The tradeoff between cost and quality is one factor that comes into foray in every business. Web hosting is no exception. The web hosting service providers can be broadly classified under two categories as free and paid providers. While the former can suffice the basic demands of a personal web site, their services are definitely not up to the mark when it comes to professional and business web sites. The quality of the service provider dictates the quality of your web site too.
Some of the problems that are encountered with the free web hosting service providers are the restricted amount of traffic they allow and the limitation in the file sizes they impose. Also since too many people wish to avail the free services of providers, congestion takes place which ultimately results in the slowing down of the server speed and thus in frequent down times. Apart from these, these providers insist upon placing their advertisements in your sites for exchange of free services.
Thus it is really very difficult to recommend a free web hosting service provider to anyone you know. Not really all are happy with the restrictions these companies impose on disk space and traffic and the demand they make regarding advertisements some of which may really be very annoying.
As an alternative, you can consider going for the cheap providers. These for a more affordable price provide you quality services like allowing you to chat with your customers as well as use telephone services to help customers who are encountering difficulties. They also give you the provision of e-mail ticketing. This helps you carry out your business online in a very effective way without having to invest too much of money. Also you can have a better rapport with your customers.
To sum it up all, unless you are learning to host a web site, it is advisable that you do not go for the free web hosting service providers. Quality providers do charge but taking into consideration the vast difference in the services offered by the free and the cheap providers, cost certainly is not a matter of concern!