Free PHP Web Hosting Comparison

22 Oct

Posted by: Alex Melen in: Web Hosting

The wait is finally over! I have officially completed the long awaited free php web hosting comparison. To benchmark the different hosts I used a php script that timed itself while executing tens of thousands of math operations. This script was then run 10 times each day on 7 different days (for a consecutive week). The score signifies the average amount of seconds it took the script to execute over the 70 attempts.

For informational purposes I have included the php version and the max execution time for each individual host. If you want to know even more, I linked the version number of each host to a detailed php information file (hosted on that specific host).

On a more personal note, I am somewhat disappointed at T35 Hosting’s mediocre performance. Rest assured we will be taking steps in the next few weeks to improve our services! This comparison took almost 10 hours to complete, so comments and feedback is very appreciated.

Web Host	Space/BW	PHP Info	Benchmark (Lower is better)
110mb	Space: 5 Gigs Bandwidth: 300 Gigs	Version: 5.1.6 Max Exec: 15 seconds	Average 44 ms Lowest 41 ms Highest 46 ms
x10Hosting	Space: 100 Megs Bandwidth: 3 Gigs	Version: 5.2.3 Max Exec: 10 seconds	Average 47 ms Lowest 38 ms Highest 52 ms
T35 Hosting	Space: Unlimited Bandwidth: Unlimited	Version: 5.2.0 Max Exec: 15 seconds	Average 57 ms Lowest 50 ms Highest 67 ms
FreeHostia	Space: 250 Megs Bandwidth: 5 Gigs	Version: 4.4.0 Max Exec: 30 seconds	Average 57 ms Lowest 53 ms Highest 62 ms
12gbFree	Space: 12 Gigs Bandwidth: 25 Gigs	Version: 5.1.6 Max Exec: 20 seconds	Average 61 ms Lowest 52 ms Highest 65 ms
100Webspace	Space: 100 Megs Bandwidth: 3 Gigs	Version: 4.4.0 Max Exec: 30 seconds	Average 77 ms Lowest 72 ms Highest 93 ms
lycos.tripod	Space: 1 Gigs Bandwidth: Unlimited	Version: 4.4.6 Max Exec: 10 seconds	Average 168 ms Lowest 136 ms Highest 227 ms
Freewebs	Space: 40 Megs Bandwidth: 500 Megs	No Longer offers PHP

12 Responses

Daniel White
23|Oct|2007 1

A very interesting work Alex, however T35 is still #1 for me. (There isn’t much of a different between the first 3 in the list as far as the benchmark times go).
Alex Melen
23|Oct|2007 2

Thanks Daniel! I was surprised to see lycos/tripod with such awful numbers! To be honest, the script would even time out and not load at all a few times on there. At the very least, our visitors can now access php information on every web host from one central area. Oh, and I’ll be personally working on some optimizations for T35 to get us higher in the rankings for when we run this test again (probably in about 6mo).
ragna4u
23|Oct|2007 3

Very good work! I’m really looking forward to T35’s improvements!
Karol Krizka
23|Oct|2007 4

Nice! Thanks for doing these tests. The only think that is missing is full statistical analysis, but I don’t think the average webmaster would care about that. I’ll be posting a link back to this post later on today.
Alex Melen
23|Oct|2007 5

Thanks Karol! When I have more time I’m going to create a more detailed script and go into further analysis. Maybe one host at a time.

I’m personally going to be working on analyzing the php config’s on all of these hosts to see if I can develop some kind of “best practices” list for T35 to use.
AJ
23|Oct|2007 6

3rd place is pretty good in my book. And the 10-20 millisecond difference is pretty negligible if you ask me.
Alex Melen
23|Oct|2007 7

Thanks AJ! Hopefully by the time I do this comparison again (sometime in ‘08), T35 will be number one
Alex’s PHP Web Host Comparison | Karol Krizka
26|Oct|2007 8

[...] blog which I have reviewed in the past, has finally gotten around to publishing his results on the comparison of PHP performance on different free web hosts. The tests themselves were quite well designed, because the code was the same on all hosts and it [...]
John
29|Oct|2007 9

Hi, Alex

Can you suggest which free hosting offer many Sql cause most of them offer only 1 database

Thanks
Alex Melen
30|Oct|2007 10

Thank you for the comment John! Unfortunately most of the good php hosts don’t offer mysql (since it bogs down the system and is a resource and abuse hog). Those that do offer it, often do it as an “upgrade”, which allows them to throttle it and control abuse. I’ll try to do a comparison of JUST mysql free hosts in the next month or two.
Karthick
04|Nov|2007 11

Hey Alex, good work! i was searching for a nice free hosting service when i came across your blog. I dont think Tripod is even worth mentioning . And be sure to update T35 stats after the upgrade, so that we can make a better choice!
Alex Melen
04|Nov|2007 12

Thanks Karthick!

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Free PHP Web Hosting Comparison

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