Thoughtful Thursday – Where should you host your blog?

Posted March 27, 2014 by Emily in Blogging / 2 Comments

thoughtful

I think it’s important for everyone to understand all the options they have before they choose one. There are a lot of free hosts that are perfect for blogging like Blogger and WordPress.com, and there are quite a few hosting companies that will host your blog for you on WordPress.org.
What’s the difference?
On free hosts like Blogger and WordPress.com, you are not really in total control of your blog. If they feel like it, they have the ability to yank your blog out of the blogosphere. It’s also a bit harder to fully customize everything on those hosts. On the other hand, self hosting on WordPress.org let’s you have more of a free reign when it comes to doing what you want. You can live in peace knowing that your blog is safe and can’t be “removed” without warning. The big difference is how much money you will spend. Free hosts are well… free, while you usually have to pay $80 + to self host and don’t forget about buying your own domain.
Which free host is better?
Honestly, as you probably guessed, I prefer Blogger (which is why this blog is hosted on Blogger…) It’s just much easier to customize everything here than it is on WordPress.com. Trust me, I would know. I had to do a school project on WordPress.com and it was super hard to change the design. Sure they had more themes to choose from, but beyond that the only thing you could do was change the main colors and the font (if you were lucky). Another thing is that I’m pretty sure you can’t embed javascript in WordPress.com blogs. That means if you want to host a Rafflecopter giveaway on free WordPress, then you’ll have to include a link to it because it won’t be shown on the blog page, unlike Blogger. On Blogger, you are in more control than in free WordPress. You have the ability to change your design to anything you want. Take my design for example. I started on a basic Blogger template and after several edits, here we are. If design is what you are worried about, there are a lot of sites that have free templates you can download and use.
What about paid hosting?
I have no clue. I have no experience with self hosting at all so I can’t really say much on the subject only that it’s a lot of money if you are used to not paying anything. Besides the cost there is to actually host the blog, you might need to hire someone to transfer everything on your blog to WordPress.org. And after that, if you’re going to self host, you might as well buy your own domain…
Which one to choose?
In the end it all depends on how much you are willing to spend and your ideas for the future. You don’t have to be self hosted to have a lot of followers, but you do have to be dedicated. If blogging is just a hobby, it’s probably best to stick to a free host. If you see blogging as a serious passion, then maybe self hosted is for you. It really all depends on you.

On that note, if you are self hosted where did you buy your hosting from?
Are there any companies you would recommend?
Emily

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2 responses to “Thoughtful Thursday – Where should you host your blog?

  1. I always think it’s good to look at a site like whoishostingthis.com. I helped me find my host now (Arvixe) and makes sure that you find exactly what you need! I definitely don’t regret switching to self-hosted WordPress. 😀