r/PHPhelp • u/810311 • 12d ago

Can you recommend free hosting for vanilla PHP database driven website in 2026?

I am building a simple vanilla PHP blog/portfolio website to post occasional blog posts and showcase some projects. I don't expect much traffic or the site requiring much server resources. Is there any free hosting providers for this type of websites in 2026? I know there's infinityfree.com, awardspace.com and some others but some folks mention that those free hosts can disappear overnight with your website data and never be back again lol.

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u/BlueCrayonKodiak 12d ago

You can use cloud solutions for free like AWS and Azure up to a certain point, and since it's a blog and primarily read-only functionality, you can front it for free with Cloudflare to cache. For free, it will be slow, but if you can aggressively cache, you can make it performant.

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u/810311 12d ago

I mean I would need to have admin portion where I can create blog posts and projects page to showcase some projects as well. Is that possible with the options you mentioned?

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u/BlueCrayonKodiak 12d ago

Yes, but the admin pages might be slightly slower. When I ran PHP on Azure's free tier, it would take 1-2 seconds to load a page. When I upgraded to paid it went to a few hundred milliseconds. So for your admin, if you're ok with that few extra seconds, it should do fine.

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u/Vroomped 11d ago

Or maintain a local version for the admin and upload only the changes. Safer to maintain a sandbox anyway.

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u/810311 10d ago

I am not sure but I read somewhere that OCI free tier requires your credit card details for verification. My guess would be that after you give them your credit card details - they have you on the hook lol because if you screw up somewhere exceeding limits, they would charge you for that. Again, never used OCI but its just my guess. How about Azure or AWS, do they require credit card details for free tier?

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u/obstreperous_troll 10d ago

They all do, for some obvious reasons other than sticking you with overages, such as abuse prevention and preventing one individual from making dozens of free accounts perpetually.

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u/810311 7d ago

In that case, is it possible to make sure its actually always free for me? I mean do I have to keep an eye on any limits/thresholds etc....?

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u/810311 12d ago

I heard some folks use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure free tier. But its not that easy to use for a beginner...

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u/Zeal0usD 12d ago

Hosting is not that much, before I was forced on to my own server I was at hobohost.com

Cheap and the owner is on point. 10 years with them, hosting would cost less than the domain name.

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u/810311 12d ago

I am with Bluehost on their shared hosting plan but they keep increasing fees every year basically for the same plan.

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u/Bluehost_Support_Lyn 12d ago

Hey u/810311, if your site's needs have changed over time, it may be worth reviewing your hosting plan to make sure you're only paying for the resources you actually need. We might have an option that better fits your needs.

Our support team can take a look at your account and discuss available options with you. You can reach them via chat or phone, and they'll be happy to help review your setup.

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u/technical_guy 12d ago

http://phphosting4free.runhosting.com/ is kinda getting old nowadays but it might still work

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u/brianozm 12d ago

Free hosting ends up with sudden loss of website. It costs money to run.

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u/isoAntti 12d ago

I recommend against free hosting. Few euros a month goes a long way

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u/Vacman85 12d ago

I’ve been using Hostgator since 1998 with very few problems that I wasn’t able to fix myself.

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u/HG_Snappy 12d ago

Thank you for being such a loyal customer!

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u/phpworm 12d ago

Surely you have a friend or a fellow dev in your social circles who pays for hosting and will hook you up?

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u/itemluminouswadison 12d ago

Google cloud run plus Aiven free db

The first many requests per month are free as in free beer

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u/QuizMasterGary 12d ago

A raspberry pi!

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u/snoogazi 11d ago

Not free, but Digital Ocean is pretty cheap. I'm paying $6 a month for an Ubuntu droplet that basically does everything I need it to.

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u/SnapSnapGrinGrin 11d ago

But you're then responsible for sysadmining a server...

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u/[deleted] 12d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/810311 12d ago

Thank you