subject: What Suits Better - A Free Wordpress Blog Or A Self Hosted Wordpress Blog? [print this page] This is the most confusing question that swirls around in every blogger's mind, whether to start with a free WordPress blog or host your own WordPress blog? For those who do not know the difference between a free WordPress blog and a self hosted WordPress blog, let us have the privilege of giving you a brief introduction about both of them.
You can obtain a free WordPress blog just by simply signing up at WordPress.com and the username that you put in the username box becomes your blog name. For instance : if you type 'howdoyoustartablog' in the username, this 'howdoyoustartablog' becomes your blog name in free your WordPress blog site. Whereas, on the other hand, the self hosted WordPress blog would be on your own domain, on the site where you would install the WordPress software on. That WordPress software will become the blogging system of your site that will manage all the content of your site. Nowadays, many hosting companies use push button software such as Fantastico Deluxe or Simple Scripts, which makes the WordPress installation quite easy.
Now that you have gained all the relevant knowledge about free WordPress blogs and self hosted WordPress blogs, let us have a look on their pros and cons :
FREE WORDPRESS BLOG : First lets dig into the pros and cons of a free WordPress blog
Pros :
Setup does not require any cost. It is totally free.
The installation and then setup is very easy, as software install is already done by WordPress
Maintenance is totally free. All the maintenance work such as, setup, upgrades, spam, security, backups, etc everything is already done by WordPress.
You can totally rely on the server, as the server hosting site are actual WordPress.com servers
As blog will be the part of WordPress community, you might see an increase in the traffic from the WordPress community
Cons :
You cannot upload or update a non-WordPress provided theme on a free WordPress blog
You would not be able to change or edit any of the Php programming which is very useful for adding all unlimited functionalities and customization
Although the WordPress plugin community is very huge, but you would not be able to upload any other plugin other than WordPress
You would not be able to allow any ad placements on your blog, moreover WordPress will put their own ads on your blog
SELF-HOSTED WORDPRESS BLOG : Now lets dig into the pros and cons of a self hosted WordPress blog
Pros :
You can upload your own WordPress theme or non WordPress themes to your blog. Self hosted WordPress blog offers thousands of third party themes and allows you to choose any theme according to your choice
You can change the Php code as per your desires, which enables you to experience unlimited functionalities as there is a large community of WordPress developers who offer some great scripts for adding functions to your site.
iPhone has a motto "There's an app for that" . While working on a self hosted WordPress blog you can upload many plugins, which means WordPress should keep its motto "There's a plugin for that" .
With self hosted WordPress blog, you cannot only edit or change the code and themes, but you can add your own add placements and add monetization.
The basic yet main benefit, you can have your own brand name or domain name
You can have access to ftp that allows you to load separate landing pages and downloads outside of your WordPress site.
Cons :
Although, mostly all hosting companies offer push button installation through "Fantastico Deluxe" or "Simple Scripts" , but you will need to setup yourself.
To setup your site, you will have to pay some costs. The cost of domain names and hosting might vary from $5 to $15 a month.
Unlike free WordPress blog, here you will have to maintain your site on your own which includes spam control, security, and backup, etc.You will have some plugins to help you but still you will have to handle everything yourself
Of course you would not want any crashes in your site to bother you, hence you will have to find reliable servers. Many hosting companies nowadays provide well and reliable servers.
We would like to enlist some more things that might be of some importance to you :
Self hosted WordPress blog can allow you to experience some more benefits like, monetization of your blog with AdSense, you can add your own custom look and feel, access to a lot of WordPress themes, and then comes the major plugin working with thousands of plugins. On the other hand, if you want the basic blogging features like the traditional blogging sense, then you need a free WordPress blog
Hope you got a little insight of what we wanted to tell you. Now it is totally up to you, which WordPress blog suits your requirements.
