F2G.NET: Free Web Hosting | f2g.net (original) (raw)

Hosting with F2G.NET is free which is kind of awesome. It does come with PHP support, MySQL databases, and a generous allotment of storage space (though "generous" is relative – it can range from 200MB up to 1GB depending on the plan you get – still not huge but plenty for a test site or a simple personal project). You can access your account via FTP so you can upload files however you want rather than relying on some questionable web-based interface.

The downside (aside from a very limited number of resources – there’s always a downside) is ads. Their banner ads are plastered all over your site (annoying, but we’ll get to that in a second). Hey, you get free hosting – don’t complain about a little advertising! If you’re setting up a personal site or if you’re just starting out with web development, it’s not a big deal. If you’re trying to launch something professional though, stop right now. Ads completely undermine any professionalism you could have had for your site. Oh – and don’t get your hopes up on performance either. Servers are slow and loading times can suffer, especially during peak usage when every other free user is swarming the shared hosting space. You know what they say, you get what you pay for. Or in this case, what you DON’T pay for.

Storage space and bandwidth, both important criteria, are as you’d expect in the mid-range for free hosting. You won’t get unlimited in any category (nobody does) but you will get a solid amount to run most small blogs and portfolio sites, or maybe one landing page for a side project. As for bandwidth, there’s enough to support normal visitor loads. F2G’s stated specs for both of these factors are typical of middle-of-the-road free providers, so take that as good but not stellar.

The control panel is, well, OK. It’s not cPanel which some people love and others can’t stand but it works fine. Manage databases, add/remove email accounts (but the deliverability of those accounts is a crapshoot with free hosting), set DNS settings – the usual. It’s a little dated in appearance (looks like a webpage from the early 2010s) but whatevs – it works. Which is sometimes all you need. Give me a drab but ugly interface that works any day over a pretty one that breaks every other day.

Server performance and uptime, at least in the short-term, are decent but not exceptional. Bear in mind this is free hosting we’re talking about so you won’t get the type of speed and stability that a premium or mid-level provider would afford. Since all of the services on a F2G server are sharing limited resources, sometimes your site will run quickly, and sometimes it won’t. The uptime is fine most days, but again the occasional hitch is just par for the course. When times get tough on the server and sites get throttled, free sites will often take a performance hit in lieu of those who pay. If you need solid uptime and speed for your website, this is not the place to look. But if it’s a testing environment, or personal project site, this will be fine in that regard.

In addition to basic web server stuff, F2G supports PHP and MySQL. So if you want to run a WordPress site, Joomla, or your own simple PHP scripts you should be able to do so without issue. This hosting environment will not support particularly resource-intensive back-end processes or resource-hog scripts, there are limits to that. CPU usage is capped and PHP execution time limited, so if you’re just planning on doing standard CMS installs and run-of-the-mill sites this will be more than enough. FTP access is available, and works just fine, if you prefer to upload files that way, as most people do in any case.

Database is accessible through phpMyAdmin which is the standard these days. Create tables, import SQL files, manage your database(s) – the whole nine yards. Database query speeds aren’t great when traffic is high but for low-traffic sites you’ll be fine. If your site or app will be hammering the database though you’ll max out some limit fairly fast. Free hosting is fine for sites that are largely static in nature and have some dynamic content but it’s not meant for heavy database usage.

F2G has a community that appears to be pretty active based on forum traffic. Users there seem helpful in answering questions and helping troubleshoot, which is honestly more useful than waiting on official support half the time anyway. The other issue is that the official documentation is not all that extensive, so you’re going to have to often turn to Googling your particular issue and hoping another F2G user has run into the same problems and documented a solution.

The entire package is perfect for personal projects that won’t matter if they go down. Portfolio sites that are just to give you links to your social media or your main website. Testing something out to see if an idea flies. Or just old-school hacking around in some basic PHP and seeing what you can make. If you’re launching anything even remotely serious – you have a business you’re trying to sell to people, you’re setting up an online store, you’re making some other effort to monetize your site – throw a few bucks a month at a real web hosting company and buy the least expensive package they offer. F2G.NET has a place in the market but know what you’re getting and don’t expect miracles. (Ah yes, miracle free hosting that runs without downtime forever and ever and ever, amen. Oh wait…)

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