Free PHP webhosting makes sue of a PHP based server. PHP is a scripting language like that of Perl that allows you to create dynamic web pages. You can insert PHP language into the HTML code. PHP-enabled web pages are just like standard HTML pages. Creating and editing them are done similar to the regular HTML.

To be able to use PHP, you must give files a .php extension instead of using .html or .htm extensions. This will alert the free PHP webhosting server that you have PHP code in your web pages. Free PHP webhosting will then be able to handle your files or pages properly. The moment you use a .php extension you can start using the PHP code. You can place PHP between special tags within the HTML code. The new PHP version 4.0 is faster and more fully equipped for the enterprise market. PHP has multimedia capabilities, simplified image creation and display and can utilize users' audio capacities.

Free PHP webhosting is possible because PHP like Linux adopts an open-source policy which means it is a free program and can be downloaded over the internet. PHP can be downloaded at www.php.net. The readily accessible source code allows PHP to quickly find and correct bugs compared to Microsoft's IIS. It can support many databases including MySQL, Informix, Oracle, Sybase, Solid, PostgreSQL, Generic ODBC and many other databases.

Sometimes response time for free PHP webhosting server when encountering PHP script is slower. Slow response time in loading pages usually indicates insufficient free PHP webhosting resources such insufficient processor capacity and memory. PHP webhosting service must have enough hardware resources to be able to support the domains. A P IV 2GHz processor with a minimum of 512 MB of RAM would serve the purpose well. Another reason could be is due to excessive number of processes running simultaneously on the free PHP webhosting service. This could mean that the free PHP webhosting service is hosting more number of domains than they are actually capable of taking. Also, you cannot expect customer technical support from free PHP webhosting. Free PHP webhosting does not offer a 24/7 customer support that helps you fix any problems related to the hosting service. You can also expect a number of banner ads in free PHP webhosting since this is how the site could generate income. Some free PHP webhosting servers count on you making an upgrade to a paid PHP webhosting once you need more space for your web site. Free PHP webhosting cannot guarantee you continuous uptime service.

For those into business and putting up a web site that caters to the business' customers, a paid PHP would do better than free PHP webhosting. This is because business sites require more features than a personal site. For a fee which range from a minimum of $10 to as high as thousand of dollars per month, you can have a number of features that are beneficial to your business such as disk space, data transfer, unlimited email accounts and many others.