slacker361
What do you intend to use the website for? I you are wanting to have a small website to share your photos, some videos, and bee stuff to friends, and family and such then there is no reason to pay for hosting.
If you want to have a professional looking website for business purposes and dont want to look like your business is operated out of a pop up camper, then you will want to use better website developing software and pay for hosting.
One important difference is your url address. Free website developing software and hosting will use the same web address for all the websites hosted under it with an extension behind or before the companies address like the following.
http://www.webs.com/ main free companies address (not sure if this one is free or what, its just an example)
websites hosted under this would all have the webs.com behind whatever you name your site like
apples.webs.com or
oranges.webs.com so if you wanted a site call slackers bees you would end up with a web address of
slackersbees.webs.com
The only downside to websites like this is anyone who knows much about websites or hosting know you are using such a service and you dont really have a professional impression on them.
But these free hosting sites (not sure what webs.com offers or if its really free) are very easy to use and just about anyone who can operate a computer can build a website with ease and publish it to the internet.
If you want to have a more professional presence on the web then you will want your own distinct web address like slackersbeesthatdontmakeanyhoney.com - lol
I also believe google, yahoo, bing and other search engines probably dont take free hosted website addresses or domains seriously and you likely would have a lot harder time getting your website to be listed very well in search results without first generating lots of traffic to your website. I may be wrong but I dont think so.
If you would like to know what I use for website developing software, website hosting, how to get on first page of search results, etc. pm me and I will try to give you a little help. I dont know everything but I have a half way decent understanding of how the web, search engines, search results, and how search results are generated