- Hey, guys, my name is Christian Taylor.
Welcome back to Craylor Made where I like to talk
about all things branding, marketing, and entrepreneurship.
So today we're gonna be talking about web hosting.
Can you get web hosting for free?
Well, the short answer to that question is yes,
but the long answer is not really.
If you're trying to build a WordPress website,
you may know that web hosting is required to do so.
Web hosting is the server that your website files live on.
So, when a user types in your domain name
into their browser, the website files are accessed
on the server and sent back to the user.
There are a lot of great affordable web hosting options
like Namecheap and DreamHost,
but what if you wanna launch a website completely free?
Excluding the cost of your domain name,
WordPress itself is 100% free
and there are a lot of free WordPress themes.
So can you get free web hosting and create a website
just for the cost of a yearly domain name?
Well I searched for a while and looked for free web hosts,
and while there absolutely are free options out there,
there's quite a few catches.
Let's start with 000webhost.
Perhaps the most popular free web host out there.
Zero, zero, zero, uh, I can't say that.
000webhost, okay, you know what?
I'm just gonna call it triple zero webhost
for my own sanity from now on.
Triple zero webhost,
which is a Hostinger company by the way,
offers you free web hosting with 300 megabytes of disk space
and three gigabytes of bandwidth per month.
So, that sounds pretty good.
I mean, can you actually install WordPress
with only 300 megabytes of space?
Well, I tried installing WordPress
and I was unable to get it to install
using the built-in tool that triple zero webhost gives you.
So, the only other option was
to install WordPress manually, by hand,
which I have not done in years.
Today in this world of automation, every web host
out there lets you install WordPress easily with one click.
So it was a bit foreign,
but I mean it's free so I can't really complain.
Unfortunately though,
my attempts to install WordPress manually also failed.
I couldn't get WordPress to connect to the database,
and at this point,
I had to just throw up my hands and give up.
My experience was very similar
at the next free web host as well.
I went over to InfinityFree.net and thought,
"This is it, this is the one."
And I went to sign up for an account
and the confirmation email never came.
Unwilling to accept defeat,
I changed the email address to something else
and clicked okay, and things never loaded.
So I went in for round three.
Surely, there's gotta be a functional,
free web host out there.
I came across FreeHosting.com
and I had a lot of faith in this one.
I mean, it's got what it is in the domain name,
FreeHosting.com.
Like, surely they specialize in this.
Their stuff's gonna work.
This is gonna be the one.
This is going to be the free web host
that lets me get my WordPress site up
and running for zero cost to me.
I signed up for the account, got the confirmation email.
I got sent a password to log in to the panel.
Things are looking good.
And, I even installed WordPress.
Except the script that installed WordPress did not set
the username and password I gave it.
So, I was unable to log in to my WordPress website.
I clicked the Reset Password button and waited patiently
for the reset password email that never came.
But wait, here it was.
In my spam folder, all of a sudden,
the confirmation email from the last host,
InfinityFree, finally came through.
So, I clicked it, verified my account,
got access to their cPanel and installed WordPress
and everything worked fine.
I was able to use the WordPress backend,
create posts as I'd expect and from here on out,
I could continue to create a totally functional
WordPress website hosted absolutely free.
So, yes, it is absolutely possible
to get free web hosting.
But you don't want free web hosting.
What do you mean?
Who doesn't want free web hosting?
You don't because you don't want to waste hours
of your time dealing with silly glitches
like confirmation emails not showing up,
or databases not working correctly, because time is money.
And I get it, if you're on a tight budget,
free web hosting is really appealing.
But, you still don't want to do it.
This is because there are lots of very budget web hosts
out there that offer hosting that is a big step up
in quality and professionalism for a truly low cost.
Hostinger, for example,
offers web hosting for around $24 per year.
Or, if you'd rather pay monthly,
you can get affordable hosting
from Namecheap for $2.88 per month.
By paying for web hosting,
you're paying for reliability and support.
With a free web host,
they can just terminate your web site
at any time with no repercussions.
If a server crashes, if they close their doors,
or if they simply just don't care about your website,
they can just press delete and it's gone from their servers.
And, what are you gonna do?
Sue them over deleting your files
that you paid them $0 to host?
I think this videos is proving
that there's really no such thing as a free lunch.
It's extremely hard to monetize free web hosting.
The host could try injecting ads on your site
and profiting from your visitors that way.
Or they could try and analyze the traffic on your website
and sell that data to marketing companies.
But that's really stretching
just to make a small amount of money.
These free web hosts really don't have much
of a way to make money and that means
that the quality is going to suffer.
There's only one case that free web hosting makes sense,
in my opinion, and that's if you like to tinker.
You don't mind spending time to get something working
and you don't need web hosting
for a website that you really, deeply care about.
If you just want to install WordPress and fart around,
then you might as well try out one of these free web hosts
and see if you can get it to work.
If you can, this might be a great opportunity
for you to learn the WordPress backend and maybe even
go on to launch your freelance web design business
or something to make some extra cash.
But, if you're looking to start a website
that you care about even a single bit,
and you can scrape together a few dollars a month,
I would strongly recommend buying some cheap
and affordable web hosting.
So earlier I said there's no such thing as a free lunch,
but what if there is?
Well, I wanna give a shout-out to Webull,
a free stock-trading app that allows you
to buy and sell stocks without a commission.
Right now, using the link in the description,
you can sign up and get a free stock valued
between $2.50 and $250.
And, if you make a deposit of $100 or more,
you get a second free stock valued between $12 and $1400.
Hmm, let's see, $12 plus $2.50.
That's a guaranteed $14.50 absolutely free.
I guess there is such thing as a free lunch.
Or you could apply that money to your web hosting.
Ah, see what I did there?
Thanks to Webull for supporting the channel,
and you can get started using the link in the description
to get your free stocks today.
So, what do you think of free web hosting?
Is it something that you would try?
Or, would you rather stay from it
and buy some affordable hosting instead?
I'd love to know your thoughts in the comments down below,
and if you like this video, do be sure to hit
that Subscribe button and click the bell
so you don't miss when I release new videos.
With that said, I will catch you guys next time.