Well, since I’m always returning to wp.com to blog people probably wonder why. I have to admit that I prefer to host WP myself, but (now here’s the very big “but”) I’m a code geek so hosting it myself means I’m stuck in “so what does this function do” and “what function add this output to my blog”, so it’s needless to say that we get less blogging and more searching code.
This bring me to the good part with wordpress.com
- You don’t have to worry about upgrading or any other technical stuff (like; okay which file did I hack to make this work.. I know, I know, - use plugins.. But that leads to, okay where can I find a plugin that do [pick something]).
- An other thing is that if something goes wrong, like a feature isn’t working right, it is not your problem.
- So all you have to worry about is the blogging, which actually is quite relaxing.
But if you want more, hosting WP yourself is the way to do it because on wp.com:
- You can’t have ads here, for anyone who wants to try to earn some money on their blog.
- You can’t upload .zip files, which means if you’re a theme or plugin author you can’t host your files here.
- You can’t have your own special made theme. - You can get far with CSS, but a theme is really software, so it’s more to it than just the look.
- And last but not least, and a thing people really should understand, is this: Even if you want something it doesn’t mean that it will be a part of wp.com
It all boils down to: What do you need and what is the purpose of your blog?
If you need a lot of fancy stuff and to be your own master, you should host the blog yourself. If you’re just want to blog, wp.com is the place to be. - And that’s why I keep returning.
And as a sidenote; the in between can be to host your blog on a WPMU powered site. If it’s not large, it might be that the Site Admin will add the theme or plugin you want. And sometimes it really can be good to have host that speaks your language.