If you want to host a website for free, only one setup holds up over time: a static brochure site (HTML, CSS, images) on a platform like Cloudflare Pages or Netlify. A WordPress site or an app with a database will almost always end up costing you something. I went through this year's comparison guides, three videos and several Reddit threads to separate what's genuinely free from what's only free in the headline.
- 🎯 Static first, free hosting that lasts is for sites with no PHP and no database.
- ⚠️ The domain costs money, budget €10 to €15 a year, even when hosting is free.
- 💡 Free means three things, a refundable trial, a capped free-forever plan, or hosting bundled with a domain.
- 🚀 Shortest route, a site built with Claude Code, published on a static platform.
My view is simple, and it comes from working with small businesses: the best free host isn't the one with the most gigabytes, it's the one that won't make you start over when your site grows. Here's how to sort them, from the riskiest to the most solid.
What does "free" really mean when you want to host a website?
"Free" hosting covers three very different offers: a refundable trial, a free-forever plan with hard limits, and hosting thrown in when you buy a domain. Treating them as interchangeable is the most common mistake, and it's the one that costs people weeks.
Why is the word "free" so misleading?
Clubic's comparison ("9 solutions tested", updated November 2026) draws a clear line between the 30 to 60-day money-back trial, which is still a paid subscription, and the "100% free forever" plan, which comes with limited resources. O2switch, Infomaniak, Hostinger and LWS all fall into the first group: you pay, then ask for a refund.
Les Numériques, in its guide published on 21 February 2026, adds the third category: hosting included with a domain. Its verdict seems right to me: free hosting works for a CV, a simple landing page or a lightweight portfolio, and stops being suitable as soon as you need WordPress, a database or steady traffic.
So the first question isn't price, it's what kind of site you're publishing. A five-page brochure site for a tradesperson doesn't need PHP or MySQL.
Which domain-bundled hosting actually delivers?
According to Clubic, when you buy a domain name from LWS (from €1.49 a year), you get 2 GB of SSD storage, 2 email accounts, a wildcard SSL certificate and unlimited traffic, with no forced ads. The free tier supports neither PHP nor databases: it's aimed at landing pages and online CVs.
OVHcloud, for its part, offers 100 MB of free static hosting with a domain name, according to the same comparison. That isn't much, but a well-optimised brochure site fits in 100 MB.
Traditional free hosts: what's the catch?
Traditional free hosts (InfinityFree, FreeHosting, x10hosting, Awardspace) give you a control panel, storage and sometimes WordPress, but they come with domain, resource and support restrictions you only discover after signing up. They're fine for learning, rarely for a business.
What do hands-on video tests show?
The Emit.Reviews channel opened an account with each provider and read the terms of service, which almost nobody does. Its findings on freehosting.com: sign-up approved in about 10 minutes, 10 GB of storage, unlimited bandwidth, WordPress installed without a hitch. The catch: you must already own a legitimate domain name, or the service won't work. The channel recommends buying a $0.99 domain from Hostinger (.xyz or .online) for the first year.
The Create a Pro Website tutorial goes the InfinityFree route: create an account, verify by email, pick a free subdomain, then use the site builder. The laConsole.dev blog rates it one of the most complete and reliable free offers: up to 3 sites, with MySQL databases and a site builder included. That's accurate, and I'm happy to say so for a learning project.
For a site that represents your business, though, I wouldn't recommend it: a subdomain like yoursite.example.com doesn't reassure anyone.
What are Reddit threads saying about these offers?
The questions on r/Hosting, r/HostingBattle and r/developpeurs all sound alike: a freelancer with a single page who doesn't want to pay, a developer who can't deploy a React and Express project with MongoDB on Vercel, a nonprofit organiser who wants a form connected to a database. None of these threads has a hard-numbers answer yet, but they show where people really get stuck.
As soon as a site needs to store data, free gets complicated. That's the nonprofit's situation: they're weighing Cloudflare Pages with Workers and D1, Supabase, or Oracle Cloud's free tier, and they're worried about services going to sleep and about GDPR.
| Option | Advertised price | Main limitation | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| InfinityFree | Free, up to 3 sites | Subdomain, or bring your own domain | Learning, testing |
| freehosting.com | Free, 10 GB | Your own domain required | Test WordPress site |
| LWS (bundled offer) | Domain from €1.49/year, 2 GB | No PHP or database | Landing page, online CV |
| OVHcloud static | Free with a domain, 100 MB | Very little space | Small static site |
| HubSpot Content Hub | Free according to HubSpot, 99.95% uptime | Tied to the HubSpot ecosystem | Teams already on HubSpot |
SOURCE: Clubic, Les Numériques, HubSpot, laConsole.dev, Emit.Reviews · UPDATED 11/2026
The last row deserves a comment. HubSpot advertises premium hosting "at no extra cost" in its Content Hub, with a global CDN and 99.95% uptime. It's free in the sense of a gateway into a full marketing suite, not as a neutral host. If you don't already use HubSpot, getting out will cost more than getting in.
Cloudflare Pages or Netlify: free hosting that lasts for a static site
Cloudflare Pages and Netlify are static site hosting platforms: you give them HTML, CSS and image files, they serve them from a distributed network of servers and issue the HTTPS certificate automatically. For a brochure site, they cover what you actually need without requiring a database.
In "Hosting Services That Are Really Free", YouTuber Fazt deliberately leaves out freemium models like Vercel, Render and Netlify, because they start charging once a project grows. I understand his reasoning as a developer. For a brochure site of a few pages, however, that ceiling is practically never reached, and that's where I part ways with him.
How does a site built with Claude Code get online?
The route I show the business owners I train is short. Claude Code builds the site in a local folder (plain HTML and CSS files, no framework), you put it on GitHub, then you connect that repository to Cloudflare Pages or Netlify. Every change you commit updates the site automatically.
I cover the building part in Créer un site avec Claude Code : ce que j'ai vraiment livré à mes clients and J'ai cloné un site à 100 000 euros avec Claude Code en 15 minutes. The key point here is that hosting is just the last step, and the easiest one.
A static site with no database has nothing to maintain, nothing to hack and nothing to bill you for each month.
Which limits should you check before committing?
I haven't re-checked the exact quotas for Cloudflare Pages or Netlify today, and I won't quote a number from memory: they change, and an outdated figure would do more harm than no figure at all. Before you publish, open the official pages (pages.cloudflare.com and netlify.com) and check three things: the number of deployments allowed per month, the included bandwidth, and the terms for commercial use.
For a tradesperson or a small practice with a few hundred visits a month, those three lines take ten minutes to read. If your site turns into an online shop or hosts user accounts, it's a different conversation: you're leaving free territory.
What you still pay for even when hosting is free
Even with free hosting, a professional website costs you a domain name, €10 to €15 a year according to laConsole.dev, and sometimes some maintenance time. Traditional hosting, by contrast, averages €3 to €10 a month according to the same tutorial, which is €36 to €120 a year before you add any extras.
Do you need to buy a domain for a free brochure site?
Yes, and it's the only purchase I'd call essential. A site on a free subdomain is hard to find, hard to remember and doesn't inspire confidence in a customer comparing three providers. Les Numériques agrees: a custom domain is almost never genuinely free.
A tip from Emit.Reviews: $0.99 first-year extensions do exist, but they're rarely the ones a French tradesperson wants on their business card. Compare the renewal price, not just the first-year price.
Should you move to paid hosting, and when?
As soon as your site needs to store data, sell online or handle regular traffic. Les Numériques lists backups, a database, support and the ability to migrate as criteria that end up mattering more than the starting price.
To frame your digital plans, the France Num portal gathers public resources for small and medium-sized businesses. And if you already have a WordPress site, take a look at Connecter Claude à WordPress avec l'API REST before migrating it.
My verdict: free for a static site, paid once things get complicated
For a brochure site, free hosting is a good decision, provided you choose a static platform (Cloudflare Pages or Netlify) and pay for the one real cost: the domain name, between €10 and €15 a year. Traditional free hosts are fine for learning, money-back trials aren't free, and HubSpot is only a good deal if you're already using it.
Here's what I'd do in your position: have Claude Code build the site in an afternoon, publish it on a static platform, connect a domain you own, and only revisit the hosting question on the day your site needs to store data. If you'd like a guided route from start to finish, the Kit AI First shows you how to build and publish your own brochure site with Claude Code, step by step.
Frequently asked questions
Can you really host a website for free forever?
Yes, for a static site on platforms like Cloudflare Pages or Netlify, or with an offer bundled with a domain purchase, such as LWS or OVHcloud according to Clubic. "Money-back trial" plans aren't free: they're paid subscriptions refundable within 30 to 60 days. Always check the terms on the official page on the day you sign up.
What's the best free host for a brochure website?
For a static site, a platform like Cloudflare Pages or Netlify is the most solid choice, because it doesn't rely on PHP or a database. If you really want WordPress, InfinityFree or freehosting.com let you try it, but these offers are better suited to testing than to running a business.
How much does a free-hosted brochure website cost?
The only mandatory cost is the domain name, around €10 to €15 a year according to laConsole.dev. The hosting itself can stay at zero. For comparison, the same tutorial puts standard hosting at €3 to €10 a month.
Does free hosting support WordPress?
Rarely in a way that lasts. Les Numériques notes that WordPress, PHP and databases are often missing from genuinely free plans. Some hosts, like freehosting.com as tested by Emit.Reviews, install WordPress without a hitch but require your own domain. For a professional WordPress site, plan on paid hosting.
Do you need to know how to code to put a website online for free?
No. A site built with Claude Code goes live when you connect a GitHub repository to a static platform, without writing any code yourself. Tutorials for drag-and-drop builders, like Create a Pro Website's InfinityFree guide, also show you can get online without programming.
Vidéos YouTube
- How To Create a Free Website in 2026 (with Free Domain and Hosting) — Create a Pro Website
- Free Web Hosting That ACTUALLY Works — Emit.Reviews
- Hosting Services That Are Really Free — Fazt
- How to host your website FOR FREE and with a CUSTOM DOMAIN — DevClub | Programação
Discussions Reddit
- Hébergement gratuit pour le site de mon asso (formulaire + base de données) ? — r/developpeurs
- How to host a website for free?? — r/HostingBattle
Articles & ressources
- Hébergeur web gratuit en 2026 : 9 solutions testées, avec ou sans carte bancaire — clubic.com
- Hébergement web gratuit en 2026 : quelles solutions valent vraiment le coup ? — lesnumeriques.com
- Mettre en Ligne son Site avec un Hébergement Gratuit — laconsole.dev
- Hébergement de site web gratuit avec HubSpot — hubspot.fr