000WebHost review – is the free provider any good?
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000WebHost is one of the longest-standing free web hosting providers in the market. In this 000WebHost review, I tested whether this zero-cost hosting provider is worth your time – regarding features and ease of use, performance, security, and customer support.
Getting a free web hosting service is a very tempting idea. After all, it is free, right? Well, nothing is free, and by hosting your site on someone else’s servers (that were probably very expensive), you do sacrifice some things. That is your data and ad-free website space.
That is exactly what 000WebHost is charging everyone, and that gives us the right to evaluate the quality of such service. Or perhaps consider alternatives.
In any case, 000WebHost is a legit hosting company offering real hosting free of charge. You get to use a modern admin dashboard and can create a website by installing WordPress, using a built-in website builder, or uploading one via file manager. The signup process is easy and does not require advanced verification methods.
Due to changes in the web hosting market, 000WebHost will be shutting down on October 14th. If you need an affordable hosting alternative, we’ve compiled a list of the best web hosting providers. Our top recommendation is Bluehost, which stands out as an affordable replacement for 000WebHost.
Although 000WebHosting is closing soon, we will keep this review available to preserve its memory.
| ⭐ Rating: | |
| 💵 Price: | From $1.99/month |
| 📑 Uptime guarantee: | 99.05% |
| ⚙️ Hosting types: | Shared hosting |
| 🌎 Server locations: | The US |
| 👨💻 24/7 live support: | No |
| 🔥 Coupons: | Cybernews Web Hosting Coupons |
Pros and Cons of 000WebHost
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000WebHost plans and features
000WebHost is a free service, meaning that no monetary exchange is required to put your website on its servers. However, you can also opt for a premium package from an affordable hosting provider like Bluehost, where prices start as low as $1.99/month.
The free package 000WebHost provides is based on shared hosting infrastructure; your website will share the same server space as dozens if not hundreds of other websites belonging to different owners.
Each free account is allocated relatively small resources:
- Possibility to host 1 website,
- 300MB disk space,
- 3GB monthly bandwidth limit,
- 1 MySQL database,
- 1 FTP account,
- Option to connect a custom domain,
- Cloudflare protected nameservers.
Unfortunately, no email addresses or SSL certificates are provided. Plus, 000WebHost will show its own ads on your website.
Looking at the numbers, it becomes pretty obvious that 000WebHost is suitable only for a very small basic website. To put it in perspective, most of the websites have pages that are heavier than 300MB. This leads to a conclusion that the host is best for learning how hosting works, creating a school project or teaching kids, not creating websites with moderate traffic.
If you need more resources, 000WebHost can offer you to upgrade to one of the premium plans with its partner company Hostinger.
Altogether, 000WebHost provides a functional but scarce hosting plan free of charge. The biggest plus is that you can connect a custom domain, but the limited resources and ads on the website will not be good for business use.
Hosting management: is 000WebHost easy to use?
Surprisingly, 000WebHost is a very modern and easy-to-use service. It uses a custom control panel and pairs it with automatic setup wizards to launch your website. From the registration to installing WordPress and adding a domain – I experienced 0 issues. Although the interface was a little slow.
The signup process was very easy, and once I confirmed my email, a setup wizard was launched. During a 5 step guide, I was able to install WordPress and launch my site live.
Installation took a few moments, but overall, everything went smoothly, and I was quickly redirected to the main control panel. By the way, you cannot choose any other content management system apart from WordPress, unless you upload an existing site manually. The only “automatic” options are website builder and WordPress.
000WebHost control panel
000WebHost uses a custom control panel that’s modern. It features main management modules such as domain and file manager. However, the interface is a little bit slow.
Once you install WordPress, you’ll see the main interface. The menu on the left has all the settings you’d normally see in a control panel.
Under the Tools section, you’ll find such items as domain management, file manager, database, and email.
Each tool has an explanation with it and basically, that’s all you’d need for any website management.
At the same time, more settings are available under the Website Settings menu option.
Here you’ll be able to choose the PHP version (I was surprised that the latest PHP 8 was available), manage redirects, security, and so on. However, if you do want to change anything, prepare for some wait time – the interface takes a little longer than really needed.
Altogether, the 000WebHost control panel is very well put together. It is functional, pretty easy to navigate, and on top of it all – looks great. The only disadvantage is pretty long wait times for most of the actions to be applied.
Performance: is 000WebHost fast?
Performance is the weak point of 000WebHost, as with all free web hosting services. The average uptime is not up to modern standards, meaning you can expect your site to be down for quite a bit. The speed is also much slower than the industry’s average.
000WebHost uptime and response time
Over the period of 4 months, 000WebHost has kept my test site up for 99.05% of the time, complying with its own 99.05% uptime guarantee. While that would sound good, the hosting industry has a 99.9% standard – almost 0.9% higher than what we got for this 000WebHost review.
In other words, 299 outages over a period of around 120 days is not a good and reliable result.
Server response times are also pretty slow, averaging at 1.87 seconds. The shared hosting average is around 600ms – a boundary we wouldn’t like commercial hosts to pass.
So generally speaking, 000WebHost servers show way below average results. At the same time, the services are usable and do comply with the 000WebHost uptime guarantee.
000WebHost website speed
000WebHost loaded a WordPress website surprisingly. Fully loaded time was 1.5s, while Largest Content Full Paint (LCP) didn’t even require a second.
These two measures are the most important ones when it comes to a fully built website’s performance:
- LCP plays a big role in a website's ranking. Google now takes website loading time into consideration when ranking pages, it has set a 2.5 seconds mark for the LCP to be considered good.
- Fully loaded time shapes user experience. A website that loads for longer than 3 seconds faces higher bounce-off rates.
In 000WebHost case, both LCP and fully loaded time are more than fast enough. However, take into consideration that this is just an empty website with a generic theme. I did try to install some demo content on it, but the storage limit wouldn’t allow it.
One more thing to note, 000WebHost servers are located in the US alone. As my test was performed from the US too, other parts of the world may see very different speed results.
Overall, we’ve got very speedy page loading results with 000WebHost for a small website.
000WebHost stress testing
For the last test, I tried sending 50 virtual users (bots) to my website and seeing how 000WebHost handles traffic. Turns out, this provider still has some power.
000WebHost failed the first test with 50VUs, which is not at all surprising. 50VUs at all times would sum up to around 50 000 monthly visitors – that’s way too much for 3GB bandwidth to handle.
So I lowered the number by 5 until the test results were passable.
000WebHost handled 20 virtual users.
This time around the blue line (response speed) has remained very stable regardless of the increase and decrease in virtual users (grey line). More so, the red line is as flat as it gets, meaning there were no failed requests either.
What’s surprising to me is that 000WebHost handled this much traffic – even some paid providers do less.
This means 000WebHost is either not overcrowding the servers or not putting a hard limit as to how much bandwidth one account can use.
Altogether, to my surprise, 000WebHost performance is pretty decent. While uptime is definitely not up to paid hosting standards, speed and server power are more than enough for any learning-purposes website.
Is 000WebHost secure?
000WebHost is not one of the most secure providers you can find. SSL certificates are not included, and only the most basic security features are available.
In terms of security, this is how 000WebHost infrastructure looks like:
- Basic server-level firewalls
- DDoS protection
- 24/7 server monitoring
You can enable hotlink protection and ban certain IPs. Unfortunately, SSL certificates are not available, and there are no advanced security measures targeted towards website software.
Altogether, for basic personal projects, the security measures are enough. However, do not store sensitive personal information on 000WebHost servers as the interface is far from being bulletproof.
Will 000WebHost customer support help me?
The only way to get some help with 000WebHost is a community forum and knowledge base. No other professional customer support is provided.
The knowledge base is well-made and structured. However, it’s not clear how often it is updated.
- The knowledge base is well-made and structured. However, it’s not clear how often it is updated.
- The community forum receives new topics and questions daily, yet the replies are not very active. You can expect a senior member of the forum to reply in a couple of days.
Altogether, 000WebHost does not offer active customer support. It has a broad knowledge base and a pretty active community forum, yet no other professional support options exist.
000WebHost review: final recommendations
000WebHost is among the top free web hosting providers offering reliable hosting services. It includes a custom control panel as well as the possibility to connect your own domain. It’s good for learning purposes, although I cannot recommend it for professional use.
| Feature | Legit hosting free of charge | |
| Pricing | 000WebHost is absolutely free, there are no costs involved. | |
| Ease of Use | The custom control panel is modern and easy to navigate, although a little slow. | |
| Performance | 000WebHost uptime results were poor (99.05%), while the website’s load speed did surprise – 000WebHost handles small websites and average levels of traffic speedily. | |
| Security | The provider includes just the basic server security modules, while essentials like an SSL certificate are missing. | |
| Support | 000WebHost has no professional customer support options, yet you can use a knowledge base and a community forum. |
Who do I recommend 000WebHost to?
Briefly, 000WebHost is a good option for free web hosting. However, don’t expect the highest quality, generous features, and top performance – it’s only good for learning projects.
Alternatives to 000WebHost
Here, at CyberNews, we do not recommend using a free hosting service due to its general unreliability and associated security issues. There are many great cheap web hosting providers you can use as alternatives – some of the best being Bluehost, Hostinger, and DreamHost.
Bluehost
Bluehost stands out as one of the most budget-friendly alternatives to 000WebHost, with plans starting at just $1.99/month. You can easily upgrade your plan as your needs grow, making it a flexible option.
With Bluehost, you get dependable servers and impressive performance, backed by 24/7 live chat and phone support, along with a comprehensive help center. Even the most basic plan includes an intuitive web builder, enabling you to create and manage your website all in one place.
Hostinger
Hostinger is the parent company supporting the 000WebHost project. It's another affordable provider that does not sacrifice power and quality – subscriptions start at $1.66/month.
The host comes with generous resources, its security is pretty advanced, and servers are speedy and reliable. Additionally, all Hostinger’s plans include weekly backups and other advanced security measures. Plus, you get 24/7 customer support – helpful and very friendly.
DreamHost
DreamHost is another affordable alternative to 000WebHost, with prices starting at just $2.59/month. The best part is, you can choose a monthly subscription, so you don’t have to pay a big sum upfront.
The provider’s main focus is WordPress, the host includes automatic WordPress installation as well as a few CMS-specific optimizations. More so, it is very secure and straightforward. Plus, even with the cheapest plan, you’ll get a free domain, domain privacy, SSL certificate, unlimited monthly bandwidth, and daily backups.
000WebHost FAQs
How good is 000WebHost?
As a free hosting option, 000WebHost is a pretty good provider. It doesn’t collect too much of your personal data upon signing up, and the servers can handle the needs of small websites. 000WebHost is good to use for learning purposes.
Is 000WebHost com safe?
000WebHost is not the safest provider you can find. Due to the fact that it’s a free option, you don’t get many security features included. Plus, there was an instance of a leak where a lot of customer data was breached.
Why is 000WebHost bad?
000WebHost is not bad per se – it’s a free option that’s not a scam. However, you do sacrifice hosting quality, performance, and reliability by choosing it.
Is 000WebHost free for lifetime?
Yes, 000WebHost is free for a lifetime.
What is 000WebHost used for?
000WebHost is mainly used for learning web development and getting familiar with web hosting and its backend.
Is 000WebHost good for WordPress?
000WebHost is good for WordPress. It features an automatic setup and installation for the CMS as well as the latest PHP versions to make it faster.
How do I host a PHP site on 000WebHost?
To host a PHP site on 000WebHost, you can use file manager to upload your website files.
How do I get my website on 000WebHost?
You can get your website on 000WebHost by uploading its files via file manager and setting up a database or simply installing or migrating WordPress.
Comments
That's a great question.
To answer that - yes, a free hosting provider can be used to create a demo site for others to see your work. However, you should know that unprotected sites could potentially get hacked in the long run, and your site's visitors might face some cyberthreat because of that. More so, 000WebHost's free plan offers 300MB storage and a 3GB monthly bandwidth limit, which means that this provider is best suited for a very light site of a small project.
I hope this helps :)
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