Paid or Free Hosting

[nathaniel.bent12]

This is definitely not a slam on X10hosting (or any other host I've used recently, really) but in my experience I've had much better luck with paid services.
On free servers I've always had to hop around to deal with outages or services just going out of business. In three years I've used maybe 15 free hosts and all of them have either failed or become unusable for long periods of time.
On the one paid service I used, I never once had a problem. I bought two years hosting after I got my first pay check and I never regretted it. While I definitely did not use the service as much as I should have, and I let my site stagnate and really dissipate, I absolutely loved the server I used. It was a fairly cheap host, but I experienced very limited downtime, and whenever I needed help it was quick and painless.
Obviously times have changed, I've seem more legitimate hosts than I did before. x10 hosting is on a completely different host than any of the free ones I've used before. I can remember how shady the old services were, and how poorly designed everything was. Signing up for hosting wasn't always automatic, there were always so many different accounts and passwords and the forums were overrun with spam.
All in all, I've had much better experiences with my paid host than with my free hosts, but I'm definitely going to try x10 hosting out before I start looking elsewhere (and opening my wallet)

 

[pcccvietan35]

Free is better !

 

[chanh.ong25]

With the "New Prime Membership!" adding a new twist to these choices of free vs paid. You get something in between with minimum cost!

 

[frankfriend]

Free hosting is terrific,as long as you are able to live with the inevitable downtime and issues when the datacentres used have 'challenges'. Obviously unless the free hosting company has an exceptional income stream, it has to offer a more limited uptime service expectation than a paid hosting company. Of course it depends on the management and quality standards of the hosting company, an expensive company can deliver a really bad service. So it depends on what you need - for more 'guaranteed' uptime a paid service may be expected to be better. But for a vigourous community and access to a lot of ideas, it is hard to beat free hosting. X10 hosting is unusual in that it offers many levels, from free with and without ads, to several levels of paid hosting.

 

[sedesign]

Last year there were a few problems with the free accounts getting moved around to different servers but in all honesty i think every company would do the same if you had to make room for paying customers, so i dont really hold the server transfers against x10.

overall x10 is a great host and even on the free hosting you have so much to work with (although limited to a set amount of say sql db's etc) it still provides a good base to start your website up and get traffic flowing onto it, when your site starts generating some revenue then you can move it to a paid package.

so to answer your question, free hosting (on x10 anyways) is a great package to help someone (or a company) begin to build an online presence but paid obviously has more options and room for expansion (i.e. more email addresses, databases, priority support etc) as you will need to upgrade if your site gets more traffic

 

[cybrax]

All hiccups aside X10 offers an excellent free hosting service IMHO, in fact the free package is actually better in terms of storage capacity and monthly bandwidth allowence than some 'professional' paid hosting offers that I've had the misfortune to come across.

Going 'Pro' with all that it implies, particulary technical support is the right choice for many especially if you're getting a constant stream of visitors dropping by and all that implies.

Free hosting though still remains the package of choice for fledgling web designers and enthusiastic amateurs who are not overly bothered about the limitations and occasional downtimes.

 

[Napas]

definately paid one

 

[bdongeto61879]

I'd go for Paid because of the other special features.

but if you wanna keep things simple like this one... i'd rather be not paying anything but better yet contributing on the community

FREE because you get to meet up people like this...

 

[Napas]

Well , the free hosting here is really good , i think is the best free hosting you can find , but paid one probably will give you this "OMG" feeling ^^

 

[rohit6oct]

In my point of view free hosting is best. i'm creating my blog in a free hosting panel www.techkol.com

 

[threedee]

As this has already been a discussion over time in different channels, I think it all boils down to what features a there is with a free hosting and a paid one. And the greater consideration, what your intention will be for that hosting account.

 

[mandy0]

Paid hosting *After I earn enough bucks* .. OF course yaar paid hosting anytime!!! You can't get everything for FREE FOREVER. you have to pay! Hoping next month I would be able to shift to a paid hosting.

 

[cybrax]

It's also probably worth mentioning that having paid for hosting does not grant you immunity from the TOS.

 

[jomel.gapuz58]

for now... I prefer for myself to have the free hosting. It's free and suitable only for my website needs. But when I got pro I will buy web hosting, but only here in x10Hosing! Oh yeah, their services are great even it is free hosting. Satisfies every beginners!

 

[myistuff62]

Paid of course, I need more databases and use of SSL. But since I am building a free online community and starting with zero $$ so free is what I must go for till I can afford $3.95/mo which I wish my card could take now or be sure it will take next month, and if my card declines I'm burnt toast.

Paid is it but thanks for the free!!!

 

[cheezo]

free of course. why would you use something that you pay for when it provide same services. infact x10hosting is better than those paid?

 

[magicz9412]

I'm using free until my website kicks off/ if it kicks off, then i'm going to get paid, not sure which one to choose yet, it'll have to be cheapish, seeing as i'm not particulalrly rich

i'd say paid hosting is best, you get what you pay for.

 

[priyam.mohanty73]

Well, I have just started my website, so free hosting is all the way for me. Also, x10 gives 99.9% uptime for free members, right? (Or is that just paid.... hm....) Since I'm a much younger age than most users here, I just don't have the time to update my site on the weekdays, as I'm caught with school and activites and homework. My website is still a bit kind of like in the beta version, with barely any posts. I am still working on adding many features/information, and I am still adding more and more of it as I can.

 

[daniel.ernston68]

It really depends on what you're using the site for.

If it's just personal stuff that you don't care too much about, and that isn't used very often, then free hosting is a very good idea, because you don't need to pay money for that service.

If it's something more serious like a business website, or a forum that has a lot of usership, then you'd want a paid hosting plan.

 

[essellar]

Also, x10 gives 99.9% uptime for free members, right? (Or is that just paid.... hm....)

The uptime SLA (service level agreement) is for paid (premium) hosting. And that brings us to the crux of the matter -- if your site is your business (either literally or just from a customer service/public image perspective), then you want to be paying for a hosting service. Even if x10 stated in big, bold print on every single page of the site that free hosting was one hundred percent uptime guaranteed until the universe finally winks out of existence, the fact is that you can't hold them to that because there is no contract in place. Both parties to a contract need to provide consideration (value) and as a free hosting client you bring nothing to the table except your expectations. If your site goes down for an appreciable period of time (as happened during last year's major server upgrade process, for instance) then there's nothing you can do about it but huff indignantly. With paid hosting and a service level agreement, you have legal recourse for damages you suffer -- and you have a place to point your finger when handling customer/user complaints. If the best you can offer them is, "well, you see, I'm trying to make money off of you but I'm not willing to invest a cent of my own money, and the free service I was using had a little problem...," you're not going to get a whole lot of sympathy.