Your Own Website: Testing Free Website Hosts

A website host or web host is how you put your website on the internet. You can make your own website as local file, but you'll need web hosting to publish it on the world wide web, so that others can visit it on the internet. I'm checking out free hosting providers that can be used for fun and personal websites. I wanted to know what to recommend to people who want to make their own website, so I decided to try things out for myself! Each time I test a web host, it becomes a sort of log/review/guide that I hope will be helpful.

I've also started Testing Blog Hosts. You might be interested in my Bluesky Handle Tests since many of these free hosts that can be used to make your website can also provide you with a matching Bluesky username.

The Test

I'm uploading a version of this page to each web host I test. That link is to the version hosted on my own server. Does it look different from the others? The same? We'll find out!

My test website is very simple, just an index.html and css file, and is about 8kb total.

Web Host Tests

• Neocities
• Nekoweb
• Codeberg Pages
• Netlify / Netlify Drop
• Infinity Free updated
• GitHub Pages
• Web1.0 Hosting
• tiiny.host
• yay.boo - currently unavailable

Blog Hosting Tests

• Bear Blog

Neocities

shannonkay.neocities.org hosted by Neocities 

• Signing up was pretty simple. Once signed in, I headed to the site dashboard. It had some placeholder files already there. If you don't already have a site made, you can edit the starter index.html and css file in their browser-based editor. I used drag and drop to upload the files from my test website folder, overwriting the default index page with my own file. 
• A free Neocities account gives you 1GB storage and 200GB bandwidth. The Supporter account for $5/month gets you 50GB storage and 3000GB, custom domain support, and some other things. 
• After updating my website, Neocities made a new thumbnail to add to their community gallery. I added a few tags on signing up for Neocities, including pink, coffee, and books. The next time I visited the Neocities main page, it showed me a bunch of other fun-looking pink websites to visit.
• You can also use your Neocities subdomain as a Bluesky username.

Nekoweb

shannonkay.nekoweb.org hosted by Nekoweb 

• Sign-up was easy. I signed in and went to the dashboard. There are some placeholder files, index and CSS, plus a couple of interesting other files like a custom cursor. I can edit the files that are already there with their browser-based editor. 
• Nekoweb has a nice file manager and editor combined. The CSS file that's included actually contains examples of how to style custom elements for Nekoweb, so don't overwrite it. My CSS file is named something different, so it won't be a problem. 
• There's an upload button, to browse for files and upload them. It's not obvious if I can drag or drop to upload or not, so I tried. It uploaded my CSS file, but didn't overwrite the default index file. I used the upload button to select my index file, and that worked to upload it and overwrite the default one. 
• Nekoweb has a 500MB storage limit for free accounts. Become a patron(starting at $3/month) to add custom domains, get 10GB max storage, access to FTP and git, and some other things. 
• You can also use your Nekoweb subdomain as a Bluesky username.

Codeberg Pages

shannonkay.codeberg.page and codeberg.shannonkay.com hosted by Codeberg Pages

Uploading the website

• I first registered an account at Codeberg. 
• Using the instructions, I created a new repository and called it "pages". To do this, I clicked the + and selected + New Repository.
• I set the Repository name to "pages", changing no other settings. Then I clicked "Create repository".
• Read More

Netlify

Netlify

• Netlify has a generous free tier and support for custom domain names.
• You can use their drag and drop uploader, or deploy with git.
• I've used Netlify by deploying a blog through GitHub and I've also used their drag-and-drop uploader. Their free tier is plenty for most users, and they support custom domain names.

Infinity Free

shannonkay.infinityfreeapp.com hosted by Infinity Free | updated

Infinity Free is a good free host for more advanced users who want php support. They support custom domain names, and include a free subdomain. Infinity Free is one of the few free web hosts that includes php support. Most of the free web hosts I test are for hosting static websites.
Thanks to Leilukin for recommending that I try Infinity Free again.

• Set up had an extra step with creating an account at Infinity Free, then creating a "hosting account" to choose a tier. The free tier gives you 5GB of space and supports domain hosting. Infinity Free includes php support, which is rare for free website hosting. They have some low-cost paid tiers email, more space, and other things. I chose the $0 tier for this test.
• Read More

GitHub Pages

shannonkay.github.io and github.shannonkay.com hosted by GitHub Pages

GitHub Pages will give you a yourname.github.io subdomain and has support for custom domain names.

Uploading the website

• You need an account at GitHub. I already had one, so I signed in. The instructions are at pages.github.com
• I created a new repository called shannonkay.github.io. Under description, I put Shannon Kay's Website. I left the Public radio button selected, left everything else in the default settings, and clicked the Create Repository button at the bottom of the page.
• Read More

Web1.0 Hosting

shannonkay.w10.site and shannonkay.pixels.pink hosted by web1.0hosting.net

Web1.0 Hosting is in Helsinki, Finland. They give 100mb of space for free, or 500mb if you join their community by joining their forum or chat.

Uploading the website

• This website has some really interesting looking things, but I'm going to stick with trying to upload my test site for now.
• I clicked the Get a domain and website space link at the top and filled out the form.
• Read More

tiiny.host

shannonkay.tiiny.site hosted by tiiny.host

• tiiny.host promises to be "The simplest way to host & share your work online" and the Website begins with a file uploader.
• Scrolling down gives a little "How it Works" summary and animation. Upload, Customize, Publish. Scrolling down a bit further shows pricing information. The free plan offers 1 active project, 3MB upload limit per project, and 5,000 visitors/mo. Custom domains start at the $13/mo plan.
• I scrolled back up to the top to try it out.
• I typed shannonkay in the link-name field.
• The file uploader is just below the link-name field. I noticed that "Documents" is selected, which seems to be meant for things like PDF and Doc files. I selected the "Code" tab instead which is for HTML and CSS files, which is what I want to upload.
• I can only upload one file at a time. I could make a zip file, but I'll start with the HTML file.
• I clicked the upload file button and selected my index.html file, then clicked upload.
• There is now an add more files button. I clicked on it and selected my CSS file to upload.
• I entered my email address below please verify your email, and clicked continue.
• I'm brought to this message; "Success! shannonkay.tiiny.site is nearly live..."
• I checked my email for the verification. It's there. there's no code or anything, I just have to follow the "verify" link in the email. I would say that I clicked the link, but I actually copied the link, opened a new browser tab, and pasted it into the address bar. It looked about like I expected, so I pressed enter.
• Following the link leads to a short survey.
  • What are you using Tiiny for?
  • I selected personal website/project and pressed Complete
• Success! shannonkay.tiiny.site is now live. It looks as expected, and has a tiiny.host banner at the bottom.
• The linked subdomain from the Success page has some extra things at the end of the url, and when I click on it, it shows my website with an upselling side banner added to it("only visible to you").
• The uploader works nicely. This would probably be good as custom file sharing for businesses, resumes, or portfolios, but I wouldn't recommend it for website hosting.
• Especially for personal websites, there are better choices. If you want something that's fast and easy to get started, and you just upload files without signing up first, check out Netlify Drop.

yay.boo

Currently Unavailable
shannonkay.yay.boo hosted by yay.boo - This was really fast and easy to use.

yay.boo is not currently available, but the website says it's taking a nap and Yay.boo is staying alive. More details to come!* So I'm hopeful it will come back. My test site was still live at my last check.

Testing Blog Hosts