Free Webhosting - What features would you want to see?

I once did a project for free hosting under a different brand. Back then some DCs would give away free servers for free hosting.

Today, I would assume if you could make it 'cloud', you would have more traction.

Knowing a few people that have started companies that either started out by offering free services or that still do - I can tell you that it's a lot of work and a huge target for fraud, spam, phishing, and other illegal activities.

If you do decide to offer free webhosting you're going to have to keep a tight reign on it. In my honest opinion it's not worth the effort but I do wish you the best of luck.

I echo what @Mike - MDDHosting said.

It may work only if you offer a Free account with very low resources and no email (so no spamming issues) and allow clients to upgrade to a Premium version.

But very rarely do those looking for a free hosting upgrade. Those using free service don't care so much about performance, uptime, support etc. So yeah, just isn't worth it.

I would like to place ads in the control panel to help generate revenue. I would likely be running at a loss for awhile to build up a customer base. I doubt I will allow email on the free account. I don't plan on offering reseller hosting. I would offer upgraded plans. I am going to get a dedicated server to allow for better performance then a VPS.

Which control panel? cPanel charges per account so how can you offer free hosting? DirectAdmin?

Direct Admin

I would like a free host to offer Multi-Domains, and not shut you down simply because maybe a 100 people visited your sites within a week, like, if you posted on a forum, and people saw your link and just checked it out.

I have like 10+ domains that I just need "holding sites" on the web, get little visitors save maybe the above at most.
Free Hosts just don't have this, and they seem to ONLY exist if NOBODY actually goes to your site save maybe a couple of visitors a week.

I've even had free hosts shut me down when I'm UPLOADING my sites, cause I've used my allowed "bandwidth" or whatever bull *** LIE they tell to get people think you're getting "more" when they are actually giving you near ZERO resources to even do the most basic things with your site.

Prepare for a lot of headache! In the past we give free hosting with option to upgrade later, but it turns to be a kind of worst decision since we attract a lot of spammers and other bad related actions.
Take it as an awareness.
~ Cheers

Free hosting or paid hosting: Customers want the same features. I don't think that free hosting has a future. You attract all the criminals plus have increasing costs for energy, maintenance. What's the point about it?

Free hosting should include decent storage, enough bandwidth for small projects, and basic security features like SSL.