Most "free hosting" in 2026 means static files. Vercel, Netlify and Cloudflare Pages will serve your HTML forever — and will not run a single line of PHP. If the thing you need online is a WordPress site, a Laravel app, or the PHP script your coursework depends on, that entire category is useless to you.
InfinityFree is one of the few survivors that still gives away server-side PHP with a real MySQL database, and has since 2012 — 500,000+ sites hosted, by its own count. Here is what the free plan gives you, where the walls are, and who should use something else.
What InfinityFree's Free PHP Hosting Includes
Every number below is from InfinityFree's own home page and plan comparison, not from a review site:
| Resource | Free plan |
|---|---|
| Disk space | 5 GB |
| Bandwidth | Unlimited (but see the hits limit below) |
| PHP | 8.3 — and only 8.3, no version switcher |
| Database | MySQL 8.0 / MariaDB 11.4, up to 400 databases |
| Hosted domains | Unlimited, plus free subdomains from 25+ extensions |
| Custom domain | Yes, from any registrar |
| Free SSL | Yes (auto-managed on their subdomains; manual renewal on your own domain) |
| Daily hits | 50,000 |
| Email accounts | 0 |
| FTP accounts | 1 |
| Forced ads | None |
| Credit card | Not required |
You get the VistaPanel control panel (not cPanel), a Softaculous installer with 400+ scripts including WordPress, full .htaccess support, and up to 3 free hosting accounts per profile if you need to split projects.
The 50,000 Hits Limit Is the Real Ceiling
This is the number that decides whether InfinityFree works for you, and it is routinely misread as "50,000 visitors." It isn't. Per InfinityFree's own documentation, a hit is every file request — each page, image, CSS file and JavaScript file. Their example: one page with two CSS files, three JS files and five images is 11 hits.
Run that arithmetic against their ceiling:
- A lean, hand-built page at ~11 requests → roughly 4,500 page views/day.
- A typical WordPress theme with plugins at 30–50 requests per page → roughly 1,000–1,600 page views/day.
That is division, not a benchmark — but it uses their published definition, and it answers "how much traffic can I actually put on this?" Hit the ceiling and your account goes offline for 24 hours, then reactivates automatically.
Two practical consequences. Putting Cloudflare's free CDN in front cuts hits directly, because cached assets never reach the origin. And InfinityFree warns that any file with a .php extension spawns an entry process even when it contains no PHP — so don't name static files .php.
CPU, RAM and disk I/O are capped too, but InfinityFree deliberately keeps those figures confidential so they can't be gamed: you get percentage gauges in the panel, and breaching them means throttling, then a 24-hour suspension. Inodes (file count) work the same way — databases don't count toward them, and the counter refreshes only every 8 hours.
What You Can't Run on It
| Thing | Free plan |
|---|---|
| PHP + MySQL sites (WordPress, Laravel, forums) | ✅ The whole point |
| Static HTML/CSS/JS | ✅ |
| Node.js, Python, Ruby | ❌ Premium only |
Email accounts / PHP mail() | ❌ Premium only |
| Cron jobs | ❌ Disabled platform-wide since August 2023 |
| SSH, Composer, npm on the server | ❌ FTP and file manager only |
| Remote MySQL access | ❌ Premium only |
| Hosting an API, database or files for an app | ❌ Banned by the terms |
| Chat scripts, crypto sites, adult content | ❌ Banned by the terms |
Two of these bite harder than they look.
No API hosting is enforced, not just discouraged. InfinityFree runs a security system that ensures only normal web browsers can reach your site. Your endpoint will work in Chrome and fail from curl, a mobile app, or a cron service elsewhere. Free InfinityFree is for pages humans load in a browser — full stop.
No email means WordPress can't send password resets out of the box. The workaround is an external SMTP provider via a plugin like WP Mail SMTP — and the detail that costs people an evening: InfinityFree's admin has stated that only outbound port 587 is open, so set encryption to TLS and the port to 587, not 465.
Laravel deploys, but with surgery. Per InfinityFree's own Laravel guide, the web root is permanently htdocs and cannot be repointed at public/, so you need rewrite rules to keep .env off the web. You also have to run composer install --no-dev and npm run build on your own machine and upload the result, because neither runs on the server.
Does It Sleep or Expire?
There's no cold start — it's shared Apache, not a container that scales to zero — and no expiry date or trial period.
But there is an inactivity rule that catches people out: accounts that receive almost no visitors for 30 days get deactivated, with an email telling you so. The site stays dark until you log into the dashboard and reactivate it. Park a project there for a quiet summer and you'll come back to a dead link. The terms also reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts considered inactive for an extended period.
Commercial use is allowed within limits: InfinityFree names small businesses and organizations as intended users, and you may run your own ads. What you don't get is an SLA — no uptime guarantee, no staffed support desk, just a community forum answered by volunteers.
Where the Servers Are
One region, no choice: InfinityFree states that iFastNet's servers are in the United Kingdom (InfinityFree itself is in the Netherlands). The free plan has no region picker.
We have not benchmarked it — that requires an account, and the figures here come from documentation, not a stopwatch. What geography guarantees regardless: European visitors get short round trips, North America pays a transatlantic hop, Asia-Pacific pays the most. If your audience isn't in Europe, front the site with a free CDN — which also spends fewer of your 50,000 daily hits.
InfinityFree vs the Alternatives
| InfinityFree | AwardSpace free | Free VPS (e.g. Oracle) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| PHP + MySQL | ✅ PHP 8.3 | ✅ | ✅ Any version you install |
| Traffic ceiling | 50,000 hits/day | 5 GB/month | Generous monthly egress |
| Sites | Unlimited domains | 1 domain + 3 subdomains | Unlimited |
| Email included | ❌ | ✅ 1 mailbox | Self-hosted (painful) |
| Cron / SSH | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ Full root |
| Setup effort | Minutes | Minutes | Hours (you are sysadmin) |
| Credit card | No | No | Usually yes, for verification |
Choose InfinityFree for a WordPress site, a PHP portfolio, a school project or a staging copy — anything where "it's a website, in a browser" describes the whole requirement, and where unlimited domains on one account is useful.
Choose AwardSpace if you need a working mailbox on your domain more than you need traffic headroom; its 5 GB/month cap is the tighter constraint — and note that its free plan has no SSL at all.
Choose a free VPS the moment you need cron, SSH, a background worker, an API, or a language that isn't PHP. You trade an afternoon of setup for the removal of every wall above.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is InfinityFree really free, or a trial?
Genuinely free, with no time limit and no card required. It's funded by ads on InfinityFree's own site and control panel — never on yours — and by upgrades to iFastNet, the premium host that supplies the infrastructure. The exception: if you build with the bundled Site.pro website builder, that builder places a badge on your site.
Can I run WordPress on InfinityFree?
Yes — it installs in a few clicks through Softaculous. Two things to plan for: configure external SMTP on port 587 or WordPress cannot email anyone, and keep plugins lean, since every plugin file counts against your inode allowance and every asset it loads counts against your 50,000 daily hits.
Can I host an API or a Node.js app?
No, on both counts. Free hosting is PHP-only — Node.js, Python and Ruby are premium features — and the platform's bot protection blocks non-browser clients, so any endpoint you build will fail for the app or script trying to call it.
Will InfinityFree shut down like 000webhost did?
Nobody can promise otherwise. 000webhost closed on 14 October 2024 after 17 years, and its users did not get their files back. InfinityFree has run since 2012 on a business model that doesn't depend on the free tier paying for itself, which is the more reassuring structure — but free hosting comes with no SLA and no obligation to keep your data. Keep your own backups of both files and database. That advice is unconditional.
The Verdict
InfinityFree is the strongest free PHP hosting still standing, and it's honest about what it is: a place to put a website, not a place to run a system. If your project is pages, PHP and a database, you can be online today for nothing, on your own domain, without ads and without handing over a card.
Read the ceilings first, though — 50,000 hits a day, no email, no cron, no SSH, UK-only, and a site that switches itself off if nobody visits for a month. Each is survivable for a hobby project or a class assignment, and any one can be fatal for a business. When you outgrow them, the exit isn't a bigger free plan; it's a free VPS where you install PHP yourself.
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