Want to cut right to the case? The best free PHP web hosting right now is Bluehost and Hostinger.
After reading this article, you should have no trouble understanding PHP hosting and obtaining it. PHP is a general-purpose scripting language that is particularly well suited to web development. PHP scripts can only be read on a server that is PHP enabled, so you’ll need to find a web host that supports it if you want to take advantage of PHP hosting. PHP used to stand for Personal Home Page, but it now stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, which is a recursive initialism. Let’s start with a definition of PHP before moving on to the best free PHP hosting.
What is PHP Web Hosting?
PHP web hosting is defined as web hosting that can read and execute PHP code. PHP is a widely used server-side scripting language in which the source code is processed by the server. In contrast to strict HTML pages, this ensures that front-end users would not have access to the source code.
PHP is also an open-source interpreter, which means it can read code in real-time. PHP is a programming language that is used to create interactive websites with pages that are created in real-time – it’s ideal for creating sign-in screens and eCommerce shopping carts. PHP is also a universal scripting language, which means that PHP-powered websites can work on almost every new smartphone, including iPhones and Android phones.
10 Best Free PHP Web Hosting
A web hosting service is a form of Internet hosting service that allows anyone, including individuals and businesses, to make their website available on the Internet. While most hosting is charged, there are several free website hosting options that can meet your needs.
Here’s a list of the best free PHP web hosting sites with the most popular features:
1. Bluehost
Bluehost is a website hosting firm that is privately owned. Shared hosting, virtual private servers, and dedicated servers are all available. They also offer unrestricted reseller hosting accounts and shared hosting. PHP versions 7.0 through 7.3 are supported by Bluehost. PHP handlers can be used to customize the version, and php.ini can be used to configure the setting. Bluehost also includes several non-PHP-related functions.
Features:
- File Transfer Protocol account and File manager
- MySQL databases & PHP support
- Control panel
- Free tech support
- Free community access (Forums)
- Clustered servers
- HTTPS SSL on all unrestricted hosting domains. (self-signed certificate)
Plans and pricing:
- Super-premium monthly: $4.99/month
- Super-premium annually: $59.8/year
- Ultimate monthly: $7.98/month
- Ultimate annually: $95.88/year
Pros: Affordable pricing, solid uptime, generous storage, unmetered bandwidth, great for beginners
Cons: Constant upsells, poor backup options, domain renewal is somewhat expensive compared to others
3. Hostinger
Hostinger, which was established in 2004, now has over 29 million subscribers in 178 nations through its deputies. The organization offers MySQL, File Transfer Protocol, and PHP hosting and leverages cloud hosting technologies. It has slowly grown an international subscriber base that covers 39 countries, offering everything from warranty opening hosting to advanced VPS cloud infrastructure. Hostinger’s PHP plans offer git integration for rendering applications, version control for migrating between PHP versions 5.2 and 7.4, and server-side caching to increase page rate.
Features:
- Simple to utilize website builder
- Auto installer (WordPress, Joomla, etc.)
- Offers many email hosting accounts
- 24/7/365 live chat support
Plans and pricing
PHP hosting is available on all of Hostinger’s shared plans, which start at $0.99 per month. The Single PHP plan is the most affordable, with 100GB of bandwidth and 1X computing power and memory. The Business PHP plan, on the other hand, includes unlimited bandwidth, 4X processing power, and memory, as well as regular backups.
The hosting plans offer by Hostinger are:
- Single: $45/month
- Premium: $119/month
- Business: $189/month
Pros: Excellent speed, easy to set up, intuitive user interface; all plans include Bitninja (a protection feature) and SpamAssassin (an email spam filter); excellent knowledge base tools.
Cons: Hostinger’s panel replaces the default cPanel, No free site migration, tricky live chat access
3. Awardspace
Awardspace has been offering web hosting since 2004. Although they have been through a few ups and downs but have managed to stay alive. They’ve been tweaking their free hosting offering overtime to keep up with the market. They just unveiled a fully new website and streamlined their services last year. After offering free HTML hosting for a while, Awardspace agreed to provide free LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) hosting without the need for subscribers to view banner ads. The company started selling premium hosting plans in 2005. Awardspace offered three options to address the growing needs of current customers who could no longer use the free plan.
Features
- SPAM Protection
- Auto Installer (WordPress, Joomla, etc)
- Ad-free hosting
- Unrestricted website builder
Plans and Pricing
- Basic: €0.17/month
- Web Pro Plus: €4.29/month
- Max Pack Plus: €5.49/month
Pros: Instant account setup, No ads, Access to FTP, Control panel, WordPress installer, 24/7 customer support
Cons: Limited website space, limited traffic volume, and bandwidth
4. Siteground
SiteGround began operations in 2004 and has since expanded to become one of the most well-known hosting companies. Siteground is another excellent free website hosting option. They are well-known for their outstanding customer service and lightning-fast results. SiteGround is also a WordPress hosting provider that comes highly recommended. They are well-known for their excellent customer service, fast hosting plans, and consistent uptime.
Features:
- Storage Limits
- Bandwidth Allowance
- Email Hosting
- Control Panel Integration
- CMS Support
- Web Framework Support
- E-Commerce Integration
- File Management
- Database Support
- Security Tools
Plans and Pricing
- StartUp: $6.99/month
- GrowBig: $9.99/month
- GoGeek: $14.99/month
Pros: unrestricted daily automatic backups & restore, Automatic WordPress installation, Managed WordPress hosting on all plans, Innovative speed technologies, unrestricted SSL certificate & Cloudflare CDN
Cons: Limited data storage, resource over-usage, there’s a set-up fee if you choose monthly billing, and it’s a little expensive compared to others.
5. x10hosting
x10Hosting, a privately owned American hosting provider based in Tilton, New Hampshire, was established in 2004 to provide free web hosting to webmasters all over the world. X10hosting is a web hosting and site-building network that works together. Its available SEO tools assist subscribers in registering a domain name and optimizing the ranking of their website. As a more secure and faster hosting option, the company introduced its x10 Premium hosting service in 2010. The x10VPS virtual server service and the Infinity+ dedicated server solution are also available.
Features:
- 24*7 support
- Addition web builder
- Automatic backups
- Unrestricted SEO Tools
Plans and Pricing:
- Monthly: $6.95/month
- Yearly: $5.95/month
- 2-years: $4.95/month
- 3-years: $3.95/month
Pros: Over 200 auto-install scripts, Email account included, cPanel
Cons: Limited customer support, No unrestricted restricted domain
6. Googiehost
Googiehost is still one of the best free web hosting services available. It’s the only free web hosting service that includes cPanel and Cloudflare but in a limited capacity. GoogieHost.com is one of the most unrestricted website hosting assistance on the internet, offering 100GB of monthly upload on real cPanel servers with LiteSpeed and CloudLinux to power up websites in seconds, as well as unlimited other tools.
Features:
- Unlimited SSD Storage
- SitePad Website Builder
- 450+ Cloud Apps
- Unlimited Email Accounts
- Global Content Caching
- Intershield Protection
- Unrestricted Website Migration
Plans and Pricing:
- Standard: $5/month
Pros: 1000MB storage, No ads, unrestricted subdomains
Cons: Limited customer support, Multiple accounts not available
7. Freehostia
Freehostia has been one of the most fully featured hosting services for over ten years. The knowledge and skills they gained during this time enabled them to create a high-quality website hosting platform with an intuitive user-friendly cPanel, an in-house designed 1-click free PHP scripts installer, and, last but not least, a unique load-balancing cluster technology that allows each of the web hosting services’ users to benefit from the quality, security, and stability of the web hosting services. The Freehostia autonomous website hosting platform provides a considerable size, a web host, in addition to supplying slices of hosting. Premium services, such as dedicated servers, are also available.
Features:
- Unrestricted website templates
- Auto Installer (WordPress, Joomla, etc)
- Ad-free hosting
- PHP & MySQL database support
Plans and pricing
- Watercircle: $2.95/month
- Lovebeat: $4.95/month
- Wildhoney: $7.95/month
- Supernatural: $9.95/month
Pros: Uptime, Quality Hosting for Free, Suitable for a variety of Websites, Easy to Upgrade to Paid Plans, Unlimited Paid Hosting with a Free Domain, Secure Website Features, Support for Python, Automatic, Backups, Free SSL Certificates, Unmetered Disk Space, Unlimited Domain Support, Dedicated IP Support, It’s Unrestricted
Cons: Few Payment Options, No cPanel, Not so Friendly User Interface, No Customer Support with the Free Plan
8. InfinityFree
This firm offer web hosting assistance that is completely unrestricted. It comes with an infinite amount of storage space and bandwidth. Furthermore, there will be no compulsory advertisements, and you will be able to carry your domain name or choose a free subdomain name from over 25 domain extensions. Infinityfree stands out in the world of free website hosting for a variety of reasons. The website UI/UX is designed in a way that makes the subscriber impressed and clicks all of the expected boxes. There are no hidden costs, and even though it is free, you can receive a 99.9% uptime guarantee as well as the common Softaculous script installer, which includes over 400 applications.
Features:
- 99.9% uptime
- Free subdomain
- Free SSL
- Unlimited storage
- PHP 5.4, 5.5, 5.6, 7.4
- MySQL 5.6
- Full .htaccess support
- Free DNS Service
Plans and Pricing
- InfinityFree: $0/month
- Super Premium: $3.99/month
- Ultimate Premium: $6.90/month
Pros: You can purchase your domain name or pick a free subdomain name from over 25 domain extensions, Gives you access to install over 400 web apps, Supports Joomla and WordPress, Free access to email accounts and databases, Free CDN access to boost up your website loading times
Cons: No backups, limited databases and email accounts, limited server power
9. Byethost
Byethost is a subsidiary of Byet Internet, a United States-based provider of hosting, domain name, and reseller services. Byethost explains that its unrestricted hosting assistance that is “one of the most influential networks dedicated solely to free hosting in the world,” with over one million websites hosted. 5GB of server storage, free monthly bandwidth, and MySQL / PHP adaptability are all given to subscribers. They also get 24/7 tech support, as well as access to Byethost’s community and knowledge base, which is a huge plus.
Features:
- 24/7 Support
- Auto Installer (WordPress, Joomla, etc)
- Ad-free hosting
- PHP & MySQL database support
Plans and Pricing
- Free: $0.00/month
- Super Premium: $4.99/month
- Ultimate: $3.99/month
Pros: Free Community Access through forums, clustered servers, HTTPS SSL on all free hosting domains, No ads, Access to control panel for easy access and website management, Unlimited monthly transfer, Online file manager, IonCube support and Unlimited addon domains, Free FTP software Automatic and Unlimited parked domains
Cons: Limited disk space and bandwidth, limited email and databases
10. Dreamnix
Dreamnix is more of an “almost-free” service than a “free” service, in my opinion, since their free product offers top-of-the-line functionality with significant limitations. Dreamnix is one of the few hosting companies that provide free cloud hosting. The benefit of using cloud computing to host your websites is that you can rarely experience outages or downtime. Over 300,000 people trust Dreamnix, and you can use their cloud storage without providing any credit card details.
Features:
- SSD-powered servers
- Auto Installer (WordPress)
- Ad-free hosting
- PHP & MySQL database support
- 1 GB disk space
- 1 GB bandwidth
- Host 1 site
- Access to cPanel
- SSH access to safeguard your website
Plans and Pricing
- Free: $0/month
- Basic: $1.95/month
- Premium: $4.95/month
Pros: 99.9% Uptime Guarantee, cloud hosting servers, no advertising, green hosting, 24/7 support, 1 click WordPress installation, network monitoring, SSD cloud storage for faster website speeds, 24/7, access to firewalls
Cons: No email accounts, less storage, and bandwidth