We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization powered by a community of hobbyists that offer full-featured web hosting services for free.Our mission is to provide high quality web hosting for free to as many people as possible. We believe that everyone should have access to their own website whether they're a student to a small business owner, and everything in between. We're operated by a team of highly experienced volunteers who are passionate about what we do.Many schools around the world don't have the resources to provide their students with an online environment where they can learn to create a website. HelioHost aims to solve this issue by providing free hosting accounts for the teachers and students.Many small businesses can't afford to pay for hosting in order to sell their products online. HelioHost aims to solve this by providing free hosting and low cost hosting to small businesses to allow them to have an online presence.We offer as many free hosting accounts as we can, and we also offer donation based hosting accounts to help offset the cost of providing hosting for free. In addition, we provide affordable VPS hosting plans and scaling pricing based on usage for people who wish to upgrade from the free plans.We encourage community members to help each other, and recruit new volunteers from the community who are the most helpful. We own all of our own hardware so we don't have to resell hosting services from other companies which helps us keep costs low.
HelioHost (heliohost.org) has 118 customer reviews on Five Star Index, with an average rating of 4.6 out of 5.
Also known as
heliohost.org
Website
heliohost.org
Category
Internet & Software
Location
Kirkland, Washington
Listed on Five Star Index
2026
About these reviews
Replies
The company replied to 95% of reviews.
Latest
Most recent review: October 2026.
Edits
Reviews are shown as their authors wrote them. The company can reply, but cannot edit them.
Score
This company cannot pay to remove reviews or change its score.
Very low and sustainable cost to learn how to implement things yourself.
Response from HelioHostJun 9, 2025
Thanks for the honest review! We love to provide an environment that encourages people to learn how to do new things. Some for-profit companies just want to make you as dependent on their support to do everything for you, and then of course charge you an arm and a leg to provide support. Thanks for helping out answering some simple questions from the community as well. We appreciate you.
KA
King Alexander the N.
Review
Disclaimer: This review is based on my experience only. User experience may vary.
I'm writing this review to share my personal experience using HelioHost, specifically on the free Johnny server. I'll be breaking it down section by section to give a clearer view of what to expect if you're considering giving HelioHost a try.
1. Initial Sign-Up:
Looking back, it took me 5–6 different attempts to finally create an account—usually trying around midnight or mid-day, when server capacity might've been more available. It was a bit of a hassle, but once I got through, the rest of the process was smooth. I appreciated being able to choose my own subdomain and it was nice for the whole system to be up and running in a few hours. The Plesk dashboard can be a little slow at times, which is noticeable, but considering the range of features provided for free! I really can’t complain. Overall, this stage gets a solid 4/5 stars from me.
(Mostly lost the star for the time)
2. Implementing your website
I had a pre-made website that I implemented into Heliohost, no problems, heliohost even provided a Free SSL certificate and subdomain which was a bonus, the dashboard is clean when editing code, the only thing is when you edit, there is no reverse button, but that's minor issue though, and you can just use something like Microsoft Visual Studio Code and update manually.
5/5 from me.
3. Customer Support
Used the discord feature, no problems, staff straight to the point, no ifs or buts.
5/5
4. Site performance
You do get a lot with the Johnny package for a small to even medium size website, and their upgrade plans are not to expensive, a VPS starting at 4 dollars a month, or a Tommy server (slightly better run time) for just 1 dollar. But with Johnny, the server dose drop for a few min every once and while, which if you have users using your site, it will pop up with a 504 or 502 warning, its ok not great personally, but for free and cheap upgrade, not bad.
3.5/5 from me
(1.5 star for sudden server drops)
(Please note 1.5 stars drop is not to complain, but it just feels its hidden until you look a bit deeper into the external print, or if someone provides you with it. Idk, could be just me.)
5. Finally Overall Verdict
4/5 stars -
Positive
Great for beginners, great for an ad free experience once your singed up. Good for Blogs, Information website, Hobby groups (Like chess or football/Soccer ect..) among other small projects
Cons
Occasional server drops (which can affect e-commerce)
Time to set up - (But its worth the wait!)
I thank you for reading and wish you a pleasant day, and hope you give Heliohost a try!
Response from HelioHostMay 1, 2025
Thanks for the honest review. Yeah, Johnny is pretty great for free, but you're right about the uptime and speed is not the best. Currently about 97-98%. The only real way to improve the uptime is to close signups and delete a couple hundred free accounts. Since our mission as a non-profit is to provide free hosting it seems counter productive to close free signups and kick people off our service. If people need better uptime, and faster websites we do have the new Morty plan that you can upgrade to for only $1 per month. We also just finished a fundraiser to buy a new server, and we're going to be releasing a new free plan named Ricky soon that provides Java and JSP hosting.
BO
bochard
It works! not a scam like those other free hosting sites
It definitely works!! At first, I thought it was a scam just like any free hosting sites I found because I can't get an account to 'Johnny' option. I tried multiple times, lots of trials for several days. Then, today, I got a free account! It's just a matter of timing they have limit due to many users trying to sign up. I understand why they limit the sign ups because they can't handle multiple accounts due to limitations on their resources. I can't say much in the features yet, will update this review once I explored it. Thanks! :)
Response from HelioHostApr 19, 2025
Thanks for confirming that the free plans really do exist. We can't control how popular our free plan is, and how many people try to get one each day. All we can do is provide as many free accounts as our servers can handle without getting overloaded.
D
ᏁᎯᎿᎲᏉᏋ Ꮅ.
Incredible Support and Flawless Hosting Services
I’ve been using both the shared hosting and VPS services, and I couldn’t be happier. Everything has been running smoothly, performance has been great, and the value is unbeatable.
What truly sets them apart, though, is the staff. They’ve been extremely helpful, responsive, and genuinely accommodating. When I had questions about setting up Docker and routing VPN traffic on my VPS, they didn’t just point me in the right direction — they gave me the confidence to learn and take full control of my setup.
As someone who’s self-taught and constantly learning, I really appreciate support that empowers instead of just fixes. These guys go above and beyond, and I can’t recommend them enough.
Thank you for everything!
— Troy
Response from HelioHostApr 19, 2025
This is what we love to hear. We love providing an environment where people can learn new things. Thanks for the feedback!
BL
Brandon L.
Free hosting is a lie
Free hosting is a lie. I tried to signup and I waited for hours, and when I get to sign up "That plan is already full for the day."I just waited in line! Not ever using heliohost. I had nothing wrong, the time was correct, It was the heliohost server! They suck!
Response from HelioHostApr 4, 2025
The 553,763 people who have received free accounts from us over the past 20 years beg to differ, but rather than throwing a fit you can read our tips for getting a free account at https://wiki.helionet.org/Signing_Up#Helpful_Tips_for_Getting_a_Free_Account_on_Johnny The most common reason is because your computer time is probably not set correctly.
CM
CA. Madhusudan M.
Fraudsters!!
1. A definite NO for anyone considering them.
2. Even after you donate, they’ll harass you, throw insults your way, and try to shame you. They’re a bunch of bullies who expect you to grovel at their feet.
3. It's completely unsuitable for production use.
4. The server restrictions are excessive, enforced by overbearing admins who consider reading feedback a 'waste of time.'
I was considering purchasing a Morty subscription, but now I’ve completely ruled it out.
UPDATE: After my review, the self-proclaimed CEO "Krydos" threw a tantrum and banned my account without warning, flushing all my donations down the drain. That's their pathetic way of operating.
Just rate them worse, and boom, your account is suspended. It's not a company but a private shop.
Response from HelioHostApr 4, 2025
Yes, reading hundreds of pages of AI generated nonsense is definitely a waste of our time. Rather than trying to bully support with spam maybe you should try being nice and people will be nice to you.
Thanks for your $1 donation. I hope you enjoyed your 7 years of hosting. Most people have to pay more than $1 for 7 years of hosting, but keep emphasizing how you donated $1.
UPDATE: Wait, you changed your 5 star review to a 1 star, told everyone not to use our hosting, and told us you weren't going to use our hosting anymore, but you're upset because we took your website offline? Our servers are very full because our hosting is extremely popular, so of course when someone says they're not using their account anymore we take it offline to free up resources for active accounts. That's definitely not a "tantrum", it's just common sense.
If you want to use our hosting again, just let us know, and you're welcome to come back. You might want to get your story straight though. It doesn't make any sense.
MH
Mr H.
Ugly Dashboard
I signed up out of curiosity ($1) and honestly didn't expect such an ugly and slow Dashboard. Compared to other free hosts, establishing a connection to HelioHost takes longer and I've noticed several server-side restrictions. It offers SSL AND FTPS, though. I guess it's good for creating barebones blog websites, nothing more.
Response from HelioHostApr 4, 2025
We used to use cPanel, which is the most widely used control panel in the world, and we all agree that it is much uglier than Plesk. Then we switched to Plesk, which is the second most widely used control panel in the world, and we all agree that is is much better than cPanel. The only thing we noticed is that with cPanel the control panel was always really fast, but the websites themselves were really slow. With Plesk the control panel can be pretty slow, like you noticed, but the websites are always much faster. We think Plesk has their priorities straight. Thanks for the feedback.
DD
David De L.
Awesome free hosting
Awesome free hosting, Good and abordable vps
Response from HelioHostDec 4, 2024
Thanks! Have you had a chance to test out Morty much yet? We'd love to hear what you think about our newest and fastest server.
