The only thing I miss about being a student is student discounts. These days, it seems like there is a student discount on everything from salads to Spotify. Fortunately, web hosting is no different. If you’re planning to launch the next WordPress or Snapchat, then this list of web hosting for students is the perfect place to start.
This is because selected hosts offer competitive prices, expansive feature sets, tools, and language options, so budding developers, designers, and marketers have room to grow.
Not only that, but you’ll have the freedom to build websites, applications, and experience in your field. In addition to saving money, you will also be enhancing the skills needed to land lucrative jobs.
Let’s see who gets the best grade.
We’d recommend all students stop by GitHub and sign up for the student’s pack. It comes with great offers for students, including domain names, courses, and free premium WordPress themes like our own Neve.
Best 100% free web hosting for students
InfinityFree
In July 2024, the popular free web hosting service 000webhost was discontinued by its parent company, Hostinger. As a longtime direct competitor to 000webhost, InfinityFree remained standing, and it is now arguably one of the best free web hosts out there.
Besides being a genuinely great option, it’s also unlikely to follow in 000webhost’s footsteps. The folks who run it have been doing so for over 12 years and in a forum post where they commented on the 000webhost shutdown, they even specifically cited students as being one of the main reasons why they plan to continue offering the service indefinitely.
Recommended plan 💡
There is only one plan, and it’s 100% free. No strings attached.
If you ever do need an upgrade, InfinityFree’s parent company is iFastNet. They offer premium hosting starting from $5.99 per month. It includes some free domains, unlimited disk space, 100 email addresses, and other features.
What do you get 📝
- 5 GB Disk Space
- Unlimited Bandwidth
- PHP 8.2
- MySQL 8.0 / MariaDB 10.6
- Free Subdomain Names
- Bring Your Own Domain
- 400 MySQL Databases
- Free DNS Service
- Free SSL Certificates
- Full .htaccess Support
Not bad for a free host, right?
Not only do you get the above, but there are also no ads anywhere on your site, which is the most common trade-off with free hosting.
You can also use the popular Softaculous installer to activate WordPress or use the Site.pro website builder to build your site. In fact, you can do more with WordPress on InfinityFree than you can with a free WordPress.com plan. For example, InfinityFree comes with the latest versions of cPanel and PHP. You can even use it with Cloudflare to get your website a free SSL certificate.
If you ever get stuck with something, there is a knowledge base and a support forum where InfinityFree moderators and other users chime in to help.
Best cheap web hosting for students
Namecheap
While Namecheap started as a domain registrar, it has developed into a reliable, low-cost hosting provider. Indeed, they recently received an 8.03 (out of 10) from their users in our annual hosting survey. Some of the critical points in Namecheap’s favor are the monthly payment option and a free domain for the first year.
Beyond that, they are one of the few hosting companies that really seem to take intentional notice of students with their Namecheap Education Program. The program gives students of select universities a free .me domain for a year, plus some other perks. They even showcase some portfolios from students on their blog.
Recommended plan 💡
Stellar Shared Hosting, which costs $1.58 per month for the first year (billed annually at $22.88). It renews at $3.74 per month in the second year. You can also pay month to month for $4.48 per month.
What do you get 📝
- Three websites
- 20 GB disk space
- Unmetered bandwidth
- Free domain in your first year
- Free SSL certificate in your first year
- AI tools
- 30 email accounts
- GitHub integration
- 50 FTP accounts
- 50 MySQL databases
- DNS zone editor
- Cron jobs
- US or EU data center (UK available for an extra $1 per month)
- Backups twice per week
Like InfinityFree and many other hosts, Namecheap offers the 1-click installer Softaculous via cPanel. As a result, you can easily install popular content management systems like WordPress or forums like MyBB with the click of a button.
Namecheap also has a range of free and paid tools to build a website, including a CDN, an uptime monitor, and even a paid legal advice tool. While they offer a website builder, it doesn’t compare to the current crop of WordPress page builders available.
Notably, for a shared hosting package, Namecheap offers jailed root access on shared servers, which you set up via the cPanel. However, you will only be able to use basic commands within your directory.
Finally, Namecheap offers you the ability to create applications with Node.js, Python, Perl, and Ruby. Thus you could use your shared hosting to host web applications at an affordable rate.
Not convinced? See who else we recommend for cheap web hosting.
Best web hosting with a student discount
InMotion Hosting
InMotion Hosting is a long-standing American host that’s well-known for its wide variety of hosting options and exceptional customer support. What many people don’t know about them though, is that among their extensive hosting portfolio, there is an entire section devoted to web hosting for students and schools.
If you’re an actively enrolled student (either high school or college), you can get a massive discount on their shared web hosting plans.
Recommended plan 💡
The shared Power plan costs $2.79 per month on a one-year contract or $4.99 per month on a six-month contract. There is no increased renewal price while you remain a student.
What do you get 📝
- Unlimited websites
- Unlimited NVMe SSD storage
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Free SSL
- Free domain in the first year
- Email with 10 GB per inbox
- SSH access and support for WP-CLI
- Your choice of two US data centers or one EU datacenter
- Phone, chat, and ticket customer support
- Supports multiple languages including PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, and JavaScript
- Softaculous one-click installer for 400 applications
- $150 in free advertising credits
Overall, InMotion Hosting offers an enticing range of features and storage for building websites and web applications. Furthermore, like Namecheap, InMotion Hosting offers Pearl, Python, and Ruby. However, they also provide Ruby on Rails in their student deal, which, when combined with SSH and WP-CLI, gives you the most options of any shared hosting package.
If you’re looking to build websites, then InMotion Hosting offers BoldGrid for site building with WordPress. Furthermore, you can opt to have WordPress pre-installed during the checkout process.
Need more information? Read our full review of InMotion Hosting.
Best VPS hosting for students
A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting is another host that flies under the radar when people talk about hosting. However, if you’re looking for a flexible way to host your website with reasonable prices, then their virtual private server (VPS) options deliver performance with unprecedented control over your server’s configuration.
Recommended plan 💡
The entry-level Launch 1 VPS plan’s starting price is $2.99 per month if you pay up front for the year. It normally renews at $7.99 per month if you wish to buy another year, or $8.99 per month if you want the flexibility of paying month-to-month.
What do you get 📝
- 1 GB RAM
- 25 GB SSD storage
- 1 Core
- 500 GB bandwidth
- Root access
- Full boot, shutdown and reboot control
- Your choice of OS – Ubuntu, CentOS or Debian
- Choose a datacenter that is closer to you or your visitors
A2 Hosting offers an excellent package for anyone with the knowledge to build their server. As a result, this is a package suited to students with admin knowledge or a lot of courage. The server is entirely unmanaged, and you won’t have cPanel to get you through a crisis. Although they do offer Webuzo for installation of Softaculous scripts and you can optionally install cPanel on your own.
To put a positive spin on it, you have complete control over your server, which includes configuration. You can add cores, bandwidth, storage, whenever you like. For example, an extra core will add $1 to your monthly plan.
If you’re a developer, you can do anything with an A2 Hosting plan, including rebooting, shutdown control, and even changing OS on demand.
However, if you’d like to see how they compare, then see our review of cheap VPS options.
Best cloud web hosting for students
Microsoft Azure
When it comes to cloud hosting for students, there are only three options: Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWS, or Google Cloud. Fortunately, they all offer dedicated student packages so you can take them for a test flight.
We recommend Azure specifically because it has an excellent tool-set with a smooth learning curve. Just as importantly, Microsoft makes it very easy to navigate and understand their student offerings. In contrast, Google Cloud (who we previously had in this spot) switched up how they present their student credits and it’s no longer as user-friendly as it once was.
Recommended plan 💡
Azure sets you up with $100 USD in credits and it renews every year for as long as you remain an eligible student. You can use the credits with most Azure products. In addition, you get access to certain software download benefits that are intended to support your education, non-commercial research, or efforts to design, develop, test, and demonstrate software applications for the above purposes.
There is a separate plan for high school students.
What do you get 📝
- 5 users with unlimited private Git repos
- 1,000 app configuration requests per day with 10 MB storage
- 10 web, mobile, or API apps with 1 GB storage and 1 hour per day
- 500 minutes of job runtime
- Embed AI text reading and comprehension capabilities into applications (up to 3 million characters)
- Extract information such as sentiment, key phrases, named entities, and language from text
- Build modern apps at any scale using a fast NoSQL database with open APIs
- Manage Azure resources in a browser-based shell using popular command-line tools and programming languages
Azure gives you free access to dozens of their products and tools. The above is a tiny sample of them. Many are free for as long as you maintain an account. Some are only free for the first 12 months of being a new customer. The ones listed above are all forever-free.
Best for students interested in modern frontend frameworks
Netlify
Netlify is an excellent platform for students looking to host their web projects for free, especially if you’re working with static sites or modern frameworks like React, Vue, or Gatsby (check out their full list of supported frameworks). With its seamless integration with Git repositories, you can easily deploy your projects with just a few clicks.
Recommended plan 💡
Netlify’s Starter Plan is completely free. However, it does have certain usage caps and if you exceed them, you have to pay for the excess amount.
For example, you are allocated 300 build minutes per month for free, but if you cross over that amount, then it’s $7 for every 500-minute block. Or you can accept up to 100 form submissions per month, but on your 101st, you’ll be billed $19+ per month.
What do you get 📝
- Global edge network
- 100 GB bandwidth
- 300 build minutes
- Live site previews let you collaborate with team members
- Serverless functions
- Instant rollbacks
- Git integration, including GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket
- Visual editor so you can autonomously perform content and website updates
The platform provides a built-in global edge network (like a CDN on steroids) for fast loading times, and its continuous deployment feature automatically updates your site whenever you push changes to your code, making it super convenient for ongoing projects.
Netlify is particularly popular in the Jamstack community, as it perfectly supports the principles of decoupling the frontend from the backend. This allows you to build fast, secure, and scalable applications by leveraging APIs for dynamic functionality while benefiting from the speed of static content.
Additionally, features like serverless functions and easy CMS integrations enhance the development experience, making it ideal for students who want to showcase their work or experiment with modern web development practices – all without the hassle of managing server infrastructure.
Best option for students launching web applications
Heroku
Heroku is an excellent option for anyone who is looking to build and host web applications. In the first place, they offer a standard free option for anyone looking to start hosting a web application. And equally important, they have an offer in the GitHub student pack.
Recommended plan 💡
The normal price for the entry-level Eco plan is a flat fee of $5 per month.
However, if you register with the GitHub Student Developer Pack, you’ll be eligible to receive platform credits worth $13 per month for 24 months (for a total value of $312).
You’ll be able to spend those credits on any Heroku product, including Heroku Dynos, Heroku Postgres, and Heroku Data for Redis®, but excluding third-party Heroku add-ons.
What do you get 📝
- 512 MB of RAM
- ~1,000 dyno hours per month
- Support for both Git and Docker deployments
- Support for up to two process types
- Automated OS patching
- Custom domains
- The free plan sleeps after 30 minutes of inactivity to preserve hours
- Free SSL
- An extensive library of add-ons, buttons, and build packs
Heroku runs all of its apps in ‘Dynos,’ which are Linux containers providing all of the compute resources, memory resources, an OS, and alongside the temporary filesystem needed to run your application.
It’s a popular option for beginners, who also benefit from over 200 add-ons for AWS file storage, data visualization, database response times, and much more. In addition, the buttons and buildpacks are extensive enough to help you connect to third-party services while also keeping your build processes efficient.
Final thoughts and summary of recommendations 💭
When it comes to the best web hosting for students, your choice will ultimately depend on what you want to achieve.
- If you want to experiment with different projects, then InfinityFree is a good starting point.
- If you want to spin up a simple site with few resource requirements, then go with Namecheap.
- InMotion is the best choice for building larger sites with different server-side languages.
- For full server control, choose A2 Hosting or Microsoft Azure.
- For experimenting with frontend frameworks, go with Netlify.
- For building web applications, Heroku is your best friend.
All of the options above offer excellent opportunities to experiment with building, maintaining, and deploying projects, while being on a student budget. Take advantage of them. The experience and possible addition to your portfolio could mean the difference between landing a job when you graduate or endlessly surfing through LinkedIn, hoping to find something.
Do you have any suggestions for finding great student web hosting? Let’s talk about them in the comments section below!
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