Best Free Web Hosting: What the Free Tiers Really Allow
Free hosting is real, but every free tier has a catch: credit pools, hit caps and commercial-use bans. We compare the five free hosts that still work.
By Galactic News Editorial · Published 2026-11-10T19:35:18+00:00 · Updated 2026-11-10T19:35:18+00:00
Best Free Web Hosting: What the Free Tiers Really Allow
Free web hosting is real, but every free tier has a catch. Some hosts cap storage. Others pause your site when a monthly allowance runs out. A few ban commercial use in their terms. This guide compares the free tiers that still work in 2026. It uses limits from each provider's own pricing, limits, or help pages. Pick by what you are building, not by the word free.
Best free web hosting at a glance
| Host | Best for | Free limits that matter | Custom domain | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare Pages | Static sites and docs | 500 builds a month, 20,000 files, 25 MiB per file, static requests unlimited | Yes, up to 100 per project | Functions share a 100,000 requests a day limit |
| GitHub Pages | Portfolios, docs, learning | 1 GB site, 100 GB bandwidth a month soft limit, 10 builds an hour soft limit | Yes, with HTTPS | Public repos only on free; no shops or commercial SaaS |
| Netlify Free | Static sites with forms and functions | 300 credits a month shared across bandwidth, deploys, and functions | Yes, with SSL | All sites pause when credits run out |
| Vercel Hobby | Next.js and framework sites | 100 GB data transfer, 1,000,000 function invocations a month | Yes, up to 50 per project | Personal, non-commercial use only |
| InfinityFree | PHP and WordPress hobby sites | 5 GB disk, 50,000 hits a day, 400 databases | Yes | Account goes offline 24 hours at the hits cap; no email |
Limits were checked on provider pages in late 2026. Free plans change often. Confirm the live page before you rely on a number.
Cloudflare Pages: the best free web hosting for static sites
Cloudflare Pages is the closest thing to a free tier with no bandwidth catch. Static requests are unlimited. You get 500 builds a month, up to 20,000 files per site, and 25 MiB per file. You can attach up to 100 custom domains per project. Pages Functions share the Workers free limit of 100,000 requests a day. That is generous for a small site. Pages suits portfolios, documentation, landing pages, and front-end projects. It does not run PHP or a database. If your site is static files, this is the first option to try.
GitHub Pages: the best free web hosting for learning
GitHub Pages has stayed free and stable for over a decade. That counts for something. A published site has a 1 GB size limit. Bandwidth has a soft limit of 100 GB a month. Builds have a soft limit of 10 per hour. Custom domains and HTTPS are free. The part people miss is the usage policy, not a number. Pages is meant for personal, project, and documentation sites. It is not for online shops or commercial software products. On a free GitHub account, your repository must stay public. GitHub Pages suits a portfolio, a class project, or project docs. It does not suit a business site.
Netlify Free: full features, one shared allowance
Netlify Free is genuinely full-featured. It includes serverless functions, form handling, and deploy previews. It runs on a credit system now. The free plan gives 300 credits a month. Bandwidth, deploys, and functions all draw from the same pool. Bandwidth costs 20 credits per GB. A production deploy costs 15 credits. Web requests cost 2 credits per 10,000. That means about 15 GB of bandwidth if you spend credits on nothing else. The catch is hard. When the 300 credits run out, Netlify pauses all your sites. Visitors see an error page until the next month. Netlify suits small sites with steady, low traffic. It does not suit a site that might spike.
Vercel Hobby: best for framework sites, with a use rule
Vercel Hobby is free and includes 100 GB of fast data transfer a month. It also includes 1,000,000 function invocations and 1,000,000 edge requests a month. You can attach up to 50 custom domains per project. It is the natural home for Next.js sites and other framework projects. The catch is in the terms. The Hobby plan is for personal, non-commercial use only. A business site or a client project needs a paid plan. If you exceed a limit, you usually wait until the allowance resets. Vercel suits personal framework projects. It does not suit commercial work.
InfinityFree: the only real free PHP host left
InfinityFree fills a gap the static platforms do not. It provides PHP and MySQL hosting like traditional shared hosting. Its free plan lists 5 GB of disk space, PHP support, and MySQL databases. It offers free SSL certificates, a free subdomain, and your own domain. It shows no ads on your site. The limits sit in its knowledge base. The daily limit is 50,000 hits. A hit is any file request, not a page view. A page with two CSS files, three JavaScript files, and five images counts as 11 hits. Reach 50,000 hits in a day and the account goes offline for 24 hours. There is also no email service. InfinityFree suits learning WordPress or PHP on a hobby site. It does not suit a site you depend on.
How to choose the best free web hosting for your site
First, match the host to the stack. Static HTML, CSS, and JavaScript belong on Cloudflare Pages or GitHub Pages. Framework sites belong on Vercel or Netlify. WordPress or PHP needs InfinityFree, since the static platforms cannot run it. Second, check the commercial-use rule. GitHub Pages and Vercel Hobby both restrict commercial use. A shop, a client site, or a software product needs a different plan. Third, read the failure mode. Netlify pauses every site when credits run out. InfinityFree suspends your account for a day at the hits cap. Cloudflare Pages has no bandwidth cap on static files, so it fails least often. Fourth, plan the exit. Keep your code in a repository you control. Then moving to a paid host is a redeploy, not a rebuild.
Bottom line
For a static site, Cloudflare Pages is the best free web hosting in 2026. Its static requests are unlimited and its limits are clear. GitHub Pages is the best pick for learning and portfolios. Netlify Free is the most full-featured, but its shared 300-credit pool can pause your whole account. Vercel Hobby is the best for framework sites, if your use is personal. InfinityFree is the only free option for PHP and WordPress hobby sites, with a 50,000-hit daily cap. When traffic, uptime, or income depends on the site, pay for hosting. A free tier is a starting point, not a business plan.