Free Hosting Sites That Support WordPress – What to Look For
Whether you’re a blogger, a website owner, or an online store, one thing you need is a place to host your content – whether that’s a blog post, an online store, or whatever else you may need for your site. Wouldn’t it be great if there were thousands of fantastic places where you could simply click ‘upload’ and have your content live on the spot?
Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Even if you find a free hosting site that looks incredible, that support’s what’s called “shared hosting”, which means that multiple sites share the same server. This server becomes overloaded easily and, as a result, your site may be down for hours or even days at a time. Even if you get lucky and your site only goes down for a few hours, that’s still extremely frustrating.
So instead of looking for free hosting sites that support WordPress, you should be looking for hosts that offer a VPS (Virtual Private Server) or a dedicated server. The former is ideal for bloggers and social media users who want to keep their content private. A dedicated server, on the other hand, is perfect for those who want to monetize their content or for any business that wants to host multiple websites.
How Do VPSs Work?
A Virtual Private Server, or VPS, is a type of shared hosting that gives you a dedicated server – which is like having your own personal computer (PC) alongside thousands of others on the same server. The catch is that the other servers on the same server have limited access to your PC, so your content stays private even if they want to browse your site.
The reason why you need a VPS is because shared hosting simply doesn’t provide the level of security or the performance that you need to launch a successful blog or business online. When you have a dedicated server, all the websites hosted on it will share the same hardware resources including CPU, RAM, and storage.
On the surface, a VPS seems like a better option than shared hosting because you have better control over the services your server uses. In reality, though, it’s not always the case. When selecting a VPS host for your blog, it is important to consider the following:
Bandwidth
Just like with your regular PC, your data gets used up and overwritten if you don’t have enough storage on your VPS. Thankfully, this problem is easily solved by upgrading your storage space. To give you an idea of the type of bandwidth that you may encounter on a VPS, let’s say you have a 1 TB monthly upload limit. That means you can upload a maximum of 1 TB of data each month. If you go over this limit, your site will get suspended until you pay for extra storage. This is obviously not desirable. To avoid this, you should look for hosts that offer a generous amount of storage.
Bandwidth-throttling
If you’re familiar with the term “throttling”, it refers to the practice of limiting the amount of data you can access or the speed at which you can access it. This type of speed management is used by many websites and service providers to ensure that your experience is good and that everyone else’s isn’t affected. Bandwidth throttling isn’t something you have to worry about on a dedicated server, but it’s something to keep in mind when choosing a VPS.
Features
As you may have guessed, a VPS doesn’t come with all the standard features that you’d find on a regular PC. For instance, you won’t have an automatic backup solution built in, there’s no Windows OS installed, and the hardware is less powerful than you’d typically find on a PC. As a result, you may have to pay for additional features that will help you deal with the constraints of using a VPS.
Performance
Just like with your regular PC, the speed at which your VPS functions depends on a number of factors. What type of services are you using? Are you running any applications or games on it? How much memory does your VPS have? How powerful is your CPU?
The bottom line is that none of these questions have easy answers, which is why you should always choose a VPS with the best overall performance regardless of the other features. If you’re looking for a free hosting site that supports WordPress, simply follow our recommended guidelines and you’ll be able to find a reputable service that can help you get started.