File Downloads Hosting

• File Downloads Hosting
  • If you already pay for a cloud drive, like Google Drive, Office 365, Proton Drive, Dropbox, Mediafire, or Mega, just use that if you're an individual modder. They're unlikely to completely cancel a paying customer even if they realize you're using it for download sharing.
  • We all use free Mediafire or Mega cloud drives to distribute our mods
    • That tends to work fine because each person has their own account and for each modder there's a limited audience so not too much of a risk of going over the transfer limit (but I've seen it happen)
    • You can pay $6-12/month to Mediafire or Mega and get more space and more transfer limit
    • But it still leaves the problem that Mediafire and Mega aren't really intended to be used for downloads the way we use them
  • See Drives for more info on Cloud Drive options
  • Shared Web Hosting is one cheap option, if you're willing to pay, as you can use the webspace for downloads instead of a website
    • Often very cheap pricing and generous storage and traffic limits
    • Pay hosting often says "unlimited" storage and traffic but it's usually always limited in some way in the terms
    • But it's still often quite a bit of space and transfer, ready to go for HTTPS downloads, and cheap
    • IONOS Web Hosting Offers "unlimited" storage and traffic. Not very intuitive but once you get ftp setup and understand your web address it's easy.
    • Inmotion Hosting Offers "unlimited" storage and traffic, too. I've used Inmotion before for dedicated servers and they were fine.
    • DreamHost Shared Unlimited plan is cheap and has "unlimited" storage and traffic
    • Popular but not unlimited:
      • GoDaddy has cheap hosting which isn't unlimited but for a single modder it's an option.
      • SiteGround - Cheap, limited storage, unlimited traffic
      • Hostinger Web Hosting - Cheap prices, generous but not unlimited storage
      • BlueHost Web Hosting - Cheap-ish prices, fair but not unlimited storage
    • Tom's Guide - The best unlimited web hosting in 2024 - Find articles like this for the latest best deals
    • Gotchas
      • Limits in Terms
        • Search Terms for "limits", "transfer", "traffic", "visits", "inodes" to find our what their limits really are
      • Web hosts often limit storage by limiting "inodes"
        • You can still host a tonne of files, like tens of thousands, maybe a hundred thousand, maybe 600,000 (as limited on Hostinger's Business Plan), but it's something to be aware of.
        • Beware web hosting "apps" you can install. I installed MediaWiki at IONOS and it took up a huge portion of my inodes limit