10 Best FREE Web Hosting Services (Fast & Secure) in 2025

High-quality free hosting is really, really hard to find. Sure, there are many companies that promise “free” hosting, but they aren’t doing so out of the goodness of their hearts. In the best-case scenario, free hosting turns your website into a free source of advertising – and in the worst one, it’s lack of security is used as a way to steal your data.

Besides telling you this to gain your eternal admiration, I’m also mentioning it because, in most cases, I’d recommend an “almost-free” alternative instead.

Sure, paid hosts that offer high-quality services at very low prices might not be completely free, but you’ll get much better hosting for just a couple of dollars per month. But don’t worry, I’ve also found a few reliable, completely free hosting options.

For example, I recommend Wix’s free plan for the quickest, easiest, and least expensive way to get a site up and running. You can try Wix for free or read on for more free and nearly free hosting options below.

Why Good Free Hosting Is Hard To Find

Free hosting is a useful tool for hobby projects, like a test site or a small personal site. However, it comes with lots of limitations that may make it a non-viable solution for anything remotely more advanced. I know because my team and I have tested hundreds of free and paid hosting providers over the years.

The reason it’s hard to come across good free hosting plans is simple: hosting isn’t free. Maintaining and updating a server costs money, so a no-strings-attached free hosting service would be operating at a loss. Even if server upkeep was cost-neutral, for-profit companies are looking to make, well, a profit, so there’s little incentive to offer a completely free service.

For free hosting to actually make a profit, companies need to get more inventive. The scummier ones out there will recoup those costs by selling your personal information. The problem is that that information is, you know… personal. Some aren’t even free forever – a fact you’ll only find out after signing up.

More reputable free hosts may include advertising on your dashboard and website or limit resources to push their paid options. Even then, the money that a free host is making off your site may not be enough to offset the cost of very impressive features, causing your site to suffer from poor performance.

I’m not saying to run away from free hosting – just consider its limitations. If you need more resources or enhanced performance, there are plenty of low-cost hosts that can offer you a much better service. Most of these paid hosts also offer no-strings-attached money-back guarantees, which you can use as a free trial to test if the service is right for you.

What We Look For in the Best Free Web Hosting Solutions

When I put free web hosting solutions to the test, this is what I looked for:

• Trustworthiness. Searching for a free web host can feel a bit like the Wild West – there are lots of options, but many are just looking to scam you. I’ve personally tested the free hosts below so you can rest assured that they’re genuine hosting services.
• Enough storage and bandwidth for a simple website. My free and almost-free options have enough resources to be able to host a functional website (otherwise, it’s just as useful as having no hosting at all). You need to know that your website isn’t going to suffer downtime due to insufficient bandwidth.
• Easy installation of WordPress and other CMSs. Your free web host needs to offer easy installation of advanced applications like WordPress, or include a basic (we can’t be too picky here) website builder.
• Easy-to-manage control panels. You want a hosting solution that makes it easy to manage your files and other aspects of your web hosting space. This can be achieved, using a control panel such as cPanel or a free in-house panel.
• Freebies. Extras like a website builder, SSL certificates, website templates, email hosting, and others make setting up your website that much more cost-effective and easy. Many of my free and almost-free options provide these extras at no additional cost.

Quick Look at Our Best Free Web Hosts

1. Wix: The Best Website Builder With Free Hosting Included

Wix is our top-ranked website builder, and for good reason. It offers 2000+ free website templates – all of which are fully customizable. You can create a professional-looking website quickly with simple drag-and-drop editing and no coding skills. On top of this, Wix provides completely free web hosting alongside the builder itself.

Wix’s forever-free plan gives you access to every one of Wix’s customization options for free, so you have as much design freedom as any paid user. That said, Wix’s free plan only comes with a Wix subdomain and displays Wix ads throughout. You also won’t get much storage or bandwidth and you’ll be locked out of e-commerce and marketing options.

Overall, Wix’s free plan is an excellent option for personal and small business sites. If you need more functionality, the Light plan is just $17.00/month and includes ad-free hosting, a free domain for a year, custom domain connection, and some handy marketing tools. Unfortunately, you’ll have to upgrade to a Core plan for e-commerce functionality, but it might be well worth it for the level of support you’ll get.

Features

• Built-in security and performance. Wix includes free SSLs, 24/7 monitoring, and anti-DDoS protection with all plans, even its free one. Furthermore, sites perform well thanks to Wix’s data center network, which includes 200 CDN locations and AWS, Fastly, and Google Cloud infrastructure.
• Wix App Market. There are 500+ (and growing) apps available in the Wix App Market, which lets you expand the functionality of your site easily. Some apps are free to install and use, like Wix Chat and Google AdSense. With paid and free apps, you can add e-commerce storefronts, marketing tools, various other types of social media widgets, and more.
• Easy SEO. The Wix SEO Setup Checklist shows you how to optimize your site for search engines. It generates a simple checklist for you to follow, ensuring your site is desirable to Google searches. Plus, there are more SEO-optimization Wix apps you can add to get the task done.
• Wix AI Website Builder. This free feature offers an even easier way to create a site. By just answering a few questions about the type of site you’re looking to make and what features it needs, Wix will automatically generate a functional site for you in minutes (with text!). You can then leave it as is or fine-tune the design and content further.

Check out our expert Wix review to learn more about its builder.

2. Hostinger: Cheapest (And Fastest) Budget Host for Beginners

Before going with a free web host, you should at least consider Hostinger’s incredibly cheap hosting plans, especially if you need a professional, reliable website. Starting at just $2.99/month, you get 3 months of free hosting and a ton of freebies, including an easy-to-use control panel (hPanel), 24/7 live chat support, a domain name, and automatic weekly backups.

Hostinger also provides top-notch performance with LiteSpeed servers on all plans and a free CDN on select plans. In our tests, it served web content an average of 1 second page loading speeds – much faster than many other budget-friendly hosts. It was also far more reliable than most – we recorded barely any instances of downtime in two months. This kind of speed and reliability is far better than anything a free host could provide.

Oh, and did I mention the free Hostinger AI website builder that’s included in all plans? You can create an SEO-friendly website in minutes. Of course, Hostinger isn’t perfect. Its support agents aren’t always willing to go the extra mile with more complex queries, instead sending links to online documentation. However, this issue is a relatively minor one given that many free hosting providers lack support entirely.

Features

• Optimized WordPress platform. Hostinger uses the LiteSpeed web server, which is particularly good for WordPress sites, and it pairs nicely with the LiteSpeed cache plugin to optimize your content for maximum performance. You also get managed WordPress features like automatic backups and core updates.
• Robust security. Unlike many free providers, Hostinger takes your security seriously. You’ll be protected from DDoS and other attacks by a combination of firewalls and anti-malware solutions, such as BitNinja, Monarx, Cloudflare, and Imunify360.
• Great-value premium plans. Hostinger’s Business hosting plan only costs a few dollars extra, yet it offers twice the storage and up to 50 hosted websites. Cloud plans start at less than the price of a fast food meal and offer even more NVMe SSD storage and dedicated RAM and CPU cores for better performance.
• Extensive knowledge base. While Hostinger’s support can be slow to respond, it does offer a very detailed knowledge base filled with simple tutorials and guides. Even complete beginners should have no trouble following along.

Read our Hostinger review to learn more about its plans.

3. IONOS: Premium Developer-Friendly Features at Very Low Starting Prices

IONOS is an interesting one, especially for developers, as it blends low initial prices with flexible plans. And I mean, they’re really affordable – the IONOS Plus plan is just $1.00/month if you commit for a year. For that low price, you get unlimited bandwidth and storage. If you’re looking for something smaller, IONOS’s Deploy Now platform gives you a month of free hosting for up to three single-page apps or static sites.

All paid IONOS hosting plans also grant you ad-free hosting, a free wildcard SSL certificate, and a free domain for one year. Your site is protected with free daily automatic backups and replication across multiple data centers, keeping your content safe. Most importantly, reliability and performance are great at IONOS, with fast loading speeds of around 1 second and stable 100% uptime during our tests.

For such a small fee, you get access to all these premium features that would never be possible with a free host. What’s the catch? Well, all plans are completely unmanaged, though they do include user-friendly features like 1-click app installations. IONOS’s great prices are just for the first year of hosting, though – upon renewal, your fees will rise by at least 25%. Luckily, IONOS offers a 30-day money-back guarantee so you can try its services risk-free before committing.

Features

• Scalable performance. With most providers, if you want to increase your site’s loading speed, you’ll need to upgrade to a more expensive hosting plan. IONOS allows you to upgrade your performance level for a small fee so that you can avoid paying for extra features and resources you don’t need.
• Optional CDN add-on. If you want to up your global performance, you can add IONOS’ in-house CDN to your hosting. While it’s not exactly cheap, it features Edge servers and built-in DDoS protection with a web application firewall (WAF).
• Dedicated personal adviser. All customers are assigned a dedicated support agent, who will be your primary point of contact for support. They will be happy to give advice for all things web hosting, which can be very helpful for a beginner.
• Manage your hosting on the go. IONOS offers a free mobile app that allows you to manage your website(s) wherever you may be. It’s responsive and easy to use. You can even access the MyWebsite builder via the app to edit your website design.

Take a look at our comprehensive IONOS review to learn more.

4. FreeHosting.com: Flexible Free Web Hosting With Custom Domain Connection

FreeHosting.com’s relatively high resource limits stand out. Unmetered bandwidth and 10 GB storage are several times better than what you’re going to get with many other free hosts. Additionally, the free plan ensures a completely ad-free experience. However, security is lacking, with no free SSLs, and you don’t even get SSH access – you have to pay extra for both.

Unlike many free web host, FreeHosting.com doesn’t give you a subdomain (e.g., yourusername.freehosting.com). This has its advantages and disadvantages. Your website will look more professional with your own domain name, but domain names do cost money. If you don’t have one, you’ll have no choice but to pay for one to get started with FreeHosting.

Even the paid hosting plan lacks a free domain, though it does include SSLs, subdomains, and SSH access. You’ll likely get better value for money and performance with a budget entry-level plan from Hostinger or IONOS that includes a free domain name. But if you already have a domain name, you can simply connect it to your FreeHosting.com website.

Features

• cPanel. The popular cPanel control panel is included with the free plan, allowing you to modify your hosting settings and migrate your site to or from FreeHosting.com. Access also includes the Softaculous app installer, allowing easy installation of over 350 apps.
• Apache/PHP management. FreeHosting.com comes with all PHP functions enabled. You may also configure Apache to meet your own needs.
• Premium features available. FreeHosting.com lets you add premium features to your free hosting account for a one-time fee. These features include SSH access, subdomain hosting, SSL certificates, and more.
• Free email account. You get a single [email protected] email address included with your free plan, with the option to purchase more addresses as needed. If you sign up for FreeHosting’s paid plan, you’ll get unlimited free emails.

You can see the results of our performance tests in our full FreeHosting.com review.

5. GoogieHost: 100% Cloud-Based Free Hosting for Better Performance

If you’re looking for a free shared web hosting solution that can deliver decent performance, GoogieHost offers a decent setup, including a Direct Admin control panel from cPanel for easy site management. Of course, you can’t expect its hosting to compare to paid solutions like Hostinger, but GoogieHost does manage to outperform most free hosts.

GoogieHost utilizes subdomains, similar to many other free hosts. Nonetheless, if you have your own domain name, you can link it to your GoogieHost account for free. This free plan is devoid of ads, provides malware protection, and grants access to the SitePad website builder.

Because you can only host a single website, GoogieHost performs checks to ensure you’re not trying to cheat the system, so there’s often a delay before your free account is approved. If it thinks you have multiple accounts, you’ll be banned from the platform – and you’ll lose your website.

Features

• LiteSpeed web servers. Like Hostinger, GoogieHost uses LiteSpeed web servers for better performance. Doing so allows WordPress sites to take advantage of the speed-boosting LiteSpeed Cache plugin.
• Faster SSD storage. GoogieHost offers 1 GB of SSD storage with free plans and 10–100 GB NVMe SSD with its lifetime paid hosting plan, which provides better performance than regular SSDs or HDD drives.
• Free SSL certificate. You’ll get a free SSL certificate to secure your site. Your visitors’ data will be safe and search engines will recognize your site as trustworthy, giving your search rankings a slight boost.
• Cloudflare CDN. The free plan also comes with access to Cloudflare’s content delivery network (CDN). This helps your site load faster for international visitors, while also offering some protection against DDoS attacks.

Read our in-depth GoogieHost review to discover more pros and cons.

6. Kamatera: Extraordinarily Customizable Cloud Infrastructure With a Free Trial

Not sure if free or almost-free budget hosting will cut it for the project you have in mind? A free trial may be more fitting, allowing you to try out a more powerful solution without paying upfront. As far as free trials go, Kamatera is one of the top options available. You can try out one of its cloud VPS hosting plans on a 30-day free trial worth up to $100 in services.

With cloud hosting plans starting at 5 TB bandwidth and 20 GB NVMe SSD storage, high-traffic websites are well accommodated. The host also offers a wide range of paid add-on services, like managed hosting, extended back-ups, and cPanel and Plesk licenses. You can even go over your bandwidth and storage limits for a low overage fee per GB.

However, when you sign up with Kamatera, you’ll have to set up and manage your server, which includes choosing your operating system and installing a control panel, if needed. Setting up a server instance will require sysadmin-level knowledge. Alternatively, you can opt to pay for managed support.

Features

• Global servers and great performance. Choose from 24 servers located around the world, including the US, Europe, Middle East, Australia, Canada, and Asia. In our tests, Kamatera also delivered fast loading speeds of around 1 second and stable uptime.
• Ultra-customizable plans. With Kamatera, you can select exactly the specs you need, from OS to storage space. Options range from 20–16,000 GB of storage, 1–524 GB of RAM, 1–104 cores, and 1–4 public IPs.
• 99.9% uptime guarantee. Kamatera promises to do its best to keep your website up and running. If not, it will refund you a month’s service fees for any issues – quite a generous refund compared to other hosts.
• Advanced security features. Keep your website safe from attacks with DDoS protection (free with all plans) and paid, cloud monitoring, disaster recovery, anti-virus, and cloud firewall solutions – just keep in mind you need to know how to configure and maintain a virtual server to set these up.

Is Kamatera’s free trial right for you? See expert Kamatera review for more details.

Other Notable Free Web Hosts

7. AwardSpace

AwardSpace allows you to run a total of four websites on a single free account, but three of these can only be subdomains. This gives you the option to host subsections of – or companions to – your main website. The host also offers a paid Basic plan for up to 2 domains with unlimited bandwidth and storage, 24/7 support, and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

However, AwardSpace has some significant limitations on its free plans. You don’t get a free SSL certificate, and you’re limited to installing just two CMS options on the free plan: WordPress and Joomla. AwardSpace’s performance is also not the most exemplary, but you do get its free in-house control panel to manage your site and files.

8. Google Sites

Google has brought us many useful free tools like Google Docs, Slides, Drive, and Sheets. But did you know that it also offers a free hosting platform? The Google Sites platform offers free hosting for up to 5 custom domains plus a super easy-to-use website builder.

Additionally, you’ll get access to other Google eco-system integrations like YouTube, Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, and more. Overall, Site Builder is great for personal sites and you can set up a site in minutes thanks to its integration with your Google account. The only drawback is that the site editor is integrated, which means you can’t migrate your site. Templates and tools are pretty basic, too.

9. InfinityFree

InfinityFree is iFast.net’s free counterpart and honestly, it’s not bad. You get ad-free hosting, PHP and MySQL integrations, free SSLs, 5 GB storage, and tons of one-click script installations. You can also connect to Cloudflare if you transfer or buy a custom domain.

As far as free hosts go, InfinityFree has an extensive and helpful knowledge base. However, InfinityFree makes its money by hoping to convince you to switch to iFast.net, which delivered underwhelming results in our independent testing. InfinityFree’s performance also leaves something to be desired, but if you’re looking for a free host with decent features, it’s well worth your consideration.

10. WordPress.com

If you’re looking to host a WordPress website, there’s one provider that undoubtedly knows about WordPress, and it’s… WordPress! WordPress.com is the self-hosted version of the free, open-source WordPress CMS, and it gives you easy access to all of WordPress’ basic features without having to seek third-party hosting. You even get a free migration to its platform.

WordPress.com’s free plan is forever but it won’t let you install any plugins, there’s no free SSL, and you’ll get ads as well as a branded subdomain. But if you’re looking for a simple solution to start a blog, there’s something to be said for going straight to the source.

Free Hosting Has Its Uses, but Beware the Limitations

While decent free web hosting options do exist, you can get much better service for just a small monthly fee. Free hosts can work for personal projects or prototypes, but if you’re looking to serve an audience reliably, I’d recommend going with a quality budget host.

Still not sure? Here’s my two cents:

If you really need a free solution, I’d recommend Wix. It’s one of the best site builders on the market today, being both easy to use and flexible enough that you can create something unique. The forever-free plan comes with limitations, but you can easily upgrade to a paid solution as you grow.

For the cheapest beginner-friendly long-term solution, I’d choose Hostinger. With prices that start lower than much of the competition and 3 months of free hosting, Hostinger is one of the best almost-free options out there. Best of all, it offers impressive performance on par with more expensive hosts.

For the best developer-friendly solution, IONOS offers affordable and high-quality hosting with plenty of flexible hosting plans and SSH/root access. It also packs lots of business features, including a free domain for one year, professional email, and daily backup and recovery.

FAQ

Which is the best free web host?

My top recommendation is Wix. It’s not a web host in the classic sense, but it lets you build a website without having to spend anything and its free plan has less limitations than most free hosts. You also benefit from Wix’s expansive network and Google Cloud and AWS infrastructure. That said, Wix’s free plan does come with ads and a branded subdomain, but you can remove these by upgrading to Wix’s affordable Light plan.

Is free hosting safe?

There are many free hosting companies that turn a profit by selling your personal data or skimp on expenses by providing little to no security. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t get safe free hosting – you just have to be extra careful. Wix is an example of a free hosting platform that has built-in security for all its website servers.

Should I pay for web hosting?

If you have any serious or professional goals for your website, you should pay for web hosting. Free hosting is a good way to try out a personal site or small project, but it just can’t compete with a paid hosting plan for a functional and responsive website. That doesn’t mean you need to spend a fortune, though. Web hosts like Hostinger offer high-quality hosting at affordable pricing, and most offer money-back guarantees.

Can I use my own domain with free hosting?

Some free hosts allow you to connect a custom domain name, but you may have to pay an extra fee to do so. FreeHosting.com allows custom domain connection only, which means you’ll need to purchase a domain to use its platform. It might be more worthwhile to sign up with a host that gives you a free domain for a year and still costs less than registering a TLD domain. IONOS has a great first-term discount and gives you a free custom domain.

Can I get free static site and app hosting?

There are several free hosting providers for static sites and apps. Because most static sites don’t demand a lot of resources, there are more reliable free static site hosting options compared to typical hosting. Kinsta, DigitalOcean, and IONOS’s Deploy Now platform all offer free static site and app hosting. Take a look at our list of the best static web hosting providers in 2025 for more affordable options.

Does it matter where you host your website?

Your hosting provider can drastically affect your website’s user experience, reach, performance, and security. You need to look beyond pricing and features and consider performance, ease of use, and level of customer support. If you’re looking for the best provider for your needs, I recommend our expertly curated and annually updated list of the best hosting providers in 2025.