Choosing a hosting is one of the most important steps when creating a website. Many novice webmasters and businesses are faced with the question: use free hosting or invest in paid hosting?

At first glance, the free option seems attractive, but there are pitfalls behind it, and frankly there are quite a lot of them. In this article, we will look at the key differences between free and paid hosting, their pros and cons, and help you determine which option is best suited for your project.

What is free and paid hosting?

Free hosting is a service for hosting websites on company servers without payment. It is usually provided with limitations: small amount of disk space, low performance, built-in advertising and lack of technical support. As a rule, such solutions are used by people who just need to see how their application will work./the site is on a separate server, as well as those who want to send emails and Ddos attacks, but again they have very limited characteristics and a network, which makes it pointless. Free hosting is more suitable for checking out the application or website that you are creating. If we talk about free game hosting, then it is also very limited and most likely it should not be used.

Paid hosting is a service for which the client pays a monthly or annual fee. In return, it gets more resources, better performance, protection, technical support, and scalability. This option will help you more if you have your own project or you have just started your way in business, there are a lot of paid hosting options, for example: VPS, VDS, Dedicated server, Shared hosting and much more. If you have a small project, a VPS is suitable for you, and if you want to expand it in the future, then you will need the ability to scale not only dedicated servers but also VPS in principle. 

The main differences between free and paid hosting

Why do people choose free hosting?

Free hosting may be suitable in the following cases:

•  Website testing and training projects – if you're just trying your hand at web development, free hosting can be a good start, and if you need to show your project to a potential employer, then this option is also suitable.
•  A personal blog or a small business card site - if you don't care about download speed and lack of ads, free hosting may be temporarily suitable. However, if your blog/ website is visited by a large number of users, then there is a possibility that the site will not survive.
•  Code experiments are used to test small scripts or create trial versions of websites.

However, for serious projects and businesses, free hosting is far from the best option due to its limitations and unreliability. However, if you have a large flow of customers, then your website, being on free hosting, will simply fall and you will lose customers. If we are talking about a small flow of customers, then you will have obvious limitations in terms of both RAM and storage memory.

Advantages of paid hosting for businesses

If you want to create a reliable business website, online store, or corporate portal, paid hosting is the only reasonable choice for many reasons.

1.  High speed and performance – paid hosting uses modern servers and SSD drives, which speeds up website loading and increases the security of your data.
2.  Data Security – Regular backups, DDoS protection, and SSL certificates protect your website from threats.
3.  Support for your own domain – with paid hosting, you can use a professional domain (for example, mybusiness.com ).
4.  The absence of advertising – no imposed banners or pop-ups that may alienate visitors - shows that you take your business seriously.
5.  Flexibility and scalability – if your site is growing, paid hosting makes it easy to increase resources without losing performance.
6.  Technical support – the ability to receive help 24/7 in case of problems.

Which hosting should I choose?

 Choose free hosting if you need a website "for yourself" or a temporary test project.

 Choose paid hosting if your website is designed for business, requires high speed, protection, and a professional approach.

For commercial projects, paid hosting is an investment that pays off thanks to stable performance, good performance and a better user experience. Moreover, when you pay for hosting, you can request a contract or a refund if the hosting company could not provide what it is obligated to.

Conclusion

Although free hosting may seem attractive, it is only suitable for small personal projects. If you want to create a serious business website, online store, or blog with high traffic, you need paid hosting.

Paid hosting provides speed, security, professional support and the absence of restrictions, which makes it the only right choice for the long-term development of the site.

Why choose MivoCloud?

MivoCloud offers reliable and affordable hosting solutions that will help your business grow and develop:

•  High–speed operation - thanks to SSD drives and modern servers.
•  DDoS protection – to protect your website from attacks.
•  Flexible tariff plans – from budget solutions to high-performance servers.
•  Round–the-clock technical support - professional help at any time.
•  Easy setup and user-friendly control panel.

With MivoCloud, your website will work stably, quickly and securely!