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Difference Between Free and Paid Web Hosting Service


By Stephanie Ly

Website owners are often faced with a difficult decision right from the beginning of their online venture. This decision is to choose a web hosting service for their website. Not only are there hundreds of web hosting companies offer their services at affordable prices, but there are also some that offer free hosting to their customers.

Here we look in detail at the major differences between having a free hosting service versus a paid hosting service and the impact it can have on your website.

Price

The first difference is the price. Free webhosting allows website owners to host the website completely free of charge. There are no fees involved in uploading files to their server. There are no fees involved for keeping the website hosted on the server over time.

Paid webhosting services on the other hand charge a small fee for website owners to have their website hosted. Payment to web hosting services is usually prescription based on a monthly interval. You may choose to sign up for 12 or 24 months and receive huge discounts or you can stick to a month by month plan to make sure you are happy with the service.



Speed

One important aspect of webhosting you need to look is bandwidth. This determines the speed that data is transferred from the hosting server to the Internet user visiting your site The greater the bandwidth, the faster your site will load and the faster users can see videos, pictures and download files from.

Free web hosting services usually restrict the amount of bandwidth to your website and as a result this will affect your website's loading time as well as speed when visitors are trying to browse your site.

If you have a relatively new site without many visitors yet or your site does not consist of many pictures and videos then the restriction on bandwidth have little or no effect on you. Conversely, if you are planning to grow your website or have a large website with lots of graphics then a paid web hosting option with unlimited bandwidth is your best solution

Space:

The amount of web space you need for your website is also important if you are planning to grow your website, or at least have the flexibility to be able to expand it at a later date. Free web hosting services usually limit the amount of web space allowed by you web site, the number of pages your website can have or both.

It is therefore important that if you have a website that can grow to being quite large and significant you are going to need server space from a web hosting company that provides you with plenty. Many paid web hosting services also provide unlimited space for your website, which helps put your mind at ease.

Functionality:

Functionality and control of your website is probably one of the most important aspects when considering a web hosting solution. You want to be in control of your own website and have be able to do whatever you want with it. Most free web hosting accounts do not allow you to use your own domain name. As an alternative, you must use a subdomain or internal domain of their own website.

This can be seen as a drawback since you will then have poor branding of your products and services. In addition, many free hosting options place their own ads on your website. You cannot remove these ads and they may be annoying and distracting to your potential online visitors.

In conclusion, pricing would be the only advantage a free webhosting service would have compared to a paid webhosting service.

It is also a known fact that it may also be costing you more and causing you to sacrifice more if you do not have an adequate and reliable web hosting service for your website.

If you have taken the initiative to start your own website then your next step is to find an affordable webhosting solution with no restrictions.


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