When we discuss the difference between free or paid hosting, we have to look at intention first. What is your medium term intention for your website.

Is there free anymore? Free generally means limited access with up-sells up the road. Free may have attached to it some sort of advertising that is placed somewhere on your website. The comparison you need to make is what are your plans in the future?

If this is a personal site where you won’t require a lot of space now and in the future, then free hosting might be just fine for you. If you plan is to add more content and maybe even selling your website someday, then you have to take a closer look at paid hosting. The cost of paid hosting has come way down from a few years ago, a basic starter plan will only run you about 6.00 a month. This will be nothing compared to the headaches you might have if you need to upgrade a free hosting plan in the future.

Domains

This is a small issue, but it needs to be addressed.

Some of the free hosting services pick up the slack when you buy a domain. Where the normal market price for a domain might be 10.00, the free plan you have could be charging you 20.00. These are the areas that these free services make up the difference for the free hosting.

Listen, it costs them to advertise the word Free. The have to make money somehow and they do it with placing ads on your site and over pricing other services. So, if your intentions are to start a small website for personal use, then try it out, but if you have any intention of building something bigger in the future you are better off paying the 6.00 a month and do it right, right from the start.