Are you ready to jump in and make your first Joomla site? Have you looked around and thought to yourself, "There's got to be a free way to set up a site"? Well there is, it's called Free Web Hosting.
Should You Use Free Web Hosting?
Wow, Free Web Hosting! Yep there is such a thing as free hosting. It's out there, but should you us it? Just take a second to think, why would a company offer you free anything? The truth is, they are going to get money from you somehow, regardless. The bottom line is, nothing is ever completely free.
To answer our earlier question, no, we do not think you should use free web hosting. There are several reasons you should steer clear of free web hosting.
Pros
- Free
Cons
- Slow server speeds
- Ad's or domain registration hassle
- Little to no technical support
- Very few features
- Slow Server Speed
Free Joomla hosts put thousands of accounts on one server and it performs slowly as a result. You could have website neighbors who are running huge sites that take forever to load and because your sharing the server with them, it slows your site down.
Watch Out For Ads
If you set up a free Joomla site, don't be surprised if you see ads displaying on some of your pages. Guess what, you can't take them down and you're not making money from them either, but someone is, the hosting company.
Little To No Tech Support
If you have trouble with your website and you contact the provider, most likely they will try to up-sell you into a paid package. So you end up doing what you were trying to avoid in the first place.
Very Few Features
Were you hoping to set up a couple email addresses? Access FTP? or Manage databases? Good luck with free hosting. They know serious website owners will want access to those features, guess what, you have to pay extra for them.
What should you do?
If you're dead-set on trying free hosting then try it. It's always a good experience to try new hosting services. Our suggestion is to try a free hosting company along side a free 30-day trial from a paid hosting company. Hosting companies always have trials for you to see if you like them better. So try both out for free and see what you think.
