Introduction
As we all know, static website hosting is a simple matter. But what about a website that requires a backend?
After searching around, I finally found a decent service that can host PHP+MySQL websites, and the basic service is completely free.
Free Server
I won’t say much about static page hosting services, they’re everywhere online.
Here I’ll introduce a service that provides servers for hosting PHP+MySQL: InfinityFree.
Registration is simple, I won’t go into details.
Each login email can have 3 accounts, each account has 5GB of disk space, 50,000 hits per day, and you can apply for many subdomains.
There are many domain suffix options available, including many short ones like ct.ws, gt.tc, rf.gd, and xo.je.
Let me introduce some operations after registration.
First is adding a domain. You can use the provided free subdomain or use your own domain. If using your own domain, there are some tips later.
After adding a domain here, open File Manager to see your allocated storage content. The htdocs folder under each domain is the root directory for your website files. Note that each account can have at most 80,000 files and folders.
FTP Details provides information for FTP connection to your server, which can be used directly.
MySQL Databases provides your MySQL server information, but this server cannot be connected remotely and can only be managed using the online tools provided here, which is a small issue.
Script Installer provides installation for many tools, including WordPress. I haven’t explored this part much, but it’s very rich in content and helpful for building various mature website types.
InfinityFree also provides website building tools. My personal experience is poor, mainly because most content requires payment.
Overall, if you just want to host a PHP website, this service is completely sufficient.
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Free Subdomain
Besides the subdomains provided by InfinityFree, there are other subdomain services you can get for free.
DigitalPlat
DigitalPlat provides one subdomain per account, and you can get another by starring a Github project.
The free ones available are dpdns.org and qzz.io suffixes, the other two suffixes require redemption codes.
All domains can be resolved to Cloudflare.
Self-service domain deletion is now supported.
Domains are valid for one year and can be renewed within six months before expiration, also for free.
Please use my invitation code Fkpcp95hpw to register, both you and I can get an extra domain slot.
DNSHE
DNSHE provides several subdomains per person.
The free ones available are cc.cd, ccwu.cc, bbroot.com, and cn.mt.
Previously required invitation codes, but not anymore.
After registering a domain, you can resolve it to Cloudflare through DNS servers.
Some domains cannot be deleted after registration.
Domains are valid for one year and can be renewed within six months before expiration, also for free.
Now there are many activities to get more domains.
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Other Subdomain Services
There are also FreeDNS and FreeDomain, but I haven’t tested either of these.
Connecting Cloudflare with Domain and Server
InfinityFree domains can’t be hosted on Cloudflare, so how can we add some protection?
You can host domains obtained elsewhere to Cloudflare first, then add the domain to InfinityFree for verification, and then proceed with resolution proxy.
Hosting Domain to Cloudflare
Taking DigitalPlat as an example, first register a domain.
In Cloudflare, click Add a site, enter the domain name and click Continue, select the free plan, then it will scan your DNS records. You can ignore this step, just Continue to activation, and add the two NS records ending with ns.cloudflare.com provided to the Nameservers in DigitalPlat’s domain management. Then you can manage this domain’s DNS information in Cloudflare.
Verifying Domain in InfinityFree
In InfinityFree, go to Control Panel, select add-on domain (yours might be in English, you can change preferred language in InfinityFree’s Profile Information), add the two contents in the yellow box to Cloudflare’s DNS records with type NS, then enter the domain name above and click create domain. Normally your domain will be added below. Then you can delete these two records in Cloudflare.
Cloudflare Resolution to InfinityFree
Add an A record in Cloudflare, the IP can be seen in InfinityFree’s corresponding Account’s Overview.
After adding, you can visit your domain, and theoretically it will open an InfinityFree sample page.
Subsequent specific website files need to be uploaded to the htdocs folder under the corresponding domain directory.
Summary
With this whole setup, everything is free, and the results are quite good.
InfinityFree’s server resources are limited, but the advantage is it’s really free. The downside is you can only use basic things like PHP, JS, MySQL, and the bandwidth seems a bit small.
Although subdomain services are free, it’s hard to say if they’ll shut down. Currently, the ones from major platforms seem quite stable.
Cloudflare has more uses, you can search online. Having your own domain makes many things convenient. But there’s a small issue, Cloudflare proxy might slow things down, but I don’t think it’s a big problem. Accessing InfinityFree itself is quite slow, and after proxying it might even be faster.