Hosted Blog or Self-Hosted - Which Is Better For You?

There are two ways that you can get your blog online, and there are definite pros and cons to both choices. Here are some things to consider when you are trying to make this decision for yourself.

Hosted Blogs

A hosted blog simply means that your blog is set up on someone else’s server.

There are free services for this, such as Wordpress.com, Typepad.com and Blogger.com. These services make it easy to get your blog started immediately, because you just select a template, name your blog and you are live.

Benefits of a free hosted blog are:

* it’s free
* it’s easy and quick to set up
* it’s always up to date from a technical standpoint
* you don’t need any technical knowledge

Of course, you don’t get the customization that you might want for your blog by using a free service. There are usually only limited standard templates that come with a free blog account. You may even have ads displayed on your blog because that is the way the free services stay free.

There are also paid services for this. These services can have you just pay a nominal hosting fee per month, or you can actually pay a higher fee per month to have more services than just hosting.

Benefits of paid hosted blogs are:

* you may be able to use your own domain name
* you don’t have to have any technical knowledge
* you don’t have to have a server of your own
* you can have a custom designed blog built
* you can add tools for more functionality

Paid services can offer more customization, but will probably also charge you extra for more design. There may be more templates available, but they are still templates.

Self-Hosted Blogs

The other option is to host your own blog on your own server. If you already have a server, then it’s an easy solution to have your blog there, since you will then have all your web content and files in the same place.

Benefits of hosting your own blog:

* you have free design capabilities because you aren’t limited to templates
* you can build your blog as big as you want, with no limitation on server space.
* you can build your whole website on your blog platform.
* you have full control of everything on your blog

Whatever decision you make, be sure it’s the right one for you. Many people start with a free hosted blog and then ‘graduate’ to one of the other services. Research all three options and pick the one that suits your needs.