Free Hosting vs Paid Hosting for WordPress
WordPress has been dominating the content management systems market for years now, and for a good reason too.
The open-source CMS is an extremely versatile tool that lets you build whatever you wish — blogs, online shops, business websites, portfolio pages. Sky is the limit with WordPress as you can find endless sources of themes and plugins that will help you change even the tiniest aspect of your design and functionality.
Still, putting a WordPress page online will need a reliable host, and you’re at the crossroads between two solutions — free and paid web hosting. Investing in a premium service seems like a no-brainer, but zero-cost providers can offer some undeniable benefits as well.
Enter: free hosting vs paid hosting for WordPress. Let’s see which one wins:
Free Hosting — Description and Advantages
As you can tell by the name, not all hosting services involve a payment between client and supplier. You can find numerous hosts that will offer easy entry into site-building completely free of charge. The problem is — not all of them support WordPress.
In the standard setup, a free hosting provider will most often fix you up with a subdomain and limited bandwidth and web space for your online project. Some of them will even offer the option to connect your own domain name for better branding.
Still, free hosts have to make a living somehow, and, most of the time, they do that by putting ads on your website. Want to remove the ads? Sure, just sign up for a Premium plan. You can also forget about managing multiple websites.
Among all the ads, restrictions, and overall lack of control, free hosting plans are still popular for a reason. Well, a few reasons actually.
- Zero Costs — Even though there are plenty of great paid hosting providers that offer packages for as low as $2-$3/mo, sometimes even that is more than you can afford. Students, churches, and non-profit organizations can greatly benefit from this IT cost reduction.
- Ease of Use — Free hosting services are suitable for very small and simple WordPress websites, something even a complete newbie should be able to handle. Most of the time, you are equipped with a drag-and-drop site builder and enough helpful tutorials to get you acquainted with its functionalities.
- Free Templates — The visual outlook of your website is also an essential part of your free hosting service. The majority of providers offer stunning free templates and layouts, often following the latest design standards. You can simply outline the type of website and niche you’ll be pursuing, and your host will give you a selection of the most suitable picks.
It’s not a bad idea to choose free hosting if you’re just starting your WP journey. Just make sure to check all the offers.
Paid Hosting — Description and Advantages
Free hosting might be convenient for some non-commercial WordPress projects, but any serious business would need a premium paid hosting plan if they intend to grow. After all, quality comes at a price, right?
Providers often charge for their services on a monthly basis, but the really good prices and discounts come with longer prepayment periods.
Depending on your needs, you can find different services to suit you best — shared hosting, VPS solutions, dedicated servers, managed WordPress deals are just some of the most popular offerings.
There are countless advantages of paid hosting vs free platforms:
- No intrusive ads — One of the ways free providers are able to make a profit without actually selling web hosting, is through ads they place on your website. You have no control over what ads and where they’re displayed, which can make any business appear untrustworthy. Paid hosting removes advertisements unless you decide to place some on the page yourself.
- More control — Even the average paid hosting deal comes with significantly more resources and freedom than top-tier free offerings. As WordPress offers limitless options for customizations, you’d want to utilize them to the fullest. Getting more web space, RAM, and bandwidth will guarantee your WP website runs smoothly at all times.
- Better customer support — The free vs paid hosting comparison in the Support field can only have one winner. Premium providers often come with 24/7 professional assistance, and that covers multiple communication channels — live chat, phone, emails, ticketing helpdesk. Getting dedicated support from a free provider, if at all possible, can only happen via online forms and involves long wait times.
Free Hosting vs Paid Hosting for WordPress — Which One is Better?
If you are a student looking to build a school project, or you are curious if you can handle developing a website from scratch — free hosting comes as a very lucrative solution. You get enough dedicated resources to build a small site, add some images, and publish a decent-looking page…without paying a dime, of course.
WordPress needs so much more than that, though.
The open-source CMS is evolving every day, and users need a reliable paid hosting provider if they are to build anything more than a hobby website. Premium hosts often know WordPress inside and out, so they can easily optimize servers for better performance or provide expert assistance in times of need. And that’s not even mentioning the WP-tailored providers that include value-added extras like free installations, automatic core and plugin updates, staging areas for testing, and more.
You can check ScalaHosting for first-grade WordPress hosting deals with professional support.
Conclusion
WordPress is not a demanding application, nor too complicated to get the hang of. The CMS is #1 on the market for a reason, and millions of users have already built stunning WP pages with no previous experience.
But getting the best out of WordPress requires a little more expertise, so there can only be one winner in our comparison — paid hosting is definitely the way to go.
FAQ
Q: What is the difference between web hosting and WordPress hosting?
A: For many providers, WordPress and web hosting services are practically the same thing, as the standard Linux setup has everything that WP needs to run smoothly. Still, some hosts elevate the CMS to new heights, dedicating entire servers for WordPress clients only. This way, they can focus on one software and optimize services for that app alone.
Q: Does WordPress provide free hosting?
A: You can find two different products with the WordPress name.
WordPress.com offers the commercial version of the most popular CMS. It’s a fully-hosted solution that comes with dedicated support from expert WP developers. Still, the platform is rather limited in design and customization options.
You can find the free version of the software available for download on the WordPress.org website. It gives you full freedom to utilize WP as you wish, but you will have to find a provider to host your project.
Q: Can you create a WordPress website without hosting?
A: If you are using the commercial version of WP on WordPress.com, then hosting is already part of your package. Now, if you are looking to utilize the free, open-source app, then you should also consider finding a reliable provider. For best results and most assistance, you can opt-in for a managed WordPress deal and benefit from extra performance and security optimizations.
