Just like anything else for sale in the world, you can find great deals on web hosting packages if you look hard enough. However, there’s a huge difference in a great deal and in free services. With web hosts, you’re going to get what you pay for, and if you don’t pay anything at all, well, you probably won’t receive anything at all.

When you choose to go with a free web host, you’re at the mercy of their anemic shared servers, and this means that you’re going to be dealing with a whole lot of downtime. When people access your site, they’ll probably receive an error page or run into a site that won’t load.

A free web host isn’t really free at all; it’s more of an advertisement for their company, with the caveat that you must purchase a package to get rid of their ad. For instance, when you choose a free host, your address will display that company’s name. The only way to get rid of it is to pay for it.

A free web host is basically just a glorified blog, and to that end you cannot expect any real customer support coming from the service. If you ever encounter any problems, you’ll pretty much be on your own to solve them.

With a free host, you’ll be drastically limited in your bandwidth and space. With a paid host, on the other hand, you can receive unlimited disk space and bandwidth. For most people who plan on expanding their websites over time, this option is a no-brainer.

As mentioned above, there is no growth allowed with a free web host. As you begin to market your site effectively and to pick up more visitors, they’re going to cause server crashes and have to endure too much downtime. Your site just can’t grow with a free host.

A free web host is only going to provide you with so many templates and with so many programming options. You might not even be allowed to upload an external template. Your hands are tied here in terms of creativity.

Another big issue with free web hosting is that their security is pretty much nonexistent. And when someone breaks into your site to steal your data, you have no recourse to take. With paid hosting, you’ll receive a secure server.

The worst possible thing about free web hosting is that, after you go through all your options to create your site, you’re far worse off than if you just created a blog. And even if you do pay the money to the “free” host to get rid of their ads and to get more space, you could have just purchased a real hosting package for a lot cheaper. So before you even think about free hosting, browse around for affordable paid hosting options first.

While not every paid hosting option out there is affordable, there are plenty of low-cost, feature-rich hosts to choose from. You just have to stay away from that “free” word and focus more on quality.