Free guild hosting — what you need in 2026

An officer pastes a Discord invite and waits for the next healer to show up. Most weeks the invite expires, the announcement gets buried, and anyone who searches the guild name finds nothing they can read in peace. Free hosting for guilds fixes that gap: a public address of your own that does not depend on a chat log that moves every hour.

In this article, Battlehorns is the web hosting service for gaming communities at battlehorns.net — guilds, clans, and esports teams. It is not the metal band of the same name, and it is not a game launcher. What you get is web space: files, PHP, a database, and HTTPS on a subdomain.

What free guild hosting is

Free guild hosting is web hosting without a monthly fee for the public site of a guild, a clan, or an amateur esports organization. It is not a game server, not a Discord replacement, and not a builder that hands you a closed template in exchange for ads.

In practice you get an address such as your-guild.battlehorns.net, a folder for HTML, CSS, images, and scripts, PHP running on the server, and a MariaDB database. Visitors see the site you published. Battlehorns does not overlay an ad network on your pages: the HTML you upload by FTP is the HTML the browser receives. Free clan site builders often pay for themselves with banners. This free plan does not place advertising on top of your layout.

The public site and day-to-day management do not have to live in the same tool. GuildOps handles members, events, loot, and resources, without forcing an applicant to create an account just to read the rules. The site is the front door; GuildOps is operations.

To compare hosting you control with ready-made builders, read clan website: dedicated hosting versus builders. For the wider map, see web hosting for gaming communities.

Technical checklist

On the reference free plan, the hosting order lists the following:

• Subdomain on battlehorns.net: lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens, up to 63 characters, no double hyphen, not digits only, and not reserved names such as www, mail, ftp, admin, or api.
• PHP on the server. The platform supports more than one version; provisioning defaults to PHP 8.3.
• One database, MariaDB, compatible with tutorials that still say MySQL.
• One FTP user to upload files into public_html.
• SSL certificate from Let's Encrypt, issued automatically, so the address opens over HTTPS.
• 700 MB SSD, shared by files and the database.
• 5 GB monthly traffic.
• Ticket support, not a round-the-clock sales chat.

These figures are the free plan in the order flow when no other active plan replaces them. The terms say quotas can change and that free hosting is not a permanent guarantee. If the shared hosting page shows different numbers on the day you order, those are the ones that count.

Left out on purpose: a game server, voice, unlimited mail, and high-bitrate video. A guild site can sit next to those services. It does not replace them.

PHP and MariaDB

Static HTML is enough for a poster: name, raid time, Discord link. It stops being enough when you want an application form, events an officer can update without reuploading the whole site, or a short news board.

A candidatura.php file can validate fields, reject empty text, and insert a row. The visitor never sees credentials. The free plan includes one database. That covers applications, a public roster with consent, a simple calendar, and a handful of news posts. It does not cover five heavy forum installs side by side.

In the client area, phpMyAdmin is where you create tables and export a dump before large changes. A useful application asks for the in-game name, role, region, hours, a profile link, and a short note — not a phone number, and never the password of the game account.

• Do not store passwords in plain text. For applications you usually do not need accounts at all.
• Do not put the database password file in a public repository or in Discord.
• Export the database before you run a script that creates or drops tables. The terms leave backups with the user unless stated otherwise.

PHP 8.3 runs current tutorials. Old code that calls mysql_connect fails: use PDO or mysqli with prepared statements so a nickname with quotes does not break the query.

File and FTP steps are in how to build your site with HTML, PHP, and FTP. The guild-specific flow continues in set up your guild site step by step.

SSL

SSL, in practice TLS with a certificate, is the padlock and the https:// in the address. On the free plan, Let's Encrypt is issued automatically for the subdomain. Do not buy a separate certificate for your-guild.battlehorns.net.

Forms on plain HTTP look unsafe and applicants leave. Discord previews behave better on HTTPS. Images still loaded over HTTP break the padlock on an otherwise secure page.

For internal links, use relative paths (/recrutamento) or explicit HTTPS. The certificate covers the subdomain you requested, not a made-up name and not your own domain until that domain is on the same hosting. When you get there, a custom domain for your guild separates the two steps. Until then, officers, bios, and team sheets should use the address with https://.

Real limits of the free plan

Free does not mean unlimited. The site has to fit these ceilings.

Disk, 700 MB. Text weighs almost nothing. 4K PNGs, addon packs, and MP4 files do not. Thirty original screenshots can take a serious slice of the quota. Export to the real width of the page — 1600 px is often enough — as JPEG or WebP. Highlights stay on YouTube; the site keeps the link.

Traffic, 5 GB per month. A 500 KB page survives a lot of visits; a multi-megabyte home page with background video burns through the month quickly. Measure the weight before you promote. If another panel disagrees, the client area is the reference.

One database and one FTP user. Enough for the site. Not enough to hand FTP to the whole raid team. Share credentials only with people who publish, and change the password when an officer leaves. A forum, a wiki, and a donation shop should not be three heavy apps installed "just to try" on the same database.

No injected ads, rules still apply. There is no platform banner on top of your layout: you serve what is in public_html. Rules remain. Spam, phishing, malware, and resource abuse can suspend the account. The free plan can be changed or removed to protect the infrastructure, and inactivity is covered in the terms. Do not promise the guild that the address is eternal.

What is not included. Enterprise uptime contracts, automatic backups as a product, or support rewriting your PHP. A ticket is for the account, subdomain, FTP, and certificate. It does not balance Tuesday's raid.

When you need more disk, more traffic, or your own domain, the next step is a paid plan on the same shared hosting, taking the files and a database dump with you.

How to start on Battlehorns

The order is short. The usual delay is looking for FTP before an account exists.

1. Create the account. Registration goes through Discord at register. Confirm the name you want on the platform. Without a session there is no hosting order.
2. Choose the free plan. On hosting you see the active plans. The order itself is placed in the client area, under orders, after you are signed in. For zero cost, select the free plan rather than a paid one.
3. Pick the subdomain carefully. guildname reads better than test123. That name stays in signatures, Discord, and league sheets. Spaces, capitals, and doubled hyphens are rejected.
4. Accept the terms and submit. Provisioning creates the site, FTP, database, and certificate. If an error appears, read it. Do not fire ten identical orders in parallel.
5. Publish a minimal index. Over FTP, into public_html, upload an index.html with the guild name, the schedule, and the Discord link. Open the address over HTTPS before you announce it. One paragraph about the game and the days is enough. An empty slider is not.
6. Split the roles. The public site stays on hosting. Roster, events, and loot can live in GuildOps. That split is covered in GuildOps — guild management in one app. The page that converts applicants is in recruitment and the member panel.

If FTP or the certificate fails, open a ticket at support with the subdomain and a screenshot of the error.

Common mistakes

The first guild site is built between two raids. These mistakes show up for that reason.

• Using only Discord. Chat does not archive rules or the join process. You need a stable URL: Discord and your website.
• Uploading 4K originals. Resize, delete tests, and do not leave a downloadable backup.zip inside public_html.
• Keeping both index.html and index.php. The server may serve one file while you edit the other. Keep one.
• Pasting FTP into the officer channel. Change the password when someone leaves. One FTP user is not write access for the raid.
• Requesting admin, www, or mail. Those names are reserved. Use the guild name, short and easy to say.
• Treating the plan as a game server. Hosting serves pages. The game and voice stay elsewhere; the site only explains how to join them.
• Installing a WordPress demo theme. Sample images burn through 700 MB quickly. Start with HTML and a PHP form.
• Not exporting the database. An installer run twice can wipe the week's applications. A phpMyAdmin dump takes a minute.
• Landing on the band instead of the host. If search shows music, come back to battlehorns.net: the product here is hosting for communities, plus GuildOps for internal operations.

Guildtag, Shivtr, Guildwork, and Battlehorns show up in the same searches and they are not the same product. The comparison is in Battlehorns vs Guildtag vs Shivtr vs Guildwork: builders on one side, hosting with PHP and a database on the other. Read the difference before you migrate years of posts.

To publish, start at register, confirm the plan on shared hosting, and use GuildOps day to day at guildmanager.battlehorns.net. The guild site does not need to be large. It needs to open, explain how to join, and still be online the following Monday.