4.8 
Free Linux hosting is a type of web hosting service that allows you to create, launch, and maintain a website while using various Linux OS distributions. With free Linux hosting, you’ll be able to make your website available online and accessible to billions of people across the world. That’s because this service provides a way for you to store your website’s files and transmit them to those who want to see them, no matter where they’re at.
Here Are the Top 5 Free Linux Hosting Providers:
- HostArmada – The Best Free Cloud-Based Linux Hosting Provider
- IONOS – Best Free Linux Hosting Provider for Affordability
The Best Free Linux Hosting Services of 2024 (Bought and Tested):
HostArmada is a top-tier web hosting provider that offers Linux hosting plans by default, which come with top-notch features, affordable prices, and excellent performance. All of its services work on a robust SSD-based cloud platform, which ensures that you experience minimal downtime.
- Overall Score: 5.0
- Pricing: 4.9
- Features: 5.0
- Performance: 5.0
- Support: 5.0
- User Friendly: 5.0
Pricing: HostArmada’s entry-level Linux shared hosting plan costs $2.49/month on a triennial basis and includes 15GB of SSD storage, 2 CPU cores, 2 GB of RAM, and hosting for one website. Also, all plans, except for the monthly ones, come with a 45-day money-back guarantee.
Features: Some of the features that you’ll get include free SSL for all websites, free website migration, free web server caches, a free cPanel control panel, 7 daily backups, malware protection, and more.
Performance: HostArmada has a robust SSD-based cloud platform, LiteSpeed and NGINX web servers, fast-paced SSD storage, fast loading speeds, and a 99.9% uptime guarantee.
Support: You’ll get 24/7/365 customer support via phone, live chat, and a ticketing system, and the live chat has a 10-minute average response time.
User Friendly: HostArmada is excellent for beginners, offering a drag-and-drop SiteBuilder, one-click app installs, “Prepare for Launch†features and a fast setup process.
Pros & Cons
- Enterprise-grade data centers are available in many different locations.
- A robust cloud platform.
- Feature-rich plans with many freebies.
- No money-back guarantee on monthly plans.
IONOS is one of the largest hosting providers in Europe, with over 22 million domains and around 8.9 million customers choosing it as their online home. Additionally, the provider offers excellent services and features that can satisfy the needs of websites of any size, including powerful Linux servers, highly optimized WordPress hosting, VPS, and many more.
- Overall Score: 3.9
- Pricing: 3.9
- Features: 3.5
- Performance: 4.3
- Support: 4.0
- User Friendly: 3.8
Pricing: The cheapest web hosting plan IONOS offers costs $1 per month and includes hosting for unlimited websites, unlimited storage, scalable RAM, HDD storage, and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Features: IONOS offers many excellent features, including unlimited traffic, SSD NVMe storage, free Plesk Web Host Edition, free SSL, DDoS protection, daily backups, support for multiple PHP versions, the Cloudflare CDN, HTTP/2 support, and cloud infrastructure.
Performance: IONOS offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee across all plans. The provider also maintains geo-redundant data centers in 10 locations in the US, UK, and Europe, all of which are ISO-certified and PSI-DSS compliant.
Support: The provider offers 24/7 support via live chat, phone, and cloud support. It also enables you to get your own personal consultant at an extra cost. Moreover, the provider has a vast help center filled with helpful solutions and articles.
User Friendly: IONOS users will benefit from the cPanel and a custom cloud control panel. Also, the provider has a unique “Deploy Now†feature, which enables you to launch your website in three quick steps.
Pros & Cons
- Unlimited traffic across all plans.
- Intuitive interface and easy site launch.
- Ten geo-redundant data centers across the US, UK, and Europe.
- There are some hidden fees
Ranking comparison between the Top Providers
Best Free Linux Hosting Services: Final Recommendations
Finding a reliable free Linux hosting provider that not only fits super-tight budgets but also gives you fast page-loading speeds and performance is quite the rarity. However, by taking the 5 providers from our list into consideration, you’ll ensure that, no matter which provider you choose, you’ll get all the resources, features, and services you need to host and run a website successfully. So, all you’ll need to do is decide which of the 5 providers suits your needs best and go for that one.
During our deep dive into the 5 providers, we found that Time4VPS is the best free Linux hosting provider overall. So, by choosing this provider, you’ll get the absolute best Linux hosting services, as well as excellent deals.
How Do We Rank, and How Should You Choose Your Free Linux Hosting?
- Performance15%
- Customer Support12%
- Ease of Use10%
- Compatibility8%
- Hosting Features10%
- Value for Money10%
- Flexibility and Scalability5%
- User Reviews30%
All our lists where we rank the best hosting providers in certain categories are made by testing each category in great detail. Namely, we make sure that each factor that affects the category in question is covered and assign them specific weights that show how important they are. Moreover, our hosting experts test each provider separately and take thousands of user reviews into consideration so as to ascertain how satisfied people are with the providers in the long term.
Below, you’ll find all the factors that we used to test the providers and that you should consider when choosing the best free Linux hosting provider:
- Performance (15%): We consider factors like page-loading speed, website performance, uptime, downtime, storage, the quality of the data centers, hardware, etc.
- Customer Support (12%): What kind of customer support will you receive? Can you reach it whenever you need to? How many customer support channels are there? Is the customer service reliable? Is it free of charge?
- Ease of Use (10%): Is the Linux hosting provider beginner-friendly? Does it provide a user-friendly dashboard? Is the dashboard easy to navigate? Will you need some tech skills to find your way around?
- Compatibility (8%): Is the provider compatible with Linux? Can you use it only with Linux? Can you use it on different Linux distributions?
- Hosting Features (10%): We consider features like storage, RAM, bandwidth, traffic, control panels, domain registration/transfer, website builders, website migrations, etc.
- Value for Money (10%): Is there a free trial? Is there a free plan? Are the plans worth the money? Are the prices fair? Will you pay more for renewal?
- Flexibility and Scalability (5%): Can you grow your website without any interruptions? Can you easily upgrade your plan when you need to? How high or low can you go?
- User Reviews (30%): We go through thousands of independent user reviews in order to see how satisfied people are with the providers in the long term and whether they’d recommend them to others.
What Is Free Linux Hosting, and Who Is It For?
Free Linux hosting is a web hosting service that allows you to host your website using Linux or other Linux distributions as your OS. Typically, Linux is the go-to OS that web hosting providers offer in their plans, so there are plenty of options to choose from.
Also, Linux hosting is highly secure, and since Linux, as an OS, is open-source, you’ll often get the freedom to add whichever security measures you want to your hosting plan. However, that still depends on your provider.
Free Linux hosting is best for users who want to host websites and apps on servers that run on Linux OS. Also, it’s ideal for those on tighter budgets, as Linux is free to use, meaning that you won’t have to pay for a license like you would with Windows.
This web hosting service is also excellent for hosting game servers, as well as a wide range of web apps and projects. It’s good for both beginners and more advanced users, along with those who want to integrate their websites with a wider range of third-party tools and features.
