If you’ve landed here searching for “000webhost,” you’ve likely already discovered the problem: the login page doesn’t work, the dashboard is gone, or your site has simply vanished. You’re not imagining it. 000webhost, one of the internet’s longest-running free hosting brands, has shut down for good.

000webhost launched in 2007 and operated for 17 years as a subsidiary of Hostinger, giving millions of beginners their first taste of hosting a live website without paying a cent. This article covers exactly what 000webhost offered, why it closed, what happened to the sites left behind, and, most usefully, which alternatives are worth using now, depending on whether you want free hosting or a low-cost paid step up.

What 000webhost Offered

At its peak, and right up until its closure, 000webhost’s free plan included:

• 300MB of storage and 3GB of monthly bandwidth, limited to a single website
• A custom-built control panel rather than standard cPanel
• A one-click WordPress installer
• A free website builder (Zyro, later rebranded) with over 190 templates
• No mandatory ads placed on hosted sites, a genuine point of differentiation from many free hosts
• PHP and MySQL support, which was unusual for a free host at the time it launched

For a service that cost nothing, this was a legitimate offering, and it’s part of why 000webhost built such a large user base over nearly two decades.

Why It Shut Down

000webhost’s popularity rested on being free, requiring no credit card, and offering an easy WordPress setup, a low-friction entry point for beginners. But the free tier came with real downsides: tight resource limits, inode caps, inconsistent uptime, weak SSL and support, and persistent pressure to upgrade to a paid plan.

Hostinger made the shutdown official, announcing on July 7–8, 2024 that 000webhost would stop accepting new signups immediately, with a full shutdown scheduled for October 14, 2024. Hostinger’s stated reasoning centered on the rising cost of sustaining free infrastructure and a strategic decision to focus entirely on its paid hosting business rather than subsidize a free tier. 

The underlying lesson holds regardless of the official explanation: free hosting tiers like this are structurally hard to sustain long-term, which is exactly why picking the right replacement now matters.

What Happened to Existing Users’ Websites

Users were given a window between the July signup freeze and the October shutdown to back up their files and databases. Hostinger built an automated migration path that let 000webhost users move their site to a paid Hostinger plan in three steps: choose a plan, confirm the transfer, and let the automated tool carry over files and databases.

Sites that weren’t migrated or backed up in time were taken offline permanently once the shutdown completed; there was no extended grace period or archive access afterward. If you still need to recover old content from a 000webhost site that never got migrated, your realistic options are:

• Searching the Wayback Machine (web.archive.org) for cached snapshots of your old pages
• Contacting Hostinger support directly, since 000webhost accounts were folded into Hostinger’s systems and some backup data may still exist on request
• Checking any old FTP clients or local folders for a backup you may have made and forgotten about

None of these are guaranteed to work, which is the core risk of relying on free hosting for anything you actually care about keeping.

What to Look for in a 000webhost Replacement

Before picking a new host, it’s worth being clear about what actually matters:

• Uptime and performance reliability; a host that goes down under light traffic isn’t free; it’s a liability
• Security;  free SSL, regular backups, and malware protection shouldn’t be optional extras
• Scalability; room to grow past a single starter site without a painful migration
• Ease of use; a real dashboard, one-click installers, and ideally a website builder for non-technical users
• Support quality; even a free tier benefits from responsive documentation or a support channel
• Free vs. paid trade-offs; free hosting is viable for hobby projects, but anything revenue-generating or client-facing usually justifies a few dollars a month

The Best 000webhost Alternatives

1) Truehost

Truehost is a South Africa–based host positioned as a budget-friendly, real-cPanel alternative to the free-hosting model, with free migrations from other providers built into the pitch.

Features:

• Sites live in roughly 30 minutes via a standard cPanel dashboard
• Free automated SSL, free daily backups, unlimited email accounts, and unlimited bandwidth across all tiers
• NVMe SSD storage and LiteSpeed web servers, which handle more concurrent visitors than older Apache-based setups
• One-click Softaculous installer for WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and 400+ other apps
• Free website migration service, including files, databases, email, and DNS
• SSH/SFTP access, Git integration, and cron jobs for developers
• A free drag-and-drop website builder with several hundred templates for non-technical users

Pricing (ZAR, billed annually or longer):

• Starter plan: around R400/year, working out to roughly R33–35/month
• Discounts improve further on two- or three-year commitments
• Higher tiers add more storage and site allowances for growing projects

Pros: fast setup, a genuine cPanel interface rather than a proprietary panel, free migrations, developer-friendly tooling, and a strong uptime track record.

Cons: no free plan, and entry-level tiers carry storage or traffic ceilings typical of budget shared hosting.

Best for: users who’ve outgrown free hosting and want an affordable, low-commitment paid step up with a real control panel and responsive local support.

2) InfinityFree

InfinityFree has been operating since 2013 and is built specifically around avoiding the “free trial in disguise” model; no credit card, no expiration date, and no ads placed on hosted sites.

Features:

• 5GB of disk space and effectively unlimited bandwidth, subject to a rolling daily hit-count limit
• PHP 8.3 support (with older versions selectable) and up to 400 MySQL databases, each capped around 50MB in size
• Free subdomains across 25+ domain extensions, or the option to connect a custom domain
• Free SSL certificates via Let’s Encrypt, plus Cloudflare integration
• Softaculous one-click installer covering 400+ apps, including WordPress
• A cPanel-style interface (VistaPanel) that’s familiar to anyone who’s used shared hosting before

Pros: genuinely free with no time limit, no forced ads, solid PHP/MySQL support, and an active community forum for troubleshooting.

Cons: limited storage relative to modern media-heavy sites, community-forum-only support, no SSH access or dedicated IP, and per-database size caps that can trip up larger WordPress installs.

Best for: students, hobbyists, and small personal or nonprofit projects; this is the closest like-for-like replacement for what 000webhost used to offer.

3) ByetHost

Operated by iFastNet, ByetHost has been in the free hosting business since 2005 and positions its free tier as running on the same infrastructure as its paid products, rather than a stripped-down sandbox.

Features:

• 5GB of storage and unlimited bandwidth on the free plan
• PHP 8.3 and MySQL/MariaDB support on a LiteSpeed web server
• 400+ Softaculous one-click apps
• Free SSL via Let’s Encrypt, alongside custom domain support and a free subdomain
• Cron jobs and FTP access included at no cost
• No forced ads or banners on hosted sites

Pros: fast storage and LiteSpeed performance, a long operating history, a reseller program for those who want to build a hosting business on top of it, and a straightforward upgrade path to paid tiers.

Cons: the 5GB storage ceiling limits growth, support on the free plan is limited, and premium upgrade prompts are frequent.

Best for: users who want a free tier with modern server technology and a clear upgrade path once a site outgrows it.

4) AwardSpace

AwardSpace has been running since 2003, making it one of the oldest continuously operating free hosts, built around a proprietary control panel and a one-click “Zacky Installer.”

Features:

• Free plan hosts one domain plus up to three subdomains (up to four sites total, sharing a single database)
• One-click installer for WordPress, Joomla, and Grav
• A web-based file manager with in-browser HTML/CSS/PHP editing
• Firewall protection and ClamAV-based anti-virus/spam scanning, even on the free tier
• 24/7 support via ticket and live channels, unusually generous for a free plan
• Shared network connectivity with paying customers, though bandwidth on the free tier is capped

Pros: no ads, genuine 24/7 support even for free users, and over two decades of operating history.

Cons: limited bandwidth, and a custom control panel rather than cPanel.

Best for: small personal sites, portfolios, or nonprofits that want responsive support without paying, and don’t need to handle heavy traffic.

5) GitHub Pages

GitHub Pages is free static site hosting built directly into GitHub. Sites publish straight from a repository and update automatically whenever you push changes; a fundamentally different model from the other options here.

Best use cases:

• Static personal or portfolio sites, project documentation, and developer blogs (Jekyll is built in for Markdown-based blogging)
• One site per GitHub account or organization at username.github.io, plus unlimited project sites at username.github.io/repository
• Custom domain support via a CNAME file in the repository

Pros: completely free, no storage or bandwidth concerns for the vast majority of static sites, tight integration with GitHub, and reliable uptime backed by GitHub’s infrastructure.

Cons: no support for WordPress, PHP, or databases;  this is static hosting only, and it assumes comfort with Git.

Best for: developers, technical portfolios, documentation sites, and anyone willing to work with a Git-based publishing workflow rather than a traditional control panel.

What Was 000webhost FAQs?

Is 000webhost Gone for Good?

Yes. 000webhost has been permanently discontinued, and there has been no indication that Hostinger plans to bring the service back. While it helped millions of beginners launch their first websites, the economics of maintaining a free hosting platform at scale became increasingly difficult. As a result, Hostinger shifted its focus toward paid hosting solutions that offer better performance, security, and long-term reliability.

If you’re looking for 000webhost today, your time is better spent choosing a modern alternative. Free hosting can still be a good option for learning, testing, or small personal projects, but if your website is important to your business, portfolio, or online presence, an affordable paid hosting plan will provide far better uptime, security, support, and room to grow.

If you’re ready to move beyond the limitations of free hosting, check Truehost’s affordable web hosting plans. They include cPanel, free SSL certificates, daily backups, one-click WordPress installation, free website migration, and the tools you need to build and grow your website with confidence.