Byethost is a website hosting service that advertises itself as being the fasted free hosting service in the world. Along with free hosting services there are premium hosting services offered for a fee. As with any hosting service you will need to have a registered domain in your name or chose the free version with the example “yoursite.byethost.com”. If you are not sure where to begin with your website, and are unsure of the features you will need, then starting with a free web hosting service is a great option.
What Is Byethost?
Byethost was listed as one of the top 20 Free Web Hosting Services in 2018 by financesonline.com. In another review, latesthackingnews.com listed Byethost as number 5 of the top 10 best free hosting services back in 2015. Byethost is a self hosting type of website ownership, which means you control and upload your website content to their hosting servers. Included is a HTTP SSL (self signed certificate) to provide website security through data encryption. Free hosting website ownership with Byethost is not for those who want a click and drop page builder with a limited number of widgets and tools to choose from. It’s recommended for the user who is familiar with managing website code.
What Byethost Has To Offer
Byethost offers MySQL, PHP (5.4, 5.5, 5,6 & 7.0), FTP and VistaPanel, their specially designed control panel can host extensive script. All free Byethost hosting accounts get the Softaculous script installer that can jumpstart any website. The Softaculous script installer will download over 300 of the most popular scripts to create blogs, online stores, social networks and photo galleries.
Byethost’s popular feature, the automatic script installer Fantastico, can install many popular scripts such as PHPbb2 and PHPbb3, WordPress, Zen-Cart, osCommerce, MyBB, MyLittle Forum, Coppermine, SMF, Joomla, e107, XOOPS, PHP Wind, CuteNews, and Mambo among others.
How Byethost Compares
We picked a few similar services available on the market to see how they compare. Byethost had faster upload times than most other free hosting services. In comparison to Byethost’s 27 ms benchmark, Awardspace has three times the upload delay with 92 ms. Byethost offers advanced features in a developer type environment. Byethost is a more developer oriented environment than FreeHosting. For those who are most hands on and are hardcore programmers who want a website without costs, Byethost makes it to the top of the list. Read on for more in-depth information about the other three services we compared.
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FreeHosting
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Jimdo
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Awardspace
Byethost
Ease of Setup
For an advanced user, the setup process should not be a problem, per se. With all coding there are complications that require an in-depth knowledge of the underlying principles and there are an almost unlimited amount of tools out there to become familiar with. We gave the ease of setup a 3 because of the normal difficulties in self-management of background features.
Storage Capabilities
Videos and movies have an upload limit of 10MB with free Byethost hosting but most videos can be uploaded to Youtube and linked to in your website. The website itself is not limited in space but other limitation factors such as INODES exist. It is recommended to upgrade to premium hosting after reaching the given limit of 50 MB. In reality, it can be much more if INODES is moderated. It’s not very costly to upgrade to premium services that offer greater flexibility in file size.
Customer Support
Byethost runs a discussion forum for their website builders that acts as a newsroom for service updates and announcements and provides a medium for discussion about issues that can pop up when individualizing website content and managing website features. It has a clean user-friendly interface that is NOT reminiscent of a darknet pigsty. The forum is current and updated regularly.
Pros
- Free access to hosting
- Advertisement free websites with forum and ticket support
- Almost unlimited individualizing coding potential
- cPanel working interface
Cons
- Requires a heavy amount of scripting knowledge
- Will include unexpected obstacles due to its high optimization potential
- Fewer user-friendly, quick solution interfaces
Website
https://byet.host/
FreeHosting
FreeHosting is a hosting service that allows you to register a domain you have purchased to their hosting services or to purchase a paid hosting service that includes premium features to make your site more interactive. You can also choose to purchase a domain for a small fee to use alongside free hosting. For paid hosting services, an unlimited number of sites can be used with the hosting instead of just one with the free version. Paid hosting costs $7.99/month and includes all free plus premium features. The FreeHosting website has a static pragmatic and low concept look that is appealing for many visitors. It’s reasonable to expect that a site you build with this service will have similar looking features.
Freehosting’s 30 day money-back guarantee for its paid services should give you peace of mind when switching to their hosting service. They offer an advanced website management interface called cPanel, the industry’s leading web hosting control panel. You can view the panel and demo its interface online. Multiple websites can be added to this main panel for management. Its features include phpMyAdmin, MYSQL databases, visitor tracking features, analytics, Perl Modules, RubyGems, Cron jobs to execute tasks at certain times, and much more. FreeHosting includes a page builder feature that will make dragging and dropping in website features a snap.
Ease of Setup
FreeHosting is given a five star rating for ease of setup despite being less step-by-step because of its user interface with advanced features ready at the click of a button. For someone who is looking to have a website of a few pages and more advanced search engine optimization (SEO) capabilities this is a great option.
Storage Capabilities
Free hosting services accounts have access to 10 GB of disk space while the paid hosting includes unlimited disk space along with multi-site capabilities.
Customer Support
FreeHosting has a login customer support forum with extensive help material and an email contact form. Unregistered users use the technical support contact form on their website for additional questions about their features. FreeHosting gives open access to data related to their server status and appears to be readily upfront.
Pros
- Advanced web development capabilities
- High degree of transparency and individual ownership
- Option to register your own domain
Cons
- Not based in the US
- A medium to high learning curve
- More complicated than step-by-step builders
Website
https://www.freehosting.com/
Jimdo
Jimdo offers two modes of building a website: a no code 3 minute website builder called Dolphin, for those geared towards the latest most social media friendly type of website building environment, or a Creator option for more flexibility beyond pre-designed template websites. Similar to WordPress’s quick start step-by-step setup process, Jimdo has guided pages to identify characteristics you want in your website by asking several multiple-choice questions. Dolphin advertises itself as being with the website owner every step of the way and taking a hands-off approach where you let Dolphin take care of the rest. Jimdo websites have human oriented load times with smooth page transitions that appeal to web visitors.
Jimdo offers a free hosting option that includes a free subdomain in the form yoursite.jimdofree.com. This option includes all basic Jimdo features, 500 MB of storage, 2GB bandwidth, HTTPS security encryption and is NOT advertisement free. The Pro version is $7.50 per month, the Business option $20 per month, the SEO Plus $30 per month, and the Platinum version for websites or online stores is $40 per month. These options include a free clean domain name for one year and are optimized for mobile friendliness. The paid options do not post advertisements to your page.
Ease of Setup
Jimdo is a guided interface that includes easy-to-use click and add features. Setting up a website with Jimdo is a straightforward service, oriented towards website owners who do not want to deal with the hassle of website design and development. Customization is limited but sufficient for the majority of users.
Storage Capabilities
The free hosting service plan includes 500 MB of storage. This is a sufficient amount of storage space for a few files and images. The cost of a website increases dramatically from the free version. On the other hand, the domain renewal after one year costs a minimal $20 per year. The paid options increase to 5GB with the Pro plan and all the more expensive tiered plans include unlimited storage.
Customer Support
Jimdo website builder services have not specified in writing the type of guaranteed customer support it offers its users. On the Jimdo website, there are contact forms for the tiered plans so it would be reasonable to assume that depending on what plan you purchased your response time may vary. From our own experience these type of email communications are not as helpful as the support providers intend them to be.
Pros
- Social media friendly
- Smooth transitions
- Quick startup time
- Guided management
Cons
- Fewer options to individualize than a developer environment
- Options limited to the features included in Jimdo
- Expensive for advanced features
- Advertisements with the free hosting version
Website
https://www.jimdo.com
Awardspace
Awardspace is a free to premium hosting service that promotes its one hour response time for customer service requests and offers upfront several website hosting with even the free hosting. They also offer advertisement free hosting to promote their services to first time website builders. This hosting service allows you to choose your CMS (content management system) whether it be WordPress, Joomla, Crav, or their more basic website builder tool Zacky Website Builder. Awardspace has been placed at number seven in financesonline.com article on the 20 best free web hosting services in 2018.
Awardspace is unique in that it offers unlimited web space with its Basic plan. It costs a little over five dollars per month to purchase the basic plan and it includes free SSL & HTTPS certificates, 24/7 support, and two websites for already registered domains. This type of shared hosting is practical for websites garnering traffic in the numbers of 15,000 visitors per month. If the basic plan isn’t right for you, there is also a slightly more expensive option available, the Web Pro Plus plan. This plan can host up to five websites and includes one free domain for life with an increased traffic limit of 50,000. Their Advanced VPS plan includes even more traffic capabilities which allows for major changes in website usage.
Ease of Setup
Awardspace offers a very comprehensive set of features, from website setup, to security certificates, to SEO/SMO search engine submissions, all to promote your site. It is reported to take only a few minutes to install the website platform and CMS.
Storage Capabilities
Free website hosting includes the option to choose a subdomain and 1GB of storage space, an email account, one MySQL database, PHP 5/7 and their 24/7 support. The free hosting service offers minimal storage space and will have limited traffic capabilities. Their paid premium plans offer unlimited web space and unlimited monthly traffic that may differ depending on your CMS.
Customer Support
Awardspace offers 24/7 customer support. They are one of the best hosting services in terms of support. They guarantee a one hour response time for their service requests.
Pros
- Low prices
- Guaranteed customer service responses
- Weekly data backup
- Several CMS options
- Comprehensive set of features
Cons
- Non US based – prices are in Euros
- Complicated advanced developer settings
- Does not include many website template options
Website
https://www.awardspace.com/
Conclusion
For a full developer oriented website building and management environment, Byethost offers the most freedom. The cPanel is an industry standard control panel interface with impressive capabilities. Byethost has been around for many years making it a comprehensive knowledge center with experienced users moderating forum questions. It touts its claim to the highest speed free hosting on the internet and there is plenty of room to grow your site from their free template.
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