Self Hosted WordPress.org vs. Free WordPress.com [Infograph]

For webmasters is much better self hosted, for people who don't know anything of programming or design, or people who don't care about personalizations, the free hosted is the choice...

I have my self hosted wordpress with a personalized theme, and from wordpress.com (free hosted) i only envy the comment form with facebook, twitter, openid, avatars support, suscribe to comments/posts and the effects in the form...

Anyone know any tutorial for making something similar in a theme (without a lot of plugins)?

"Free WordPress.com is not for your brand. If you want to start a corporate blog, then you need the Self-Hosted WordPress Software." This part needs to be corrected!

Nothing kills a theory better than a fact. Go to http://jumpforward.wordpress.com. This is a FREE WordPress.com blog. No VIP upgrade. No domain mapping upgrade. No CSS upgrade. This blog is associated to the following website: http://www.jumpforward.com.

Those of you who have been watching ABC's Shark Tank reality show, might recall seeing Jump Forward's co-founders negotiating for venture capital back in 2009. Clearly not a pair of fools who want to blog about their stamp collection.

Supporting a blog that has the potential for significant traffic spikes is no small concern. For a startup company who needs a blog in addition to their core web application, offloading those concerns to a cloud hosted service is a VERY LEGITIMATE OPTION. Often times the CEO is also the head of marketing, part-time programmer and system administrator. In this scenario WordPress.com can be a Godsend. @Alex's comment "Blog it and forget it!" is right on the money.

Are there trade-offs? Absolutely! You document many of them well but to suggest that a free WordPress.com site cannot fit into a successful corporate business model is both misinformed and misleading.

There's so much wrong and misleading in this graphic I'm amazed it's on a site that claims to know about WordPress, no credibility.

Good article. I'm looking at developing my own personal site (bring in some extra cash) and i was debating whether it would be good to self-host the blog or to have WP do it for me. Thanks for the info.

The only thing that wasn't addressed was the SEO capabilities...Does Google penalize a WP hosted (FREE) site?

thanks for the info.

can you start out with freewordpress.com then later move everything over to self hosted? how easy is it to do so?

I see the infographic... where is the full article? Is there a different link? I hate to be dense - but I'm not seeing a way to read the entire article anywhere.

i have my own wordpress blog hosted on a small server. it is very easy to install and to use. i choose self-hosted because i can make mirror changes if i want to

Can you also add a 3rd column reviewing paying Wordpress.com as their paid host (as TechCrunch does).

One other thing to add is simple credibility. Hosting on your own domain shows you are serious about your blog as a hobby or as an enterprise.

wordpress.com now offer custom urls for their users (without the ".wordpress.com" suffix) - this kinda conflicts with the "branding" section inside your infograph.

thnx for the post, important stats

In my view, it's better to start with self hosted platform. The main thing is freedom. You can do whatever you want and whatever you like because it's your own...and you can learn understand more about it.

I am sharing this article on my Blog (http://imranhunzai.wordpress.com), is it legal?

I would suggest to even peeps that are not intending to go "big" to purchase a domain, and self-host a wordpress install. My main reason is simply that when I support them - I have to manage 301 redirects. Loss of Google PR is one factor (yes, it'll follow, but NOT 100% all the time!)

Also, branding.

The fact that you can use any theme sells it to me.
Self hosted is best. No doubt about it.

Ben
--
PixelClouds.com

I think if you're just starting out, and not sure if blogging is going to be your thing - it's best to save the money and start out at WordPress.com, once you're sure that it's something you want to do - spending the money on finding a host and unique design is the way to go :)

It's more wiser to choose Self hosted Wordpress than Worldpress.com . Even if you are a beginner. it's never too late move all of your free WP to self hosting WP. The cost of self hosting is more cheaper than upgrade your free WP to the premium.

I really like the analogy that Matt Mullenweg uses to compare the two service, "It's the difference of owning a home, and just renting an apartment..." Watch this video it's the 2nd question.

http://wordpress.tv/2009/10/29/matt-mullenweg-wordpress-now/

He also talks about VIP...

On WordPress.com blogs that get more than 50k pageviews per month the user can has the option to get show ads in partnership with WordPress (revenue sharing is 50:50).

In fact, if you do not want ads on your blog then wp.com is just prefect and better than the self-hosted ones. And TOS is everywhere (including in the web host's policy). It can very successfully be argued that if you do not have commerical/very professional needs, then wp.com blogs are actually ahead of wp.org in many ways!

I disagree with the last WP.com bullet point. There are tons and tons of corporations that use WordPress.com (both VIP and not). And with the domain mapping upgrade, it's easy to remove the .wordpress.com part of your blog's URL.

Anyway, as to which is better -- I think it entirely comes down to what you're looking for. "With great power comes great responsibility." Not everyone wants that responsibility or to have to deal with upgrades, traffic (what if you get Dugg), and so forth. WordPress.com is blog and forget. :)

i like wordpress ...

to manage and get full control i choose self hosting