Free Hosting

Free Hosting

Free web hosting from Germany: no credit card, no ads, no countdown. One website, 500 MB NVMe, 10 GB traffic, PHP, database, mailbox and free SSL.

Open Hostna

€0/month

No card, no trial clock, no ads. Every limit is on this page, and a person switches the plan on.

  • 1 website · 500 MB NVMe · 10 GB traffic
  • PHP 8.5, one MySQL database, one mailbox
  • Free SSL, also for your own domain
  • Server in Germany, no ads, no card
  • 500 MBNVMe storage
  • 10 GBtraffic a month
  • SSLincluded
  • Germanydata centre
WHAT YOU GET

The whole free plan, in numbers

No asterisks and no fair-use paragraph doing the real work. This is the plan.

ResourceFree planWhat it means
Monthly cost€0No card, no trial clock, no fee that appears later.
Websites1 websiteOne site per account. It can be a subdomain we give you or a domain you own.
Storage500 MB NVMeFiles, database and mailbox together. Enough for a portfolio, a landing page, a small WordPress site.
Traffic10 GB / monthRoughly 5,000–10,000 page views of an ordinary site a month, depending on image weight.
Database1 MySQL databaseWith phpMyAdmin in the panel.
Email1 mailbox · 100 MBIMAP and SMTP for your own mail app. No webmail on the free plan.
HTTPSFree SSLA Let's Encrypt certificate, issued and renewed for the subdomain and for a domain you connect.
PHPPHP 8.5The default. 8.1, 8.2, 8.3 and 8.4 can be selected per site in the panel.
Control panelPleskThe same control panel the paid plans use, including the one-click WordPress installer.
AccessFTP / SFTP + file managerOne FTP account. No shell, no cron jobs, no root — that is what a VPS is for.
Server locationGermanyA Hetzner data centre in Germany. The company behind it is registered in Germany too.
Advertising on your siteNoneWe never place anything on your pages. Your visitors see your site.
ActivationBy a personEvery free account is checked and switched on by a human, not a script. You get an email when it is live.
SupportBest effortYou can open a ticket. Free plans are answered after paying customers, with no response-time promise.

A domain name is separate. Domains are never free to register, so you either connect one you already own or register one here. Without one your site lives at a name of your choosing under hosted.hostna.com, with its own certificate.

The full list, with what each number means in practice, is on the limits page.

HOW IT WORKS

Four steps to a site that is online

Every free account is switched on by a person, not a script. You get an email when it is live.

  1. 1

    Create the account

    Email address, telephone number and postal address. Confirm the email from the message we send.

  2. 2

    Order the free plan

    Pick the name for your hosted.hostna.com address, or connect a domain you already own. There is no payment step.

  3. 3

    A person switches it on

    We check the account details, then activate the plan and send you the panel login. This is done by hand, in the order requests arrive.

  4. 4

    Publish

    Upload files by FTP or the file manager, or install WordPress from the panel. The limits stay visible in the client area as you go.

To order it you need an account with a confirmed email address, a telephone number and a full postal address. One free plan per person and per household; a second one under another email is closed when found (Terms, § 12).

The free plan is not offered in every country. If yours is not covered, the order flow says so before you finish — the paid plans may still be available.

Start free

THE HONEST ANSWER

Is unlimited free hosting real?

It is the most searched question in this category, and it deserves a straight answer rather than a landing page.

No. Storage, bandwidth and CPU cost money every month, so a plan that costs nothing has to be limited somewhere. The only question is whether the provider tells you where. When a free plan advertises unlimited resources, the limit has usually moved somewhere less visible:

  • A fair-use clause that defines "unlimited" narrowly enough to suspend an account the moment it becomes popular.
  • Advertising injected into your pages, which means your visitors are the product.
  • A daily hit or CPU-seconds counter that takes the site offline for the rest of the day.
  • A trial that quietly renews into a paid plan on a card you entered at sign-up.

Hostna takes the opposite approach: the free plan is small and says so. 500 MB of NVMe storage and 10 GB of monthly traffic is enough for a portfolio, a landing page, a documentation site or a first WordPress install — and not enough for a busy shop, which is exactly why the paid plans exist.

FIT

When the free plan is the right answer — and when it is not

Choosing the wrong size costs more time than money. Here is the line.

  • Learning how hosting worksDNS, SSL, file permissions and databases behave the same on a free plan as on a paid one. This is a real server, not a sandbox.
  • A first website or portfolioA personal site, a CV, a portfolio or a single landing page fits inside the limits with room to spare.
  • Testing before you commitTry the control panel and the workflow before deciding whether to move a real project here.
  • Not: a growing business siteIf the website brings in customers, the storage and traffic ceiling arrives sooner than you expect. Start on a paid plan instead.
  • Not: an online shopProduct images, orders and a checkout under load need reserved resources, not a plan sized for a first project.
  • Not: a server you controlRoot access, custom services and background workers belong on a VPS. The free plan is web hosting, not a virtual machine.
READ BEFORE YOU ORDER

What you do not get

The list most free-hosting pages leave out. It is short, and it is the reason the plan can stay free.

  • No cron jobs, no shell, no root. Scheduled tasks and background processes are VPS work.
  • No automatic backups. You can make your own from the panel at any time, and you should — the free plan carries no restore promise.
  • No webmail. The mailbox works with any mail app over IMAP and SMTP.
  • No response-time promise on support. Tickets are answered after paying customers.
  • No availability target. The Terms say so plainly in § 12; paid plans carry the service levels.
  • No second site, no second database, no second mailbox. Those are the first things the €2.80 plan adds.

Free sites whose owner has not signed in for six months get an email; if there is still no sign-in 30 days later, the site is removed — the space goes back to people who use it. Everything else about the plan is in the Terms of Service, section 12, and the Acceptable Use Policy.

THE STEP AFTER FREE

What changes when you move up

The upgrade happens inside the same account and the same panel. Nothing is rebuilt and nothing moves to another provider.

PlanMonthlySitesStorageTrafficWhat changes
Free Hosting€01500 MB10 GBThe starting point. One site, no card.
Pro Hosting€2.80/mo22 GB100 GBFour times the storage, ten times the traffic, a second site, daily backups.
Ultra Hosting€6.50/mo1010 GBUnlimitedTen sites and the traffic limit taken off.

Prices are final — Hostna is a small business under § 19 (1) UStG, so no VAT is added. Paid plans renew at the same price. The welcome code WELCOME20 is not used up by ordering the free plan first.

Compare every hosting plan · Managed WordPress hosting · Register a domain

EARN HOSTING CREDIT

Earn months of Pro Hosting by helping

The free plan has no expiry date, so there is nothing to extend. What you can earn is credit: each approved action adds months to your account, and each month is one month of Pro Hosting taken off your invoice when you move up. Claims are filed from the Rewards tab of the client area, and a person checks every one.

Set the account up properly

Small one-time steps that also make the account harder to abuse — which is why they are worth something.

ActionCreditLimitWhat we check
Verify your email and phone1 monthOnceConfirmed in the Client Area.
Publish a real first page1 monthOnceYour subdomain resolves and returns your own content.

Tell people where your site runs

Public and checkable. A link we can open is the whole requirement.

ActionCreditLimitWhat we check
Follow Hostna on a social platform1 monthUp to 2 platformsYour handle, on any two platforms we run.
Post publicly about what you built1 monthUp to 2 posts per quarterA public post that names Hostna and links to your site.
Leave an honest public review2 monthsOnceAny public review platform. Honest is the only requirement — a negative review earns the same credit.
Show a "Hosted free on Hostna" badge on your site1 monthOnceThe badge from the Free Hosting page is on your public front page and still there 30 days later.

Refer someone who actually stays

The largest and the only uncapped route. Credit lands once the referred account is real — not at signup.

ActionCreditLimitWhat we check
A referral signs up and stays active 30 days1 monthRepeatable, per referralYour referral link, plus 30 days of a real, published site on their account.
A referral moves to a paid plan3 monthsRepeatable, per referralTheir first invoice is paid and out of the refund window.

Publish something other people can use

Worth more because it lasts. A tutorial keeps helping people long after a post scrolls away.

ActionCreditLimitWhat we check
Write a tutorial or setup guide on your own site3 monthsUp to 2 articlesOriginal writing on a domain you control, linking to the page it describes.
Record a walkthrough video4 monthsOnceA public video that shows the actual product, not a slideshow.
Let us publish your project as a case study3 monthsOnceYour written permission and a short interview. You approve the text before it goes live.

Contribute something we would have paid for

These are worth the most per hour of your time, because they are the things we cannot buy easily.

ActionCreditLimitWhat we check
Report a security issue responsibly6 monthsRepeatable, per confirmed reportA reproducible issue disclosed privately first. Severity can raise the credit above six months.
Report a reproducible bug1 monthUp to 4 confirmed reportsSteps we can follow to see the same thing happen.
Translate the panel or the docs3 monthsRepeatable, per languageA reviewed translation of a full section, in a language we do not ship yet.
Help other people in the community1 monthUp to 6 months of activityAnswers that solved someone's problem, over a calendar month.
Host an open-source project publicly2 monthsUp to 4 quartersA public repository and a live site running from it.

An account can hold up to 12 unused months at a time. Each month is one month of Pro Hosting, taken off your invoice when you move to a paid plan — the free plan itself has no expiry date and needs no extending.

The badge

Hosted free on Hostna

Optional. Paste this anywhere on your public front page — the footer is the usual place. It links here with rel="nofollow", because it is a badge and not a link exchange; what it earns you is a month of credit, what it earns us is a name on a real site.

<a href="https://hostna.com/free-hosting/" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://hostna.com/wp-content/themes/hostna-cloud/assets/img/hostna-badge.svg" alt="Hosted free on Hostna" width="168" height="40" loading="lazy"></a>

Open the Rewards tab

BEFORE YOU ORDER

Questions about Free Hosting

Do I need a credit card to start?

No. The free plan is ordered without any payment details, and nothing converts into a charge later. Upgrading to a paid plan is a decision you make yourself, with a card you add at that moment.

Is Free Hosting a trial that expires?

No. There is no countdown and no expiry date. It is a real plan with published limits. It is not a "for life" promise either: the Terms let us change or withdraw free plans with notice and a reason, and a site whose owner has not signed in for six months is removed 30 days after an email.

How long does activation take?

A person checks and switches on every free account, in the order requests arrive. You get an email with the panel login as soon as it is done. There is no instant activation on the free plan; that is deliberate, because it is what keeps the plan free of abuse.

What are the limits of the free plan?

One website, 500 MB of NVMe storage, 10 GB of monthly traffic, one MySQL database, one 100 MB mailbox and a free SSL certificate. Every number is on this page and on the limits page before you order.

Can I use my own domain name?

Yes. A domain you already own can be pointed at the free plan, and a Let's Encrypt certificate is issued for it. The domain itself is registered or transferred separately, since a domain is never free to register.

Are there ads on my site?

No. We never insert anything into your pages — no banners, no footer link, no branded bar. Your visitors see your site and nothing else.

What happens if I go over the limits?

Nothing is charged, because there is no card on file, and the site is not switched off by itself. If it stays above the limits we email you and ask you to trim it or move to a paid plan.

Can I run WordPress on it?

Yes. The panel has a one-click WordPress installer, and a small WordPress site fits in 500 MB with room for a normal amount of images. The WordPress page explains what fits and what does not.

Where are the servers?

In a Hetzner data centre in Germany. The company behind Hostna is registered in Germany, and the data-processing agreement is available to every account.

Is free hosting enough for a business website?

For a first version, often yes. For a business that depends on the site, no: 500 MB of storage and 10 GB of traffic are a starting point, not a foundation. Pro Hosting at €2.80 a month is the usual next step.

Can I have more than one free plan?

No. One free plan per person and per household. Registering additional email addresses or identities to hold more than one is a breach of the Terms and closes the accounts involved.

Can I publish an AI Website Builder site to the free plan?

No. The AI Website Builder publishes to the paid hosting plans. The free plan is for sites you upload or install yourself — HTML, PHP or WordPress.

Can I upgrade without rebuilding the site?

Yes. The upgrade happens inside the same account on the same panel, so the website is not moved to a different provider or rebuilt. Your address, files, database and mailbox stay where they are.

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