Inside This Article...
Overview
000WebHost are a free web hosting company, powered by Hostinger. Their platform allows you to host 1 website with a small amount of disk space and bandwidth, and a 99% uptime guarantee.
Free web hosting has become a lot more popular recently as many people turn to cheaper hosting options for personal and business reasons.
Whilst I wouldn’t recommend free hosting for businesses, it is a good way to find out whether or not you like a hosting company, and a step in the right direction if you plan to host a website on a long-term basis.
Affordability is often the main driving factor for people seeking web hosting. Ideas that started small, like website builders, have now exploded and formed a basis for people to build and host websites at a low cost.
I wanted to find out whether 000WebHost’s free web hosting was any good. I always have scepticism around free products and services because I feel as though they won’t be as good as the real deal.
In order to assess 000WebHost’s ability to provide a good service, I signed up for their free web hosting plan and reviewed the following:
- Pros and Cons
- Performance and Speed
- Features
- Pricing
- Customer Support
Does 000WebHost Sound Right For You?
Speed & Performance
Many free web hosts don’t provide an uptime guarantee for obvious reasons, so I was surprised to see that 000WebHost did offer one, be it a little low at just 99%. I know I sound like I’m moaning, but this is an in-depth review, and for me, uptime and speed is incredibly important when finding the best web host.
I signed up for 000WebHost’s free hosting plan and started monitoring my WordPress website with UptimeRobot. The reason I created a WordPress website was that I had awarded Hostinger (who powers 000WebHost) the number one spot in my reviews for the best WordPress hosting.
Here are the uptime results from my tests:
- 100% (last 24 hours)
- 100% (last 7 days)
- 99.941% (last 30 days)
000WebHost’s uptime was disappointing for me, even though I wasn’t really expecting much, and they are a free web host. I guess I’ve spent a lot of time reviewing awesome hosts like SiteGround who always smash their uptime and performance SLAs.
Their uptime guarantee is just 99%, so in fairness, they have kept to their promise, as my overall uptime was 99.941%. However, my main gripe with 000WebHost is their inconsistency and instability. I’ve been monitoring my website with them for 6+ months and I have pages upon pages of downtime records, often lasting more than 10 minutes at a time.
You can see from the results above that my last downtime was 19 minutes long, which really isn’t great if you want to appear in search engine results, as many search engines like Google will penalise your website for its regular downtime.
I needed to find something positive to lift my spirits about 000Webost. I input my website’s URL into Bitcatcha to analyse my server response time, in real-time. The results were good – thankfully!
Most of my website visitors are based in the U.S., so I want my website’s server to run well in that location. U.S. (W) recorded a response time of 79ms and U.S. (E) was 22ms. They are both incredibly fast times! Even further across the pond to Singapore and Bangalore, my website’s server response time was still great.
Pricing
000WebHost is a free web host, there’s no doubt about that, as you can see above. However, they are powered by Hostinger, which means you can upgrade your free website to a paid plan at any time. Hostinger’s Single Shared Hosting is always under $1 per month, which makes it incredibly affordable.
Coming back to 000WebHost though, let’s take a look at the resources on offer:
- Websites: 1
- Disk Space: 300MB
- Bandwidth: 3GB
- Email accounts: 0
- 24/7/365 Support: No
Features
Features can be quite the clincher when deciding on the best web host. In my opinion, features are what makes a web host great value for money (or not). In this case, 000WebHost is a free hosting provider, so I wasn’t expecting the world on a platter.
On the other hand, I did expect some features to entice me in, as there are other free hosts out there. Whilst competing for free may seem like an odd concept, many of these free web hosts are representing a brand or premium hosting in some form or another.
Enough of me going on now, let’s take a look at 000WebHost’s features:
- Free Website Builder: Zyro is a free website builder offered by 000WebHost. They claim that you can build a website in less than an hour, whilst having access to over 1 million free photos to use on your website.
- Control Panel: 000WebHost and Hostinger use a custom control panel. Whilst this frustrates some people because they are used to and love cPanel, their custom panel is actually really easy to use.
- Technologies: For a free web host, 000WebHost supports lots of the latest technologies, including PHP, MySQL, Curl, GD2, Zend, and XML.
- 1-Click Installer: Being able to install your favourite software and CMS at the click of a button is a big deal for many. WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and more can be installed quickly and efficiently via your control panel.
Customer Support
Unfortunately, 000WebHost doesn’t offer any kind of customer support. Unlike Hostinger, there’s no 24/7/365 support of live chat features. It’s a bit of a bummer, but totally understandable considering they are offering a free service.
However, there is a community forum which you can access and post topics to. The forums seem pretty active, which makes a change from some of the free hosting forums I’ve come across in my time.
There is an email address that you can use if you want to contact their support staff. However, it seems to be in use for suspended website purposes only.
I had a quick scout around the forums and noticed there were active moderators replying to issues fairly quickly. So whilst there isn’t a 24/7 support system, there are people helping each other, and it seemed to be a regular occurrence.
Summary
000WebHost feels very much like a middle of the road free web host. Although I have to keep coming back to the point that they are offering a free service, I am very much aware that there are other free hosts on the market who are a lot better.
I would recommend checking 000WebHost out before making any decisions. They are free for life, so you could always use them as a platform to test out website changes, or experiment with something like WordPress if you’ve never used it before.
If you are seeking a reliable web host for your website or business, I can’t recommend 000WebHost. They are only suitable for personal websites or blogs, which won’t be able to rank highly on search engine results.
On a more positive note, 000WebHost are powered by Hostinger, so if you feel ready to scale up your free website, Hostinger’s prices are always very affordable, and they’re a pretty decent premium web host.
Are You Ready to Try 000WebHost?
000WebHost FAQs
Yes! Surprisingly, this free web host does offer an uptime guarantee. Whilst it can’t offer you free hosting in return for missing their SLAs, they do try to honour a level of service.
If you’re struggling with the limited resources that 000WebHost offers, you can upgrade your free web hosting to Hostinger’s Single Shared hosting plan which is currently $0.99 per month.
You won’t get a free domain with 000WebHost, but you can use one of their free subdomains, e.g. www.mywebsite.000webhostapp.com which is suitable for a personal website.
Not as such. 000WebHost do have a community forum which is monitored by Moderators. The Moderators are active in replying to issues and queries, but it’s not a dedicated support system like Hostinger has.
User Reviews
Hostinger Pros:
- Free web hosting for life
- Powered by Hostinger who offer cheap web hosting
- Free Zyro website builder
Hostinger Cons:
- Underwhelming uptime
- Doesn't use cPanel
