When should I use a free web hosting site?
Free web hosting companies are all over the Internet and many people ask me if and when should they use one. Having looked into some of these companies and being a free web hosting provider myself let me answer these questions and a few more.
First, should you use a free web hosting client. Simple answer is: Yes, IF…
Now the if comes into play depending on what you are using the website for. If you need a site to test out modifications, if you need a site to post some family pictures, if you need a temporary website for some reason, if your site is for your own or a small group of users to exchange ideas or information then I would definitely say yes, free web hosting is appropriate. In addition, if you are a small or home based business and just getting started on the web and the free web hosting provider you are going to work with will allow you to use your own domain name then again I would feel fine with using a free web hosting provider.
However, if you are going to use the site for a growing business, exchanging files with a lot of friends and family, going to be using the site long term, doing a lot of transferring of information via the web site, running any web business more than a startup site then I would say spend the extra $40 a year or so and get a paid web hosting provider. Web hosting is not that expensive for the basic packages and it is a tax write off.
How much free web hosting space will I need? – This is a question that depends on what you are going to do with the web site. Most family and home based and small business sites will hardly ever use more than 100 MB. I have a dozen sites and the largest site uses 80 MB or so. Now I am not hosting a lot of music or picture files. They will require more space. In fact another question I get is:
How much space will i need for a Picture forum? – This is going to depend on the resolution used when you took the picture. Today it is common to see 5 Mega Pixel cameras which can store 5 million bits of information per picture times the quality of the picture. So a 3.1 Mega pixel camera at low quality will take 3.1 Million Bytes of storage and high resolution the same picture can take over 25 MB of storage. Simply put you could store approximately 48 pictures on a web site that had 150 MB of storage at low resolution. Naturally there are compression routines and better storage methods that can be used. For example you could change the format of the picture to jpg
Some times it is just a matter of knowing what you actually need. Among the Free web hosting companies there are a wide range of plans. So how much free web space will a personal/family web site with few Logos/images need? – Again depending on the images I would say 25 MB will do for the vast majority of web sites.
My pages average less than 10k how much bandwidth do I need? - A 10 k page accessed 10,000 times would use approximately 100 MB per month. Honestly, if you follow the advise above and you are getting more than 10,000 page hits a month it is probably time to look at going to a paid web hosting provider.
How Much will a Flash file Use? – Flash sites are most commonly used for gaming. As such they kind of fall into the realm of business. Fine to start with a free web hosting provider but after a while you will want to move to a paid hosting service. In general Flash files are small less than 50 M. But the bandwidth will be much higher and you may find yourself in trouble with the free hosting provider very quickly. If you start getting the emails from the host saying you are exceeding the bandwidth, it is time to look at a paid hosting provider.
I want to host direct downloads for my site, how much space will i need? –This is an area that free web hosting is NOT meant for. If you have a lot of files to transfer or make available it is time to go with paid hosting. Most free web hosting companies strictly limit the amount of bandwidth that you will get. Bandwidth is the expense that all of us have to pay for on a monthly basis. So Forget it.