Including the parts where they win. Most hosting comparisons are affiliate-funded lists that rank whoever pays most — this one has no affiliate links and names the cases where you should pick someone else.
Before the table, the thing worth understanding about this market: almost every “best free web hosting 2026” article you will read is affiliate content. The ranking reflects commission rates, not quality. That is not a conspiracy, it is just how the niche is monetised — and it means the ordering of those lists carries very little information.
This page has no affiliate links and nobody pays us for placement. It also names, specifically, the situations where a competitor is the better answer. If that costs us a few signups from people we would have disappointed anyway, that is a good trade.
| Traxio | InfinityFree | 000webhost | WordPress.com free | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ongoing cost | Free 30 days, then £0.99/mo | Free | Free | Free |
| Control panel | Full DirectAdmin | Custom panel | Custom panel | None (hosted platform) |
| Adverts on your site | Never | No | No | Yes, on the free tier |
| Use your own domain | Required | Supported | Supported | Paid upgrade |
| Plugins / themes | Unrestricted | Unrestricted | Unrestricted | Restricted on free |
| PHP version choice | 7.4–8.3, self-service | Limited | Limited | N/A |
| Databases | MySQL, phpMyAdmin | MySQL, capped | MySQL, capped | N/A |
| Email on your domain | Included | Not included | Not included | Paid upgrade |
| Cron jobs | Yes | No | No | N/A |
| Full account backup | Self-service | Limited | Limited | Export only |
| Support model | Community | Community | Community | Forums |
| Uptime SLA | None | None | None | None on free |
Competitor details change without notice — check their current terms before deciding. This table reflects our understanding at the time of writing and is not a substitute for reading their documentation.
These are sincere recommendations, not reverse psychology.
Your budget is genuinely zero and must stay there. They give you PHP and MySQL for nothing, indefinitely, without advertising on your pages. For a learning project, a test site or something with no commercial stakes, that is a real offer and 99p a month is a real barrier if you do not have it.
You want to write and never think about software. They handle updates, security, scaling and backups entirely. The free tier carries their advertising and restricts plugins, but if publishing matters more to you than owning the platform, that is a reasonable trade.
Your site is static and you are comfortable with Git. Their free tiers are more generous than ours, deployment is automatic on push, and the CDN is better. No PHP, no MySQL, no email on your domain — but if you do not need those, they are the better tool.
The site earns money, or downtime costs you money. You get a real support desk with a response commitment, meaningful resource headroom, and managed backups. At 99p we cannot offer any of that, and pretending otherwise would not serve you.
The case for Traxio is narrow and specific, so here it is plainly.
You get a professional control panel. Free hosts cannot license DirectAdmin or cPanel per account under an ad-funded model, so they build their own — and those panels almost always lack DNS editing, cron, PHP version switching and proper backups. Those are the tools that let you fix your own problems instead of waiting for someone else to.
The limits are published. 5GB and 10GB a month, stated on the pricing page rather than in a fair-use clause. You can work out before signing up whether it fits.
The price does not move. £0.99 is the renewal rate, not an introductory one. The industry norm — £1.99 for three years then £8.99 — is the practice we are most deliberately not copying.
Leaving is straightforward. DirectAdmin generates a standard backup most other DirectAdmin hosts restore directly, and your domain is registered elsewhere, so nothing of yours is held here.
That is the whole pitch. It suits people who want to run a small site properly on their own domain for about the cost of a coffee per year, and who would rather read a knowledgebase than wait on a ticket queue.
We stopped running four tiers. There is one plan, it does everything, and it costs less than a coffee per year.
for 30 days — then £0.99/month
No card required to start • No setup fee • Bring your own domain