Free website hosting exists in a lot more shapes than most comparison lists admit: no-code builders, coded static hosts, old-school PHP servers, and drag-and-drop uploaders all call themselves “free,” and each one hides its costs in a different place. This guide walks through the honest version of all four, platform by platform, so you pick the trade-off you can actually live with.
The four kinds of free website hosting
“Free website hosting” isn’t one category. It’s four very different products that happen to share a price tag, and picking the wrong one for your project is the most common reason people abandon a free plan within a week.
Website builders (Wix, WordPress.com, Google Sites) bundle a visual editor and hosting into one product. You drag sections onto a page, type your content, and the platform handles the server side entirely. No files, no code, no upload step. This is the right lane if you’re a restaurant owner, a freelancer, or anyone who wants to build and host in the same place.
Traditional free web hosts (InfinityFree and similar cPanel-style providers) give you real server space with PHP and MySQL, the same stack that powers WordPress, phpBB, and most legacy CMS software. You upload files via FTP or a file manager, connect a database, and run a script yourself. This fits people installing an existing application rather than building a page from scratch.
Static and Jamstack platforms (GitHub Pages, Cloudflare Pages, Netlify, Vercel) serve pre-built HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files from a CDN with no server-side processing. If you’re not sure whether your project counts, our explainer on what a static website actually is covers the distinction. If you already know your site is static and want a dedicated comparison, our free static website hosting guide goes deeper on that specific slice of the market.
Drag-and-drop uploaders (Netlify Drop, Tiiny Host’s free tier, and Supadrop’s trial) sit between the last two categories: no code required, but you’re uploading a folder of files rather than typing into an editor. This is the fastest path if your site was exported from an AI tool like Lovable, Bolt, or v0, or built by a designer who handed you a finished folder.
Cloudflare Pages: the best free tier for technical sites
Cloudflare Pages is the closest thing to a free tier with no meaningful bandwidth catch. The free plan includes unlimited bandwidth, unlimited requests, and unlimited sites, served from Cloudflare’s edge network across more than 300 locations. There’s no forced branding and no ad injection on your published pages.
The real limits sit elsewhere: a 20,000-file cap per project and a 25 MB individual file size limit. For a normal coded site, neither number is likely to matter. Deployment happens through Git or Cloudflare’s Wrangler CLI, so you need at least a basic comfort with pushing code or running a terminal command. Custom domains and SSL are free and provision automatically.
GitHub Pages: free, but public and non-commercial only
GitHub Pages has stayed free and stable for over a decade, which counts for something on its own. Published sites get a recommended 1 GB size ceiling and a soft 100 GB per month bandwidth limit. Custom domains and SSL are free on every account, including public repos, though DNS setup is manual.
The part people miss is GitHub’s usage policy, not a number. Pages is meant for personal, project, and documentation sites, not commercial ventures like e-commerce or SaaS products, and the platform expects your repository to stay public unless you’re on a paid GitHub plan. Our GitHub Pages limits guide breaks down every soft limit, including the 10-builds-per-hour cap and what happens if you exceed any of them.
Netlify: generous free tier, then it gets expensive fast
Netlify’s free Starter plan is genuinely full-featured: 100 GB of bandwidth, 300 build minutes a month, serverless functions, form handling, and deploy previews for every pull request. A custom domain and SSL are included at no cost. For a small commercial project, the free tier alone can carry you for a while.
The catch shows up the moment you outgrow it. Netlify’s Pro plan runs $19 per member a month and bills bandwidth overages at $55 per 100 GB past the included 1 TB, a jump that can turn a routine traffic spike into an unexpectedly large invoice. Our Netlify alternatives guide covers five platforms that avoid that specific pricing cliff.
Vercel: strong free tier, but not for commercial sites
Vercel’s Hobby plan is free indefinitely and includes 100 GB of Fast Data Transfer, a million function invocations, and a million edge requests a month, more than enough for a personal project or a portfolio with modest traffic. A custom domain works on the free plan too.
The restriction that actually matters isn’t a number. Vercel’s fair use policy limits Hobby to personal, non-commercial use, and its definition of “commercial” is broad enough to include running ads, accepting donations, or being paid to build the site, not just selling a product directly. Our Vercel pricing and free tier limits guide walks through every number and exactly where that line sits.
Wix: the easiest builder, with ads and no custom domain
Wix’s free plan is the fastest way for a non-technical creator to get a working site online. You pick a template, drag sections around, and publish, no files or code involved. Storage sits at 500 MB, which is workable for a simple brochure site but tight if you add much media.
The catches are visible the moment your site loads. Wix injects its own ad banner on every page of a free site, and your URL is locked to a Wix subdomain like yourname.wixsite.com/sitename, since a custom domain requires a paid plan. For a personal test project that’s a fair trade. For anything meant to look credible to a customer or client, the ad and the subdomain both undercut that goal.
WordPress.com: familiar, but locked to a wordpress.com subdomain
WordPress.com’s free plan gets you a real WordPress install with 1 GB of storage and no time limit, which makes it a reasonable starting point for a blog or a simple content site. The editor is the same block-based WordPress interface used across millions of sites, so the learning curve is shallow if you’ve touched WordPress before.
The trade-offs mirror Wix almost exactly: WordPress.com ads appear on your pages, and your site lives at yoursite.wordpress.com with no path to a custom domain until you upgrade to a paid plan. If your priority is writing and publishing rather than branding, that’s an acceptable starting point. If you’re trying to build something that reads as a real business from the first visit, it isn’t.
InfinityFree: real PHP hosting for zero dollars, with limits
InfinityFree is the rare free host that behaves like traditional shared hosting rather than a stripped-down demo. The free plan includes 5 GB of storage, PHP support, and up to 400 MySQL databases (capped at 50 MB each), which is enough to run a real script-based application like a small forum or a lightweight CMS. Unlike Wix or WordPress.com, InfinityFree doesn’t force ads onto your published site, and you can connect a domain you already own at no extra cost.
The limits show up in daily usage rather than storage. The free plan caps traffic at roughly 50,000 hits a day, and accounts that consistently push past that or spike hard can get suspended rather than throttled. There’s also no email hosting on the free tier, so you@yourdomain.com addresses aren’t available without a separate service.
Google Sites: free forever, but never fully your own
Google Sites is the one platform on this list with no upsell at all. There’s no premium tier, no feature gate, and no artificial cap designed to nudge you toward a paid plan. Storage is backed by your Google Drive allowance, which covers nearly any simple site without issue, and there are no ads on your published pages.
The gap is customization and control. Design options are limited compared to a real builder, there’s no e-commerce or third-party integration support, and connecting your own domain requires upgrading to a paid Google Workspace plan (roughly $7 to $8 a month per user), not a one-time fee. For a genuinely free internal tool, a class project, or a simple resource page, that’s a fine deal. For anything meant to represent a brand, the branded Google URL is a permanent ceiling.
Head-to-head comparison
How to host a website for free, step by step
This is the practical version of everything above, condensed into a workflow.
Step 1: Decide what kind of site you’re building. A visual, no-code business page points you toward a builder. A coded export from an AI tool or a static site generator points you toward GitHub Pages, Cloudflare Pages, or a drag-and-drop uploader. A PHP or MySQL application points you toward a traditional host like InfinityFree.
Step 2: Pick the host that matches, not the one with the biggest bandwidth number. A generous free tier is worthless if it doesn’t support your workflow. Someone building a portfolio in Wix doesn’t need Cloudflare’s unlimited bandwidth; someone with a 20-page coded documentation site doesn’t need Wix’s drag-and-drop editor.
Step 3: Upload or connect your files. Builders publish directly from their editor. Static and Jamstack platforms connect to a Git repository or accept a folder upload. Traditional hosts use FTP or a browser-based file manager. Drag-and-drop uploaders skip all of that and just take the folder.
Step 4: Add a custom domain, if your plan allows it. GitHub Pages, Cloudflare Pages, Netlify, Vercel, and InfinityFree all support a free custom domain. Wix, WordPress.com, and Google Sites don’t, on their free plans, so budget for that if a branded URL matters to you from day one.
Step 5: Watch for the ceiling before you hit it. Free plans pause features, throttle traffic, or restrict what you’re allowed to do with the site, they rarely bill you unexpectedly. Know your platform’s specific limit (bandwidth, storage, daily hits, or the commercial-use rule) so an upgrade decision doesn’t arrive as a surprise.
The real cost of free hosting
“Free” rarely means “no cost.” It usually means the cost moved somewhere less obvious than a monthly bill.
Forced ads and branding are the most visible cost. A banner on every page or a .wixsite.com URL in your address bar signals “not a real business yet” to anyone who visits, which matters more than most people expect for a site meant to build trust.
Bandwidth and storage caps are the second cost, and they show up at the worst possible time: right when a post or a page starts getting real traffic. Some platforms throttle quietly, others pause the site until a reset window passes, and a few (like InfinityFree past its daily hit limit) can suspend the account outright.
Non-commercial restrictions are the cost people miss until it’s too late. Vercel’s Hobby plan and GitHub Pages’ usage policy both draw a line around commercial use, and that line is broader than most builders assume. A donation button or a paid freelance credit line can technically put a “personal” project outside the terms.
Disguised trials are the sharpest version of this problem. Some platforms marketed as free are really short trials with a hard stop. Tiiny Host’s free tier, for example, keeps one live site up for only 7 days before it needs a paid plan, which is a different product than a genuinely free tier that runs indefinitely.
When paying $5 a month beats free
Free hosting is the right call for a genuine test, a learning project, or a site with no branding requirement. It stops being the right call the moment a subdomain, an ad banner, or a bandwidth pause starts costing you more in credibility than a few dollars would.
That’s the gap Supadrop is built for. It isn’t positioned as a free host, and it shouldn’t be: you get a 15-day free trial with no credit card required, and after that it’s a flat $5 a month with unlimited bandwidth, a custom domain, automatic SSL, and a QR code generated for every site. Deployment is a drag-and-drop, no Git, no build step, no terminal, and your folder is live at a URL in under 30 seconds.
The pitch is predictability, not novelty. There’s no overage bill, no forced branding, and no non-commercial clause to track. If you’ve already used a drag-and-drop tool like Netlify Drop to test a folder quickly, our Netlify Drop vs Supadrop comparison covers exactly where that free tool’s limits end and where a permanent, paid home for the same workflow begins. You can see the plan details on the homepage or jump straight to pricing.
Frequently asked questions
How can I host a website for free?
Start by matching the host to what you’re building, not the other way around. Website builders like Wix or WordPress.com work for a no-code business site. Cloudflare Pages or GitHub Pages work for a coded static export. InfinityFree works for a PHP and MySQL project.
Once you’ve picked a category, sign up, upload or connect your files, and your site is live on a free subdomain within minutes. A custom domain is usually a separate step, and it isn’t available on every free plan. See our four kinds of free hosting breakdown above for the full mapping.
What is the best free website hosting?
Cloudflare Pages has the most generous free tier for coded sites: unlimited bandwidth, a free custom domain, and no forced branding on a global edge network. For non-technical builders, Wix and WordPress.com are the easiest to use, though both add ads and restrict custom domains on their free plans.
There isn’t a single “best” across every use case. The right answer depends on whether you’re building with code or with a visual editor, and how much you care about a branded domain from day one. Our head-to-head comparison lays out the top six side by side.
Can I use a custom domain on free hosting?
It depends on the platform. GitHub Pages, Cloudflare Pages, Netlify, Vercel, and InfinityFree all let you connect a domain you already own for free, with automatic SSL in most cases.
Wix, WordPress.com, and Google Sites restrict custom domains to paid plans, so your site stays on a branded subdomain like yoursite.wixsite.com or yoursite.wordpress.com until you upgrade. If a custom domain matters to you immediately, rule out the builder-style platforms before you invest time building on one.
Is free hosting good enough for a business?
For testing an idea or an early side project, yes, a free plan is a reasonable place to start. For a business that depends on its site for credibility or sales, the branded subdomain, forced ads, and unpredictable bandwidth caps on most free plans tend to cost more in lost trust than a few dollars a month would.
Most small businesses outgrow free hosting within their first few months, usually right around the point a custom domain or reliable uptime starts to matter. That’s a reasonable time to move to a low-cost paid plan rather than working around a free tier’s restrictions indefinitely.
What are the catches of free website hosting?
The most common catches are forced ads or branding, no path to a custom domain, bandwidth or storage caps that pause your site once exceeded, non-commercial use restrictions buried in the terms of service, and inactive projects getting deleted after a stretch with no traffic.
A subtler catch is the disguised trial. Some platforms marketed as “free” are really short trials with a hard stop, like Tiiny Host, which keeps one live site up for only 7 days before requiring a paid plan. Read the fine print in our real cost of free hosting section before you commit to a platform.
Is Supadrop free?
No, and it isn’t positioned as a free host. Supadrop offers a 15-day free trial with no credit card required, and after that it’s a flat $5 a month with unlimited bandwidth, a custom domain, automatic SSL, and a QR code included on every site.
It’s built for people who tried a free plan, ran into its subdomain, bandwidth, or branding limit, and want predictable pricing instead. See the homepage for the full workflow or pricing for plan details.