Hello lovely readers!
I’d like to solicit your opinions on self-hosting. Using WordPress.com for my blog has definitely had its benefits, but I am seriously contemplating switching to a self hosted site using WordPress.org.
I would love to hear everyone’s opinions!
I’ve done a lot of research about the pros and cons of self-hosting, but for me the biggest draw is the ability to add whatever plugins I want. In fact, a desire for specific plugins is what prompted me to even consider switching to self-hosting.
I really want to put my food related posts out there on Pinterest in a more effective way, and I realized that the only “pin it” button available on WordPress.com is the tiny little sharing bar at the bottom of each post:
I want to have sharing buttons (particularly for Pinterest) very visible at the top of each post, like how Ree Drummond has on the Pioneer Woman:
In addition to wanting to use whatever plugins I want, I like the idea of full customizability (spell check tells me that’s not a word, but I think it is!).
From my research, the biggest drawbacks to self-hosting are the potential hassles with being responsible for everything.
If you self-host, what do you think? I’d especially love to hear from anyone who migrated from using WordPress.com to WordPress.org.
Thanks in advance for your insight!
xoxo Charlotte
Out of enthusiasm I switched to a self host too after only having this WordPress account for 2 months, big mistake. there is indeed so many advantages of having a self host but the biggest and most important disadvantage is the Reader. When I post now it won’t ever show up in the Reader anymore (logical of course) so you already got to have a lot of active followers. I myself still have a WordPress.com account just so I can keep searching and use the Reader and to connect with other people. with a self host you have to really market your site in order to gain followers. this Reader thing is so important. If people follow me now I have to migrate them to my self host in order for my followers to keep receive an email whenever I post.
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Thank you so much for the helpful input! That is very good to know about the reader. I will need to do more research about that now, because you are right, the reader is very important.
Thank you again! 🙂
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yw ^^ don’t try to speed things up, running a blog takes a lot of time (I now know lol) xD
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Psst…it’s not, the word is customization. 🙂
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I’m sure you’re aware, but wordpress.org is actually just a place to download the WordPress software. The actual hosting is done via other providers, like BlueHost, DreamHost, etc. (https://wordpress.org/hosting/)
In the Cloud model of computing, the major categories are IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS, in that order. They stand for Infrastructure-, Platform-, and Software- as a service. Moving from wordpress.com to a self-host is going from the SaaS model to the PaaS model.
The reason this matters is that you’re going from a pristine SaaS environment with multitenancy at that layer to a more open PaaS environment. This is great to solve for your need for flexibility. Risk wise? You now have to maintain WordPress and PlugIn updates, as well as any potential issues.
Bottom line: Someone like you would probably be a perfect match for the PaaS model because you can take advantage of the flexibility. As long as you’re willing to accept a less perfect uptime versus a “curated” SaaS environment, and more work to solve for potential problems, self-hosted could work well for you.
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Thank you SO much for the thorough and helpful comment!! I knew that I needed a third party to actually host my site, but so far I hadn’t nailed down which one i wanted to use in particular (I like the looks of Flywheel a lot).
What I didn’t know at all until reading your comment was the categories of IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. Thank you so much for the helpful info!
You’re the best!! 🙂
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Been thinking about doing this too at some point, so this is a very useful post and is attracting some great replies 🙂
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I agree, the replies so far are very helpful! The farther I research, the more I am tempted to migrate to self-hosting.
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I’ve been thinking about it too. I’ve heard that when you go to a self-hosted site, you lose quite a few followers. That’s my worry. I’ve noticed that the people I follow who self host don’t seem to get a lot of likes. I don’t know if that’s important to you or not. When I go to like or comment on a self-hosted site, it takes more effort. I usually have to enter my email and contact info. That will usually deter quite a few people. If it’s not easy, most won’t do it. Also, like your first commenter said, without the reader, unless they feel it’s worth it enough to seek out your blog post, potential readers might be hesitant to read your posts or Just my two cents on why I’m hesitant.
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I didn’t finish my sentence. LOL. OR, they won’t even know where or how to find you.
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