Services (AWS): Fast, Reliable, Secure, and Free to TryOther Notable Hosts for Cloud HostingWhich is the Best Free Cloud Hosting Service for Your Needs?FAQ
Short on Time? These Are the Best Web Free Cloud Hosting Services in 2024:
- Expert’s Choice
Kamatera
Kamatera is a popular choice with our readers– Budget prices for highly reliable and customizable servers, plus a 30-day free trial -
HostArmada – Amazing shared-hosting performance at low rates.
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Cloudways – Managed cloud hosting for easy setup.
What We Look For in the Best Free Cloud Hosting Services
To put together this list of the best free cloud hosting services, my team and I focused on the following features during our tests:- Reliability and uptime. It’s easy to give away cloud hosting like candy, but it takes the best, most cutting-edge infrastructure to make it really shine. These companies provide reliable, redundant servers, which translates to high uptime and blazing-fast speeds.
- Multiple deployment locations. The best clouds aren’t made of a few servers located in Bangladesh, but of thousands of servers, located all over the globe, working together. Almost all services on this list provide multiple deployment options, ensuring that you’ll always have a nearby location promptly serving your visitors.
- Access to resources. As I said before, free cloud hosting does come with limitations. What differentiates these guys from the rest is that the free tiers come with enough resources to actually test the service.
- Scalability. With sub-par hosting, success is actually your biggest fear. It’s hardly scalable, so once you get some traffic, your website is going to grind to a halt. With the companies on this list, you always have room to grow.
- Developer friendly. To develop the best apps in the least amount of time, you need a service that makes things easier. All the services on this list are developer-oriented, but a couple really go the extra mile in streamlining the process.
![kamatera-home-page](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/best-free-cloud-hosting-1.png)
Kamatera Cloud Hosting
Plan NameStorageBandwidthCPURAMPrice
More detailsFeatures
- Rapid setup. It takes less than a minute to set up a new cloud instance, allowing you to start development almost immediately.
- Optional preinstalled OS. To save some time, Kamatera’s cloud instances can come preinstalled with popular OSs. These include various Linux distributions and multiple versions of Windows Server. You can also request cPanel or Plesk to be preinstalled.
- Free static IP. Every server comes with a free public static IP, adding to the overall value.
- Cheap automatic backup solution. For a small added fee, your server’s storage will be automatically backed up every day. This is stored in an offsite storage array to further protect against data loss.
Data Center Locations | 5 in the US, 1 in Canada, 6 in Europe, 5 in the Middle East, 1 in Asia |
Uptime Guarantee | 99.9% |
Free Technical Support? | 24/7 technical support via phone and email |
Starting Price | $4.00 |
2. HostArmada: Outstanding Shared Cloud Performance at Affordable Prices
![HostArmada Shared Cloud Hosting](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/-opt-may-2023-blog-best-free-cloud-hosting-services-bizdev-optimization-2.png)
HostArmada Web Hosting
Plan NameStorageBandwidthFree SSLNumber of SitesPrice
More detailsA free domain name is included with some hosting plans from HostArmada
Features
- Free website transfers. HostArmada offers one free website transfer with its starter shared cloud hosting plan, and that number increases depending on your plan of choice.
- Unlimited parked domains. HostArmada lets you associate unlimited domain names with your website on all shared cloud hosting plans.
- Unlimited MySQL databases. You get access to unlimited MySQL databases with all of HostArmada’s cloud plans. Though this might be a pretty standard feature for cloud VPSs, it’s one of the few hosts to offer it with shared plans.
- Limited daily backups. HostArmada provides 7 free daily backups with its starter shared cloud hosting plan. Once again, that number increases if you choose a higher-tier plan.
Data Center Locations | 3 in the US, 1 in Canada, 2 in Europe, 2 in Asia, 1 in Australia |
Uptime Guarantee | 99.9% |
Free Technical Support? | 24/7 phone, ticket, and live chat support |
Starting Price | $2.99 |
![Cloudways cloud hosting platform](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/best-free-cloud-hosting-2.png)
Cloudways Cloud Hosting
Plan NameStorageBandwidthCPURAMPrice
More detailsFeatures
- Serious security. Cloudways provides free SSL certificates, OS patches, two-factor authentication, auto-healing servers, a firewall, and more to keep your site and server secure.
- Free site migration. One free site migration is included in each plan, so you don’t have to learn the ins and outs of moving your site to a new server.
- CloudWaysBot. A personal smart hosting assistant that keeps you up-to-date on the status and health of your server via Slack, an API, or email.
- Payment options. You can choose from monthly payments (a bit of a rarity in the cloud hosting world) or paying by the hour.
Data Center Locations | 2 in the US, 1 in Canada, 3 in Europe, 2 in Asia, 1 in Australia |
Uptime Guarantee | 99.9% |
Free Technical Support | Email, phone, live online chat |
Starting Price | $11.00 |
![Liquid Web cloud hosting service detail](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/best-free-cloud-hosting-3.png)
Liquid Web VPS Hosting
Plan NameStorageBandwidthCPURAMPrice
More detailsFeatures
- Choices. You can choose your server (Linux or Windows,) OS (Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, Fedora, or CloudLinux,) and your control panel (cPanel, Plesk, or InterWorx) giving you the freedom to work without a learning curve.
- Freebies. All plans include 100GB of free backups, as well as free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate, site migration, and root access.
- Automatic site monitoring. Should your site or server experience an issue, the Liquid Web team will get it up and running again without you ever having to do anything.
- Prorated refunds. Liquid Web will refund you the unused portion of your hosting plan should you choose to cancel. For instance, if you pay for a year and only stay 3 months, you’ll get back the remaining 9 months of fees.
Data Center Locations | Arizona, Michigan, the Netherlands |
Uptime Guarantee | 100% |
Free Technical Support | Phone, live online chat, ticket/email |
Starting Price | $99.00 |
![Scala Hosting Cloud VPS](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/-opt-may-2023-blog-best-free-cloud-hosting-services-bizdev-optimization-1.png)
ScalaHosting Web Hosting
Plan NameStorageBandwidthFree SSLNumber of SitesPrice
More detailsA free domain name is included with some hosting plans from ScalaHosting
Features
- SPanel. ScalaHosting offers its proprietary version of cPanel – called SPanel – with all of its cloud hosting plans. SPanel offers all the functionality of cPanel, plus more that is unique to this platform.
- 10Gbps redundant network. ScalaHosting guarantees 100% uptime thanks to its 10Gbps redundant networks, which seamlessly redirect heavy traffic during surges.
- Free server backups. ScalaHosting provides free snapshot backups of your server with all of its self-managed cloud plans and daily offsite backups on all managed cloud plans.
- 1-click installer. Scala offers single-click installers for over 400 different apps and scripts to simplify the process of configuring your server.
Data Center Locations | 5 in the US, 1 in Canada, 5 in Europe, 4 in Asia, 1 in Australia |
Uptime Guarantee | 100% |
Free Technical Support? | 24/7 ticket and live chat support |
$20.00 |
![Amazon Web Services' Homepage](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/aws2.png)
Amazon Web Services (AWS) VPS Hosting
Plan NameStorageBandwidthCPURAMPrice
More detailsFeatures
- Burstable CPU performance. The free t2.micro instance offers 1 GB RAM and 1 vCPU. The CPU is burstable, meaning that in periods of low traffic, you’ll only have access to around 10% of the CPU. In periods of heavier traffic, it can burst to deliver the full performance of the CPU core.
- Complete control. EC2’s instances are completely customizable, which puts a lot of responsibility on you. The interface isn’t the prettiest, either, so prepare to work overtime to get everything perfectly configured.
- Free storage & database services. As part of the AWS free tier, you’ll also have access to 5 GB of object storage and 30 GB of block storage. You’ll also get 750 hours per month of a MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, or SQL database with 20GB SSD storage capacity.
- Easily scalable into high-performance machines. Once you have an account active with AWS, you can always add more computing instances. Just pick an instance size and location and deploy it within minutes.
Data Center Locations | Huge number of data centers serving 245 countries and territories |
Uptime Guarantee | 99.5% |
Free Technical Support? | Account and billing support only |
Starting Price | $3.50 |
Other Notable Hosts for Cloud Hosting
![Description of Heroku's cloud service](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Screenshot_1-optimage1.png)
![Screenshot of Free Tier features on Google Cloud Platform](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/best-free-cloud-hosting-4.png)
![Screenshot of Red Hat OpenShift service options](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/best-free-cloud-hosting-5.png)
![Microsoft Azure website homepage](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/azure.png)
Which is the Best Free Cloud Hosting Service for Your Needs?
While all of the above options can offer you access to cloud hosting for free (or at a very low price), not all of them may fit your project. Each of them are limited in different ways, and it really depends on what you’re looking to test and develop.
If you’re still not sure, here are my recommendations:
Kamatera’s custom-built cloud instances are available to try free for 30 days, letting you test a server worth up to $100/month in value. While it isn’t permanently free, it offers the most customizable and scalable solution on the list, letting you instantly upgrade or downgrade resources to match your exact needs. It’s our top choice for cloud hosting
If you want top quality without breaking the bank, HostArmada offers unparalleled performance for shared cloud hosting. You also get a very generous 45-day money-back guarantee, so you can try the service for yourself before making any long-term commitments.
If you need managed cloud hosting, Cloudways is the way to go. If you prefer working with Google Cloud, AWS, or DigitalOcean but aren’t able to do it all on your own, Cloudways offers you freedom without the stress and hassle.
Still stuck? Here’s a nifty table to help you out.
Standout Feature | Length of free period | Free/Basic RAM and CPU | Starting Price | ||
Kamatera | Customization | 30 days | 1 GB RAM, 1 vCPU | $4.00 | |
HostArmada | Incredible performance | 45 days | 2 GB RAM, 2 vCPU | $41.21 | |
Cloudways | Affordable managed cloud hosting | 3 days | 1 GB RAM, 1 vCPU | $11.00 | |
Liquid Web | Best customer support | Any-time prorated money-back guarantee | 1 GB RAM, 1 vCPU | $99.00 | |
ScalaHosting | Beginner-friendly, self-managed cloud hosting | Any-time money-back guarantee | 2 GB RAM, 2 vCPU | $20.00 | |
AWS | Fastest cloud instances with access to a huge global network | 12 months | 1GB RAM, 1 vCPU | $3.50 |