Free WordPress Hosting Review: Ziclic.com

I have dredged the Internet time and again for free WordPress hosting, and I have never seen this host before. It is not to be missed. Ziclic.com sets the bar very high for every other "free" WordPress host.

Ziclic.com: Free Wordpress Hosting & Community

Ziclic.com is "your own hosted Wordpress for free!" says its header pitch. It has a genuine Vista control panel, Softaculus autoinstaller, MySQL databases, and email accounts.

Proudly sponsored by the infamous iFastnet of Byethost fame.

iFastnet appears to have entered the realm of "WordPress.com", but with some enhancements: more focus on "Community", and the ability to instal apps other than WordPress. Ziclic.com also offers Joomla, etc., etc.(More below.)

Unlike WordPress.com, Ziclic.com does not display ads on your blog or web site. Instead, Ziclic.com displays paid hosting ads on the Ziclic part of the hosting site, because obviously, Ziclic.com is indeed a lead-generator for paid hosting services and premium "extras" such as pro versions of WordPress themes and plugins. Which explains the multi-app approach at Ziclic.com: unlike WordPress.com which is limited to its own option, Ziclic.com's real focus is on top-of-the-line hosting: they want the whole hosting market. And they are going for it, all stops out!

To underscore this fact, my Ziclic.com welcome email features the following three closing lines:

For more information on premium hosting please visit : https://ifastnet.com/portal/

For a searchable knowlegebase with most answers to common questions please use : http://kb.ifastnet.com/

For tutorials on common tasks please visit http://tutorials.ifastnet.com/

I suspect that if I put up a real WordPress web site at Ziclic.com, I will eventually encounter promotional demands to accept a "guided transfer" to paid hosting. At the least, a stay-put paid upgrade. With the incredible features Ziclic.com is handing you for nothing, you have to expect this. It is not for nothing. These people are in business, and they have a sleek operation that is worth paying for if you can get along with them.

The welcome mail provides me with my Cpanel Username, Cpanel Password, two options for my new web site url, an FTP Server, FTP Login and Password, invitation to create a MySQL database, with recommended SQL Username and password.  Cherry on top, here's my Cpanel URL, login any time.

This is therefore extremely different from WordPress.com. With FTP and your own Cpanel, which includes an online File Manager, you can upload your own themes and plugins, and tinker to your heart's content.

Let's take a look inside and see if I'm not right.

It is a real control panel: Vista Panel. I've logged in with my Control panel username provided by Ziclic.com, and my 8-digit password provided by me. Front and center we have a full-color box of goodies flying up in the air, which says "Try the new Script Installer!" Softaculous. I've only seen this auto-installer in paid accounts. But this one is nicer than those I've paid to use. Ziclic.com is pulling out the stops and giving paid-style high-end web site resources to you to revel in, for "free".

Everything in the left-hand sidebar of the Control panel says "Unlimited": including "Unlimited" Sub-Domains, "Unlimited" Add-on Domains, "Unlimited" Parked Domains, "Unlimited" MySQL Databases, "Unlimited" Disk Quota, "Unlimited" Bandwidth, all "Unlimited". 

The only thing that is "limited" is apparently the one (1) FTP account.  The digital largesse makes one quickly ask, what could Ziclic.com / iFastnet possibly mean by the bright gold star in the upper right-hand corner of the control panel, labelled "Upgrade Plans". What's to upgrade? It's all here. It's 90% "Unlimited". And it's all "Free", right?

Now, I'm heading over to the Softaculus icon in the Vista Panel.

Click on that, and a sexy black menu appears at left with categories of software you might like to explore, and an array of colorful giant icons at right representing the world's most popular current softwares.

First app: WordPress.  Next in line: PrestaShop (open a store), AbanteCart (sell stuff), Drupal, Joomla, phpBB, and on and on including Magento, Moodle, PHP-fusion and some kind of Gallery.

Wake up, people!  This stuff isn't "free"!  They are getting you addicted and doing a good job of it.

While installing WordPress, there's an option for Multisite (WPMU).

I'm not going to choose that, I will just instal a single blog and see what happens.

I type in an original "Admin Username" to stymie the bots and hackers who would love to comment their ads all over my web site. (I'm still at the Softaculus auto-installer.)

I give it a password; and next below, the Administrator's email address for this WordPress blog. Always give a genuine email address... you'll need it to recover your password to your WP dashboard if ever you lose it. And you will lose it!

There are six important points hidden in the "Advanced Options" button with the white plus sign on the black square. This is really nice, top-notch service, not the kind of thing you see in free hosting. I haven't even seen this particular feature in paid hosting.

First, you can "Disable Update Notifications" -- in other words, when a newer version of WordPress is released, you can choose not to know about it. You may like to stick with the one you've got, that you've worked with and built your site with, because you know it. In particular, you might like to stick with it since you know the plugins you have chosen are compatible with it, and may not be compatible with a future edition of WordPress.

The contrary of that option is the next one: "Auto Upgrade". If you check this box, all "active" WordPress plugins installed in your blog will automatically be updated to the latest version.

Also available to check off is "Auto Upgrade WordPress Themes". You can also choose "Automated backups" at a frequency you select (daily, monthly, weekly), and below that, "Backup Rotation" which limits the number of automated backups saved on your blog's server.

This is all deluxe stuff that you do not get with ordinary "free" WordPress hosting accounts.

BTW, you should always try to grab a total backup any time you do extensive work on your site.  You should always do a multi-staged XML export any time you just work on the textual content. Export your XML as (i) complete, (ii) pages only, (iii) posts only. And then use the necessary plugins to backup and export special features such as menus, etc. Leave nothing to chance, you always want to be up-to-date on your desktop with a clone of your online site, including the SQL database.

Now, still at the feature-selection step leading to the WordPress instal, Softaculus even invites you to select a WordPress Theme if you like. Scroll horizontally to see what's available, three at a time.  Here's a pretty one: the colors of "Striker", with its panoramic mountain range remind me of our Canadian painter, Emily Carr. I'll try that one by clicking on the blue "Select" button.

Then underneath in the big white space, I'll click on the little word "Install".  Wait, don't hit "Install" just yet, there's an important line below that with an invisible form field. It says: "Email installation details to:" -- choose a valid email account of yours to receive a copy of all the Admin logins, passwords, and all the details that Softaculous will generate during this free WordPress installation.

Now, hit "Install".

It has been a matter of about twenty-five seconds, and the installer flashes the happy message, "Congratulations, the software was installed successfully". It provides the URL where you will now find your WordPress web site, and the Administrative URL where you can login to your dashboard and edit and build your "free" iFastnet / Ziclic.com free WordPress blog or web site.

At the bottom of the installation page the note appears "Tell your friends about your new site" with a very handy "Tweet" button.

Logging into WordPress Admin at Ziclic.com is a two-stage affair, for Ziclic includes an obligatory "math" check telling you to type a specific user name into the first of two fields, and fill the second field with the answer to a math question. This prevents cyber-attacks (i.e., automated bots setting up millions of free blogs at Ziclic.com!).

Then on to Admin Username and password Login, and I am into my Ziclic.com WordPress dashboard. First disappointment -- (and jumping ahead, frankly, the only one) -- the theme I had selected during instal isn't here!  However, it's in amongst the dozen or so free themes first available inside the Appearance dashboard.

But, hold my breath, there are also some other real theme beauties in here.  "I Am One" is a stunning modern theme with a full-width background slider that is gorgeous, but not modern fairy tale material. I'm looking for something to update that marvelous classic, The Water Babies...

I've tried three so far, and finally, I choose Freelancer, a drop-dead gorgeous free version of a pro theme that when you see it in action will make your mouth water. It sounds odd, but this theme makes a stunning, Museum-style site for The Water Babies.  Now, I've found a gorgeous old color illustration from the fairy tale itself, uploaded it, and installed in the Sample Page.  You have to check this out, it is magnifico!:

http://the-water-babies.ziclic.com/

I wasn't able to figure out how to put the photo where it is in the Freelancer demo theme in the Appearances dashboard, so I wandered over to the Generate Press web site and put a suggestion in -- please explain to us how to do that!

I gotta say, Ziclic.com kinda blows all the other "free" competition away. This is an amazing free host, an impressive setup, dressed to the nines with the best you can buy, gorgeous free versions of pro themes, or upload your own.

Extremely nice job.

Much as I personally will not deal with iFastnet and Byethost, after they eliminated more than one of my web sites for political reasons, I've got to admit, Ziclic.com is an exceptional host.

That said, when the crunch comes and they come after you for money, expect it. This is not "free", this is a high-end help-yourself test-drive demo. And frankly, when they do come for the money, and they will, you should be ready to give it to them.

Ziclic.com is the new standard in online "free" WordPress hosting. And hosting everything else, as well. Free or paid. Bar none, Ziclic.com is now number one.