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Exploring the Benefits and Limitations of Hosting WordPress for Free

1. Introduction

In this internet age, everyone wants to have a small (or even a large) space on the internet to share their stories, market their products, or even help other people. Setting up a website seems to be an overwhelming task as it requires knowledge in programming, website design, internet protocols, and more. Clearly, there was a learning curve to set up a website in the old days. Today, a free and open-source content management system has made it a lot easier to build a website by providing a friendly platform to manage the task. By providing hosting services, the creation of a website is a snap for everyone. The platform was considered beneficial as it provided a quick way for people with no programming knowledge to build a website to share their thoughts, pictures, vlogs, and other materials. Thanks to a large library of plugins and themes, everyone is able to easily change the appearance of their website or add functionality to it.

2. Chapter 1: Understanding WordPress Hosting

WordPress.com is a well-known WordPress hosting platform where you can set up a blog or website hosted on WordPress free of charge. This is a free, ready-to-use, and completely managed hosting service instead of a platform as a service that requires the installation and management of a WordPress instance. A WordPress hosting service is a type of internet hosting service that focuses on WordPress. In most cases, the WordPress hosting providers offer the service for free, and it can either be started with a certain trial period window or with restrictions in the case of using free tier services, or commercialized by specialized free tier offerings, support services, and professional consultancy. In return for free, basic or paid service level offering of a hosting service, it might lead to using direct customer interaction, value customer interaction, customer control, quality concerns, security concerns, and infrastructure issues. This fact raises many questions like how hosting of WordPress influences the ease of usage, security issues, spare server resources, backup and restoration process, customer control in the case of using WordPress, etc.

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The dashboard is the first place I go for quick news about WordPress. It tells me about the latest software updates, and it also gives me clues about what technological trends are growing within the community. At the moment, I am happy to report that the software continues its policy of frequent maintenance improvements. WordPress is such a reliable digital foundation for web publishing that we sometimes take for granted the scale of the innovation underlying its success. To enable more people to appreciate the benefits and limitations of organizing their own projects, I am conducting an open experiment.

Many legitimate sites are hosted for free. Those free websites can install and activate a variety of themes, customize those themes, and install and activate a variety of plugins. However, there are a few things the free sites cannot do. They cannot install a language pack not previously added to the platform's default menu. They cannot access the error log that is tracking everything broken on the server. They cannot see or delete the various drafts of their posts that the software is saving for potential recovery. They cannot add commercial ads to eke out an existence from their non-commercial, not-for-profit, educational efforts. Nor can they modify their themes, monetization, SEO, spam, and security settings. Non-negotiable software updates are forced upon everyone; some are still waiting to learn if they will get accounts, and they only get 3 gigabytes of space before needing to pay for upgrading to more flexibility.

3.1. 1.1 What is WordPress?

We will discuss both the technical aspects and the business model of setting up and hosting WordPress for free. Firstly, we give an overview of WordPress in the following section. Thereafter, we enlist the benefits of hosting WordPress for free. Following that, in two sections, those limitations are discussed. In the final section of this chapter, we discuss the conclusion. What is WordPress? WordPress is an open-source content management system. This software application is used to create and manage websites, of which most of the published websites on the internet are made. This enormous popularity is due to the fact that the WordPress platform provides ready-made templates and plugins, which are themes and extensions, respectively. The themes allow WordPress website operators to alter and aesthetically design and redesign the appearance of their website. These extensions provide the extra functionality that operators often want to offer their visitors on websites. Thus, no other software provides website operators with so much flexibility, all free of charge.

3.2. 1.2 Types of WordPress Hosting

Self-hosted WordPress.org offers the necessary software to create a self-hosted WordPress site. WordPress hosting requires the purchase of a domain and hosting. Site owners have more control through hiring web developers, themes, or plugins to customize their sites. Despite having full control, absolute flexibility may be a hassle for beginners who need to build digital assets at the earliest stages. Meanwhile, self-hosted WordPress sites require regular maintenance tasks, updates, data backup, dealing with security or optimization, etc. The full control aspect of a self-hosted WordPress site is the primary reason why most businesses use WordPress as their content management system. In general, choosing a self-hosted WordPress site depends on personal demand, ranging from ease of use to content complexity. Small businesses are able to use it as one of the cheapest available options that can be scaled up to enterprises.

3.3. 1.3 Free WordPress Hosting Services

If you're looking at ways to get into blogging or honestly expand your current blog, free WordPress hosting services might just be your best bet. Free WordPress hosting has loads of benefits that are packed with grants to all kinds of bloggers for many reasons. The first is the fact that they are totally free. It's encouraging to blog with the opportunity of taking no cost. Once you start making some money or build your client list, then a paid hosting account would definitely be worth considering. Some providers offer WordPress for free with some conditions, and yet they provide you with FTP access, pop email addresses, the capacity to host your domain, often a website builder, and support services if you need help or have issues. It's great value all around and worth taking your time to sign up and check it out. Next, it's fully set up and easy to manage. When you're getting into blogging, the setup is easy to understand and not too overwhelming. The fact that it's totally free takes a huge burden off of you. You can take your time developing great content and not have to worry about inflated payments when you're just starting out. It also gives you room to earn money from your blog and then eventually pay for hosting. This is an excellent option for all bloggers who might be interested in doing e-commerce or affiliate marketing.

4. Chapter 2: Benefits of Free WordPress Hosting

The first and most straightforward benefit of free hosting is simple – it comes for free. When cash is tight and you cannot pool up the resources to rent the services you need, it is a major godsend when software comes free of cost. With the software, even the inexperienced can bring their creativity to the internet. The success of block-based editing is the ability to design and write with small text blocks. It is therefore better for your content, as block writing is more structured, simpler to comprehend, and easier to move your work around. Being able to use software at no expense gives you the chance to check for compatibility without the need for variances and immediate withdrawal. At first, you can quickly start using the service and decide if you want to continue depending on your needs. In contrast to platforms that restrict the capabilities of using WordPress or the cost of buying additional advanced capabilities on other free websites, WordPress is available in its entirety. In a couple of clicks, you will also have extra functionality with a couple of often essential add-ons.

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There are a great many beautiful and great things that we can do with WordPress. These things allow us to create websites that we can interact with and get information from. These websites have many benefits that can be explored. While the open source community has been around for about 20 years, many companies have utilized it to further expand the websites that are using its software. As you will soon notice there is a stark difference from the benefits of using WordPress to advertise a website over the benefits that companies can provide for those wishes to pursue this route.

This report attempts to explore the world of being able to host WordPress for little or no money for personal or business use. When hosting a WordPress website using a personal computer, people are following the terms of service agreements for both their internet provider and WordPress resulting in limitations that showcase the available content that WordPress uses essentially creating a personal WordPress. Small businesses that are looking for alternative resources in order to host a WordPress website can also look to companies that advertise for free hosting. These companies must advertise to make money and will therefore put limitations on their free services and offer a multitude of paid options that allow the service that the national and international corporations provides. Additionally, the webservice websites are created based on their available resources and limitations on what can be presented on the websites. Overall, the need to publish data and the concentration of the information has driven the sites to focus on page generation and WordPress plugins that create an interaction on individual pages.

5.1. 2.1 Cost Savings

One of the primary reasons for hosting a WordPress website for free is the matter of cost. Small businesses and entrepreneurs utilize the web to reach a wider audience, engage with customers, and deliver exceptional services. This often requires a website that is intuitive, frequently updated, and employs the latest security patches. For many, the cost of hosting their website is overwhelming. Paying for hosting services can be expensive for several reasons, including maintenance, site outages, malicious activity, security threats, and website breaches. Website hosting ranges in cost from tens of thousands of dollars to no service costs for hosting. There are costs associated with hosting websites that are free, including the display of advertisements to subsidize service costs. The type of hosting that is free may not tolerate high volumes of traffic, which tends to dampen performance levels.

5.2. 2.2 Ease of Setup and Maintenance

There are several possible ways to set up a WordPress-based website, including the popular installation and the use of installation wizards provided by some web hosting panels. If you don't require any special configuration options for your web server or database, setting up a WordPress website often requires just a few clicks in a control panel, including database and user creation and setup of the initial WordPress settings. But the main catch is often the fact that you have to deal with systems you hardly know anything about when a problem with the installation pops up, like an upload size limit being exceeded or an internal server error. Waiting for intermediate support from the web hosting provider can be very frustrating.

The alternative, hiring a web developer or a system administrator, means spending a valuable resource – money. Even in companies, this service usually has at the very least a non-trivial cost. Moreover, it is not just about the initial setup – maintaining a WordPress-based website also requires some backup, maintenance of security certificates, and software updates from time to time. It is not always easy to find out how to do this or to configure the server correctly, so the lowest risk of an account breach is achieved. These concerns have a great impact on the relationship between the provider and the customer, because when an attack occurs due to a WordPress vulnerability and the website is used for spreading malware or violating copyright, it is the owner of the website structure and not the attacker who takes the blame, especially in cases of highly ranked and highly visited websites.

5.3. 2.3 Learning and Testing Environment

Running a self-hosted environment for learning or testing purposes is the rising bottleneck in self-testing plugins, themes, and web services due to the limitations that apply when using a hosting service. Many of my student projects, plugins, and themes focused on solving the limitations of various top-rated web hosting for beginners components. Students often struggle to find a reliable host for small projects, especially when many free hosting offers seem too restrictive to students who want to try new services and products. Therefore, the ability to install any plugin and theme on a test website makes WordPress a powerful learning tool. Even experienced developers and designers can test their new features by installing different combinations of plugins and themes in this test environment. During the time when the implementation can be tested against a specific WordPress environment, tests can only be validated using unit tests, not including acceptance or lambda tests to obtain reliable feedback on how the implementation works on top of a real WordPress website.

6. Chapter 3: Limitations of Free WordPress Hosting

Whenever the word "free" is used, it is natural to think of the never-ending list of pros and cons that seem to follow it. Hosting WordPress for free is no exception, as it comes with its own share of limitations. This chapter will cover the limitations that users have to beware of when considering free WordPress hosting. First up, free WordPress hosting packages are typically jam-packed with advertisements. Free WordPress hosts compensate for the free hosting by inserting advertisements into a user’s website. The type of advertisements and frequency of advertisements vary between hosting companies. If a user would rather enjoy an ad-free site, free WordPress hosting may not be the best option. Also, free WordPress hosting restricts the amount of traffic and data that a user’s WordPress website is able to handle. This is undesirable as it places a ceiling on the user. Should the ceiling be reached, the user will have to spend more money to upgrade their account in order to manage future happenings. An additional limitation of free WordPress hosting arises from the restrictive monetization. Many free hosting providers do not allow users to monetize their WordPress websites through affiliate marketing, the promotion of dangerous products, and so on.

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WordPress hosting comes in a variety of configurations. If you’re a newbie starting your online journey, you may not want to invest money, and at the same time, you may not want to pay for hosting. In such a case, free WordPress hosting comes to your rescue. However, like any other service, free WordPress hosting also comes with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. It’s necessary from a beginner’s point to understand these benefits and limitations before making a decision about which hosting is right for them. The idea behind hosting a WordPress site for free is more or less the same as uploading a banana for free in a market. The longer the banana sits out there, the spot more it becomes. The major difference between the two is that you get to eat that banana before you pay for the ripe one. Domain names and hosting plans can be hidden costs in our online pursuits, especially for side projects or small businesses. If their store front is in the form of a WordPress website, that’s great because there are plenty of ways to host a WordPress site for free. These free hosting plans make sense for individuals and businesses who are on a tight budget because they’re willing to put up with some limitations in exchange for putting a placeholder with basic information on the internet.

7.1. 3.1 Limited Customization Options

The WordPress installation is not completely customizable. This is in contrast to the normal experience that clients receive when they pay for a domain and host web services on that domain. With paid services, the website owner typically has complete control over the content management platform and how content and features are managed. In the case of a free WordPress installation, the website owner is limited to a list of approved WordPress plugins and themes. They can't upload the website head, custom error pages, or use the files to modify text because those capabilities are locked down to reduce the security risks associated with running an aging WordPress installation in a massively shared web environment.

The reduced list of available WordPress options can be traced to security concerns on the part of the hosting company that is not paid for the implementation. In those circumstances, users are contractually obliged to maintain the website installation at the latest WordPress release. In contrast, in a non-contract-based environment, hosting companies can quietly upgrade customers to a stable version of WordPress, reducing the support costs associated with maintaining an upgradeable ecosystem. The offer of free assistance is also more transparent. Additionally, if vendors actively monitor the state of their ecosystem, they often become WordPress experts.

7.2. 3.2 Bandwidth and Storage Restrictions

It is virtually guaranteed that free web hosting will come with restrictions. It is not economically feasible to offer bandwidth and storage at no cost, especially if you consider the infrastructure required for such tasks to be possible. Most hosting companies are already able to provide hosting for incredibly cheap prices, so do not be surprised if a hosting company strikes back whenever you go over their user-restriction policy. They need money. Providing web hosting is not charity. The ads on the service you use are not enough to keep the lights on, so do not expect a site to stay around forever if you continue to exceed the allowed usage parameters. If you are looking for reliability and scalability, then expect to invest in paid hosting. Free hosting is a great way to test and experiment with a website concept, but when push comes to shove and there is money to be made, it is safest to plan for the costs associated straight from the beginning.

Don't let the word 'nothing' keep you from hosting your website on a free service that likely meets all of your requirements. Most free hosts would prefer not to cap your bandwidth. They hope that the ads they use on your sites bring more money than the costs of running their server. Sites that quickly use their bandwidth allowance or are hacked to use it against others, like those that host pirated media, are the ones free hosts hope to avoid. Your basic WordPress site might not be a strain on the server, so you most likely do not have to stall your website until the new month begins. If so, you have the option to provide your own money and upgrade to a paid, higher service.

7.3. 3.3 Security Risks

Free hosting sites often have hundreds, if not millions, of sites on their servers. If a security flaw is identified on one site, this makes it much easier for them to be attacked. This could affect the reputation and ranking of any site that suffers from these attacks. Therefore, in general, for anyone looking for free hosting, but more specifically those with online businesses, the advice is to triple-check everything a site might potentially host in terms of security.

WordPress makes an easy target for would-be hackers. Whenever a hacker spots a WordPress-installed website, he is presented with the login URL. The most logical URLs are /wp-admin/, /wp-login.php, and /blog/wp-login.php; however, attackers with a little understanding of htaccess or wp-config.php could adapt this. Additionally, when wp-config.php contains any content that does not belong, the script is terrain suited for thieves, opportunistic password chancers, and brute force attacks are thrown its way. A plugin has been launched that keeps an eye out for misbehaving address name lookups and any dodgy HTTP connections using a low-grade request to signal an alert. However, when setup and configuration are incorrect, an over-alert might be sounded. Dubbed a false positive, these alerts far too often resemble the real thing. These are warded off by the hosting company’s firewall.

8. Chapter 4: Factors to Consider Before Choosing Free WordPress Hosting

Many questions need provoking before making a technology decision, especially around websites. Free WordPress hosting options have multiple pros and cons to consider. Free website hosting usually offers a system that allows users to work with content without being able to customize freely. The biggest reasons to pick this include a tight budget or no interest in managing what technical support demands. Users, like children, have plans for the personal side of this web address, or users plan on staying private in their sharing with the world. The main features of interest include a basic theme, the ability to schedule posts, the structure of permitted on-brand customizations, and how fast it is to get started. Additionally, control as the user’s free host can insert its own advertisements or require a link back, since this most often creates disinterest. Customization and the use of plugins are typically restricted. Fees are high for this feature request.

To move towards any website goal will require research. Options change frequently due to competition. In fact, since creating this website version, the host’s capabilities have shifted, requiring their plans to be re-evaluated three times. The company changed its bundle, which occasionally no longer meets user content needs. Spending money or bartering can decrease how much time individuals spend on technical matters. How much can be done with a free WordPress site is highly dependent upon what widgets and themes are chosen and what features have been built into the host.

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When you're starting your WordPress blog, it might be tempting to host your site with a free service. After all, the price is right. However, there are some trade-offs to be made when using a free service. In this post, we discuss exploring the benefits and limitations of hosting WordPress for free.

WordPress is the world's most popular content management system (CMS) for many reasons: it's free, it's open source, and it comes with amazing features. Wait, free? The price tag on WordPress makes it sound like a pretty good deal. You can sign up and set up your blog on their servers for free. How amazing is that? But can your free account take you to where you want your blog to be? Not exactly. Why? The free plans are fine if you're trying to learn, develop a site, or test it. However, if your plans are beyond playing around, you should buy a self-hosted WordPress platform instead. In this post, we discuss the benefits and limitations of hosting WordPress for free.

9.1. 4.1 Website Purpose and Traffic

The proposed research uses web hosting experiences of users who build WordPress websites for free. Since no research was found in this area, an exploration of the benefits and limitations of hosting a WordPress website for free was conducted to develop research questions. Some guiding questions are: what is the purpose of creating a WordPress website, how much organic search traffic are users expecting on their WordPress website, are users intending to monetize their WordPress website, and what strategies do users plan to use in order to control the costs associated with building and launching a WordPress website? These questions helped to identify users' goals and the extent to which they use the free elements available in order to accomplish them. What is the main reason why users create a WordPress website? Are they creating a blog, personal website, portfolio, business, corporate, or e-commerce website? How much organic search traffic are they expecting on their WordPress website? Are they expecting above 100 unique visitors in a day? Are they expecting above 1,000 unique visitors in a day or above 10,000 unique visitors in a day? Are they expecting to monetize their WordPress website, and what strategies are they planning to use in order to control the cost of building and launching the WordPress website?

9.2. 4.2 Technical Support

Troubleshooting an issue after installing a PHP application such as WordPress is not as easy as contacting the hosting administrator for resolution. Unlike many of the competing providers offering hosting services at no direct financial cost, many local providers do not offer technical support. Once there is an issue with the installed application, the blog host decides whether to fix the problem, compromise the integrity and security of the hosted application, or delete the installed application. While offering technical support might not be envisaged under the offering, it often accompanies local hosting providers' institutional provisions of email, WordPress, and other free software application support forums, as well as installation, upgrade, and update documentation. It takes support to methodically work through the issues and plugins embedded in the speculative power of hosting at no direct financial cost.

Email support or phone contact that a customer can make to get help is a form of holding the user accountable for expenses incurred by the hosting provider, hence the omission of technical support in the free service. The support overhead can reduce the upside of offering services such as installation of PHP applications with little to no setup charge, with the hope of making money offering ICT-based corporate services. The decreased appetite for potential disorder substantially reduces the WordPress application's power of intuition for political contests. This explains why emotions—personal mere association and pride of ownership—are so tightly aligned with the cost of hosting, and consequently the WordPress application, in the free service era. Furthermore, hosting providers that offer free hosting have an aversion to hosting PHP applications, such as WordPress, due to the high support overhead. Optimum network bandwidth and other hidden costs are disguised by highlighting precious hard currency and time consumed, which are some of the convincing arguments that follow from the same given financial cost premise. Different hosted service providers manage the activation of web-based services differently. Given the provider account into which the activation is made, the services are initially available for use under various terms. Availability does not always imply actual use of the free service; however, free access enables only a few concurrent users, especially when this access impedes provision for guaranteed response times to customers.

9.3. 4.3 Future Scalability

Future scalability tackles myriad infrastructure challenges, such as high volume traffic relief, capacity challenges, and instant disk usage relief. In short, WaaS makes WordPress blazing fast with more security. The major contribution of this theme is exploring various free hosting service providers, especially two domain registrars, one cloud service, and three hosting vendors. Through this active research, we also provide a first response towards future scalability of WaaS. Currently, about 40 WaaS options are available and provide an easy means to build a professional website for anyone. The Web as a Service platform allows for domain registration, hosting, simplifying WordPress installation, website building, and WaaS plans, where the website loading speed is not hindered by designs or plugins. Nevertheless, hundreds of professional themes and site import features are available. Most WaaS page speed optimization is performed by categories of WordPress hosting companies, namely standard, multi-language, and managed WordPress hosting providers. The WaaS providers of the future will implement more efficient features for newcomers to easily tune their services to achieve better performance, more security, and higher throughput.

10. Chapter 5: Alternatives to Free WordPress Hosting

Running your WordPress on someone else's domain will bring up some limitations, such as having to place their domain on yours. However, for those on a tight budget, or just simply for blogging experience, free WordPress hosting could be a good start. Here are our suggestions for you, who look for other free-of-charge ways, instead of hosting your blog under a free hosting provider with a subdomain. Remember that using this service for commercial purposes, like turning your blog into an internet marketing site, is strictly prohibited. Take it into serious consideration for those with commercial plans in mind. If you still insist on free usage, no one can be held responsible for any consequences of your actions.

Is there another option for non-commercial usage? Actually, the answer is in your control panel, or your domain registrant, if you can set up an environment that is able to run WordPress, using MySQL and PHP. Rather than just a hosting service, web hosting with a domain looks a bit more respectable on your business card, plus you could optimize your chosen keywords from the URLs while it is still early. The price for the annual fee is cheap enough at about US$ 10.00 for the least package of your chosen web hosting with a domain.

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As a leading platform for the development and management of websites worldwide, WordPress is known for its powerful capabilities for online existence and associated improvements in website functionality. Just like other system administrators, reliability and safety are factors that individuals usually take into account when opting for a provider of WordPress to manage their websites. Different WordPress management facilities have different elements that established them apart. For instance, while blogging, publicity, and social networking software facilities and characteristics such as page-builder technologies are provided free of cost, management is usually restricted to paying users. In other words, while one provider offers managers a one-stop resolution for software, technical support, domain name registration, and hosting capabilities through their paid bundles, WordPress management providers allow website administrators to import the actual WordPress program onto individual servers.

In the past few years, some individually operated sites that frequently have a fantastic WordPress management environment have offered free hosting facilities to satisfy the site visitors' needs while taking advantage of the offered management functionalities. This research aims to scrutinize the possibilities and obstacles that are presented by participating in free WordPress hosting using a combined examination of the costs associated with the provision of the said system as well as some dependency and some universities' choice for accessing some of the functionalities that support the platform. To indirect this inclination and motivate participation in the community, everyone offering, presenting and proposing the best free WordPress management platform can use the presented resources and learning activities.

11.1. 5.1 Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is a popular choice among bloggers and website beginners. By offering multiple hosting accounts on one physical server, shared hosting is both efficient and cost-effective. Because users share the cost of the server, it is the most affordable hosting option. One-click WordPress installation, limited tech support, and disk space are included in the usual cost-effective packaging. Personal users who are new to the game will not be able to afford (or justify) the outright purchase and maintenance costs of a server like this. Many people will profit from shared hosting. Small users, such as businesses, schools, and organizations that want a low-cost platform for website marketing, are comparable to personal users. Businesses, schools, and organizations that need a web presence on a shoestring budget cannot afford dedicated servers. Small, personal, or hobby-based blogs and websites are also suitable. In situations like this, it's natural for potential users to use shared hosting servers.

At a low monthly cost, it's inexpensive and fast to launch. Support the installation of WordPress from multiple sources. This is a popular option for WordPress newbies. It's particularly popular with tech-savvy staff and volunteers who depend on blogging organizations. Because browsers are increasingly focused on the ease of installation and use of dedicated hosting plans, running a single software platform, they are caught up in a majority of WordPress's expansion costs. The platform frequently charges a technical support fee, which deprioritizes disk space and bandwidth and potentially violates any acceptable use policy stipulations in terms of service for clients. One's folly does not necessarily imply lax security or poor performance. Many shared hosts overextend themselves and play the system as if it were a typical architecture for satisfactory results, yet tech-savvy subpar messages that can necessitate insertion ignore the notice of various vested interest groups. Be vigilant about selecting shared hosting. With the exception of traffic and trackback bloat, it's fantastic at serving informational files. With settings, memory quantity, and compatible timing, it shines. It is well-suited for excellent evaluation methods for optimization for performance on both web apps and tools. From a hosting service standpoint, both are excellent tools that are familiar with loading the home page without tracking code using an incognito window. Users who demand budget models do not perform server-side caching or experience instability. Unlimited storage plans, backups, and transfers are all available.

11.2. 5.2 Managed WordPress Hosting

In addition to using the core WordPress.com system, many people prefer to use the WordPress software that they can install on a web host of their choice. This is possible when a web host has what is considered the managed WordPress hosting, which powers the infrastructure of a self-hosted WordPress, such as backup and restore, DDoS protection, website uptime, and SSL certificates. The managed WordPress hosting typically comes with many advanced features compared to a shared web hosting environment. These advanced features may include but are not limited to:

Free website migration, such as the transfer of a manually installed WordPress site from an old host to a new host. WordPress daily backups and restore. A daily website backup option must be present. Automated WordPress software updates. The web host should regularly update the WordPress software for security reasons. Staging environment. A pre-production environment to test website changes. Free SSL certificates for one domain. The website should have an SSL certificate to install and set up. Free WordPress website migration. Manually installed websites on popular web hosting services can all be migrated for free.

11.3. 5.3 Self-Hosting

In a separate experiment, we look at the performance and resultant shorter access times that could be achieved if WordPress were to be self-hosted on a public cloud platform, marginally increasing the costs of the website compared to the smallest droplet option. The experiment required the launching of a dedicated digital server in the Singapore data center, where our study website was already mirrored. Here are the configuration settings we defined: - Image: Ubuntu 20.04. - Plan: the least expensive option with 1 GB of memory, 1 virtual CPU, 25 GB SSD hard drive, and 1000 GB of transfer. - Region: Singapore. - Firewall: HTTP (default), HTTPS (default), and SSH IP address: our public IP address. - Keystone Access Service Authentication: enabled by generating a token and providing our account username. - Script: None. The setup of the dedicated server and the subsequent installation of a LAMP stack, WordPress website, and relevant plugins took less than 20 minutes. Its ongoing management was similar to that of its already established droplet equivalent, and the only visible differences were in the additional steps of the update and snapshot procedures. The new server allowed for excellent geography-specific access by virtue of being hosted in Singapore, and cached performance improvements of more than an order of magnitude compared to all the existing droplet server cases. Access to our digital server contributed to the establishment of database metrics, which subsequently acquired additional relevance by being considered complementary to the mirroring process.

12. Conclusion

In summary, the overall findings have explored the four popular free WordPress hosting platforms, which are based on self-reported and feature-based information. The exploration of free hosting for WordPress has provided both the research community and users with a clearer understanding and initial guidance on free WordPress hosting platforms. Next, with the provided information, users can either make a well-informed decision with these types of service providers by avoiding the hidden limitations or trade-offs, or simply bypass this type of free model and head towards the affordable, transparent, and well-established hosting service companies on the market. Next, with the exploratory information, we would like to conclude with the limitations and recommend our future research endeavors. As presented in the preceding sections, the intent of this study is to adopt an overall view rather than to give negative impressions of the four featured hosting providers. Based on some of the current trends in conducting business through evolving services, we noticed that hosting providers will always have significant interests in handheld entities who intend to resource their purse. While every hosting provider has limitations, it is important that users do a careful analysis to identify these hidden traps and understand what is being indirectly supported by the free provided services. If participants are uncomfortable, boxed, or threatened with the limitations or hidden cutoffs of the free-based services, we encourage users to sidestep this type of discourse and opt to sign up with any of the providers' paid hosting plans or, alternatively, tap into other options described in the hosted and unhosted sections.

13. References

Free Managed WordPress Hosting: Are Free Plans for Real? The Free vs Paid WordPress Hosting Debate. Limitations of Free WordPress Hosting. Best Free WordPress Hosting Platforms.