As its name suggests, Free Virtual Servers provides free web hosting. Its non-free hosting plans are not cheap, however, and they’re offered via a different vendor website.
British-based Free Virtual Servers (FVS) started life in 2001 as a free hosting provider. It is part of the Easy Internet Solutions company that delivers innovative hosting solutions. The solutions offered by FVS include shared web hosting, dedicated servers, VPS, WordPress hosting, reseller hosting, and domain name registration.
Today, this provider has over 75,000 customers inside and the United Kingdom. Its website is in English.
Features and Ease of Use
FVS offers free web hosting for life. With this plan, you get a fully-fledged hosting account with your own domain name. It includes 100 MB disk space, 200 MB monthly bandwidth, a choice of three free webmail platforms, and a free FTP account with 24/7 access. You also get to use the Weebly website builder and the popular cPanel control panel for free. A more complete list of the hosting features is as follows:
Free domain
Free website builder
99.9% uptime guaranteed
Softaculous one-click installer with over 200+ scripts
cPanel control panel
Unlimited disk space
Unlimited bandwidth
Unlimited MySQL databases
SSL certificates
Instant setup
FVS also offers flexible and customizable semi-dedicated and fully-dedicated servers that feature Intel Xeon processors, ECC memory, and at least 2 x 1 TB hard drive.
Servers are housed in a data center located in Bournemouth, U.K. They come with hardware RAID configurations for reliability, and what’s more, the enterprise-grade HP servers come with powerful and reliable CPUs to ensure fast page loading speeds and a 99.9% uptime (guaranteed).
FVS provides free, unlimited offsite backups that are performed on a daily basis and include a fast restore procedure for when disaster strikes. However, customers are encouraged to also keep their own backup copies just in case.
Pricing and Support
At this point, it’s worth mentioning that a popup on the FVS website suggests that it has transferred all its customers to its NetNerd.com cloud platform, such that all hosting – apart from the free hosting – is now offered via the NetNerd.com vendor website.
Apart from the free web hosting, all the pay-for hosting plans are expensive, but they come with few feature restrictions. Plans are priced in euros, and they can be purchased on monthly or annual billing cycles (depending on the plan). There is a 14-day free trial and a 7-day money-back guarantee.
You can reach out for 24/7 support by telephone, ticketing system, or contact form, but there is no live chat or email support. Unfortunately, I never received a response to my test support ticket.
For self-support, the NetNerd (not FVS) website provides an adequate knowledge base:
A Free Domain is included when purchasing any hosting service from Free Virtual Servers
Bottom line on Free Virtual Servers
Free Virtual Servers’ enterprise-grade HP servers with hardware RAID configurations have the capacity to meet the needs of almost all businesses. This vendor’s free web hosting solution is particularly attractive and is apparently the only hosting offering that has not been offloaded to the NetNerd sister site.
Pros
Enterprise-grade HP servers with hardware RAID configurations
Free web hosting for life
7-day money-back guarantee and a free 14-day trial period
Solomon Ndung'u is a writer, author, and SEO specialist. When he's not working, you will find him singing his favorite tunes. He is also a confessed avid reader of The New York Times.
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