Free hosting or Paid?

[Fab4]

Why i am reluctent to go with paid hosting right now:

I see the topic comming up allot, people asking for free hosting and wanting all sorts of stuff from a free host. Well this is why i am intrested in free hosting.

I have been programing in Html for 4 days now. I have no idea what i need to run my site. My site started because a couple friends and I that play an online game wanted to get something together where we could communicate outside the game and post stuff and just hava a site for all the benifits a site has. I became the designated webmaster (or webnoobie is more appropriate) because my ISP provieds 10mb of space and 300mb a month. So with that i set off to lean some html.

Everything was going fine untill i wanted to put in a message board. I found some nice software that I liked but couldn't get it to work. Turns out I need a host with php and mySQL and my "free" host doesn't provide that. Today i just learned that i want to use some SSI script stuff and it apears my host does not suport this either.

So now i need a host that has these elements, however if the site is too slow or has too many pop ups then no one will use it and it defeats the purpose.

This is where i am stuck. I would be more then happy to pay for space but I have no idea how much space i will need or what kind of bandwidth i will be using. Right now im just testing the waters, seeing how many hits im getting and how much badwidth i am using. Pluss i am learning as I go here. I allready know I will want SSI, PHP, and 1mySQL database, but what will my requirments be later.

Last thing I want to do right now is pay for some hosting that won't be able to do support what I want to do next week or next month.

Right now i am going to try out tripod because I can easily live with banners and they will support me for now.

Three questions though:

1.What kind of band width/storage do you think i will need. here is my site right now. Planning on haveing many more pictures up on the picture page, add a nice welcome banner, and some SSI scripts for a navigation bar. As well as some additional text content pages besides news, as the need arises.

2.What other kinds of scripts/features can you see me wanting out of a host. If you go to the free message board (its slow) you can allready see that a message board is required and I know which one has the feartures I want to use. http://www.phpbb.com/ looks like it has all the features i could ask for but if you have other recomendations please let me know. Please also include what kind of services my host would have to provide.

3.Lastly what should i expect to pay for my host?

I know this doesn't fully match the forumn criteria but it was the best i could come up with for the mulit-topical nature of my post.
So i am off to give tirpod a try... any other ideas on a free host that may be able to help me out untill i find what i need?

Thanks-
Fab4

 

[velton]

u should go for the paid if u can afford.
http://ca.kualo.com is ur best pick

 

[Jan]

velton, where did you find this host? I have never heard of it and who would pay $19.95 a month for 150MB space and 5GB bandwidth I only pay $8.95 and that is 8GB bandwidth. (just noted that is Canadian dollars, but even so it is expensive for that small amount)

http://ca.kualo.com/virtual2.php

And Fab4, as you are just learning the ropes, stick with Tripod for now until you get an idea on the popularity of your site. When you feel you are ready to pay, make a post in the Paid hosting forum

 

[Fab4]

woops

Guess i forgot to mention it in the essay i was giving... was kindof wondering about free hosts with these options that i could easily upgrade to paid when i found out what i needed. Do people do stuff like that?

 

[KBC]

Since you're starting out, you should stick with a free host. Tripod seems to be a good choice.

Currently there are no hosts which supports PHP / MySQL well to maintain a good up-time and reliability. Personally, if you can't handle the slow speeds of a forum on a free host, then I recommend you get a remotely hosted board. This saves time finding a host as well as frustration if the free host goes down.

 

[CareBear]

sorry to hear your isp didn't support SSI after all

my suggestion would be to get yourself a subdomain name somewhere first or use a forwarding service so your site name would be: mysite.xxxxx.xx or hop.to/mysite or something
That way you can fairly transparently move around hosts without having to send a new address out to everyone each time you change hosts.

That said if the only reason you need PHP/mySQL right now is for the messageboard then it might be best to split your site in two. From what I've read here there aren't too many adless PHP/mysql hosts around and ads on a messageboard are more acceptable (I think).
You could then put your main site on an ad-free static html host that supports SSI.

As far as paid hosting goes my host recently started a spin-off low hosting company that is $17.90/year for 50Mb of space and 1Gb/month or at $3.95/month gets you 300Mb space and 4Gb/month. There are most likely better deals around but that would give you an idea of the budget you'd need for it.

 

[conkermaniac]

Well, you'll just need a cheap host that supports virtually everything, like www.myacen.com

I will tell you right now that it's a bad idea to keep your site on a free host. It won't give you an accurate estimate of the amount of transfer you need because in general, people trust sites with a domain name and without a big ugly banner that says "Tripod" on it. I seriously recommend that you start out with paid because there are so many good paid hosting services out there that will be able to support everything you will need to do in the future. You just need to know the right ones. And these forums can help.

 

[Fab4]

Right now im useing my "free" space that comes with my isp for my homepage and a Tipod acount for the phpBB. Once i go paid I will keep up the original homepage with a entry page that links you to the new site. Seems easiest and no one will know if my host changes. Right now only 10 people or so regularly visit the site but they do hit it a couple of times a day. So if I NEED to change the homepage adress then it won't be too much of an issue.

Other then that the new message board is just as slow as the old one but atleast i have some basic admin features that i wanted and the format is much better.

One concern though, im hosting my board on tripod and the lycos banners aren't popping up on the page. I know that lycos would like there banners to show up as thats how they get paid. Anyway i can get the banner back? At least on the main page so I won't be cheating lycos?

And carebear, thanks for all your help with the ssi stuff.... looks like i have to update everypage now but as soon as i go ssi ill go your recomened route.

Thanks all
Eqfab4
Site

 

[KBC]

Originally posted by Fab4
One concern though, im hosting my board on tripod and the lycos banners aren't popping up on the page. I know that lycos would like there banners to show up as thats how they get paid. Anyway i can get the banner back? At least on the main page so I won't be cheating lycos?

No, you can't really be classed as cheating them, it must be a fault on their side... which is why banners do not show up on PHP-Based BBS. :biggrin2:

 

[striker]

If All You Want Is A Forum, why dont you get a remotely hosted one? maybe www.invisionfree.com ? Remotely hosted means that its a host that gives you a forum and nothing else. If you already have your website and just need something for a forum, I highly reccommend that.

Wasnt there a thread that listed a bunch of free remotely hosted ones?

 

[Fab4]

in reply to striker....
I tried a remotely hosted forumn and after looking at about 20 of them i went with it. It worked ok but the admin features were less then what i wanted/needed. Also, i want to use some SSI scripts on my homepage and my isp "free" page doesnt' have them. Therefore to get ssi scripts and the forumn i want i have to look into a ssi/php/mysql host.

Right now i am just useing tripod for the phpBB and just updatiing every page on the isp account instead of useing ssi scripts. It will work for now, but as the page gets bigger I will need to move to a payed host as the free hosts are too slow for my likeing and ssi scripts will make manageing my page allot easier. I understand that free hosts are free and as such I am not complaining about the service, it is just that slow pages turn away users and i want my board to be easily accesable to everyone.