| COMPARISON |
FREE WEB HOSTING |
PAID WEB HOSTING |
| Domain / Uniqueness |
NO
Free web hosting platforms will provide a domain address that has their company's name included in the URL. This will certainly not create a professional image for businesses since customers never take websites hosted by free providers seriously.
|
YES
Paid web hosting companies provide a personalised domain name, creating a unique identity for businesses online.
|
| Uptime / Reliability |
NO
Usually, free web hosting platforms do not offer the same uptime like paid web hosting companies. So websites hosted by free providers are prone to witness a lot of downtime. This will more likely cause a negative impact for businesses and may result in loss of customers and revenues.
|
YES
Paid web hosting services guarantee 99 percent uptime, which is absolutely essential for businesses.
|
| Server resources |
Limited
Free web hosts put thousands of website into one physical web server, meaning that your allocation of disk space and monthly bandwidth is really limited.
|
No limit
|
| Performance |
Unstable
To be frank, you get what you pay. Even the expensive dedicated hosting may cause downtime, then how can you expect a good uptime by paying nothing? Besides, as you have a large number of neighborhoods in the server, your chances to be negatively affected by their fool operations and massive resource utilizations are increased greatly.
|
Stable
Ocassionaly you get downtime but this is only for few minuts, generally in the night.
|
| Server Architecutre |
I TIER |
Minimum III TIER |
| Search Engine Rankings |
Free web hosting platforms display irreverent ads and unprofessional links on the websites. Moreover, these platforms are also infamous for being used by spammers to create dummy websites. Such factors are frowned upon by search engines and contribute to lower search engine rankings. |
Businesses will never encounter such issues while building a website with a professional company, resulting in higher search engine rankings and better online visibility. Such inconveniences will not be there while using paid services. |
| Bandwidth and Storage |
free web hosting companies provide limited bandwidth and storage space, making it inconvenient to upload and transfer video clips, photos, maps and so on. Also, some companies restrict user access once the bandwidth limit is reached. So businesses might have to wait for a period of time to alter their website content. |
Professional web hosting companies like 1&1 give the freedom for businesses to choose from a variety of packages, with different bandwidth and storage space. |
| Support and Assistance |
Poor Technical Support
You cannot guarantee that you would never encounter any technical problem during your utilization of the free web hosting. Once you are in stuck, you are hardly to get a helpful hand from the free hosting.
|
Healthy Technical Support
Priority Technical Support, Ocasionally Professional Web hosting providers take necessary action for healthy and smooth running to websited Sometimes you never know the problems.
|
| Hidden fees |
Yes
This is a dirty secret behind free hosting. It does not require you to pay anything about the hosting service, but charges you something in hidden when you start using the service, such as the script setup fees and website backup fees.
|
No
Fee for what you get.
|
| Renewal fees |
Expensive
Getting the service for free is surely great, but this situation usually only lasts 1 year. After the first year, you have to renew your account, and the renewal price may surprise you with a high rate.
|
Same as first year |