HostMada came recommended via the Free Resources Forum of FreeVPS.us. This hosting service provides free and cheap shared hosting with a genuine up to date cPanel. One of the rare free hosting services who have an up to date cPanel service. Setting up this blog was a breeze with HostMada as I was able to create a WordPress from scratch with the Softaculous installer that is provided in Hostmada cPanel. All of it went fast and effortless, like no need for creating a MySQL database first. The installer does all of that for one, including providing advanced options for having the WordPress script, themes and plugins automatically updated.
I measure the speed with which I’m able to work with WordPress with how fast the plugins and themes are uploaded, installed and activated, and speed is really good. Like there is little hesitation in the performance of the processes. I’m still to test how my Duplicator Plugin works with making a backup of the WordPress site and migrating it, I’ll record this experience later.
Customer service is excellent. For now the owner, Andreas, seems to be performing the bulk of the support work, but he is currently working on adding staff. Wish him good luck with this venture as the addition of really good staff can make or break a business.
Support for the free hosting is through a Forum that has a very fast turnaround. For example I needed to change my primary domain and that was resolved within minutes.
What particularly impressed me about the Website is its very attractive and professional design. Forum script is Xenforo, and a new experience for me. Works very well with the hosting service.
Note: The Duplicator Plugin was indeed a great test of the configuration of the free hosting site and particularly cPanel. When I first tried to create a Duplicator Backup Package in my WordPress site, Duplicator failed to create the package. No doubt due to the setting for the maximum time that is allowed for processes to be completed. In any event, this provided me with an excellent opportunity to see how php has been configured by HostMada and I only have praise for it. I was able to select the version of PHP, which I lowered from 5.6 to 5.4. I then went into PHP options and modified the Maximum Process Time, with no problem. Package was successfully created, and I’m a very happy customer. This is definitely recommended free hosting.
Note: Regrettably HostMada had to close its service in August 2016. It however continued to provide its excellent service right up to the point of closing.