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Does WordPress need hosting?
If you want your WordPress website to be live and searchable on the internet, then the simple answer is yes, a WordPress website does need hosting in order for it to be live on the internet.
However, what if you just want to work on a WordPress website but don’t want it live on the internet or pay for hosting, do you still need hosting? The answer is no, WordPress does not need hosting in order for you to work on or build your WordPress website.
In this post, I’m going to go over your options for having a WordPress site hosted and not hosted and why It’s easy and sometimes free or very low cost to do both.
WordPress Hosting options, the difference between Hosting and WordPress Hosting.
I would like to be very clear here. There is a difference between what’s commonly referred to as “WordPress Hosting” or “Managed WordPress Hosting” and “Self-Hosted” or simply “Hosting” options for a WordPress website.
WordPress Hosting, or Managed WordPress Hosting, is when a Web Hosting Provider whether that’s WordPress.com or another Web Hosting Provider manages and controls everything in regards to hosting, security etc.
This means that the host will run all your security software as well as the plugins that you can use to make your WordPress website function optimally.
Many find Managed WordPress Hosting a relief because they don’t have to worry about security issues or how fast the WordPress website is going to run if or if they have too many plugins, which plugins to upload, optimizing images etc.
Managed WordPress Hosts, at least good ones, do all this for you. This allows webmasters to focus on what they do best, create content.
However, many webmasters find Managed WordPress Hosting to be quite restrictive.
Many Managed WordPress Hosting plans do not allow webmasters to upload, for example, any plugins they like or do any sort of optimizations to the images and media that they upload.
They also don’t give the webmaster their choice of security software or features. That is why many webmasters turn to self-hosted plan
With Self-Hosted plans the webmaster is responsible for most of the frontend and backend functionality of their WordPress website. This includes themes, plugins as well as security.
However, the webmaster gets to choose whichever themes, plugins and security options they would like on their websites and which they don’t.
In addition, you also have FTP access, can upload plugins and themes at will, can edit themes and templates or hire someone to do so.
You can also have advertising and affiliate links and as many monetization possibilities that you can imagine as well as adding an ecommerce store and conducting transactions.
Although this can be a headache for some, others prefer it as one of the benefits of having a WordPress website, which are freedom and control.
Here is a quick rundown on your hosting options for your WordPress website.
Let’s start with WordPress.com.
WordPress.com Hosting options.
WordPress.com Free Blog Hosting Plan.
If you are happy with the restrictions of having a free hosted blog at WordPress.com, then you do not need a Self-Hosted plan.
WordPress.com will handle all the hosting, themes, plugins and security.
However, you are also severely limited in your monetization, analytics tracking, theme and plugin options. But it’s free.
WordPress.com’s paid plans.
WordPress.com’s paid plans are quite interesting in that they share many of the same features and options as Self-Hosted plans from other Web Hosting Providers, yet all have some degree of a Managed WordPress Hosting experience.
It seems that the higher the WordPress.com’s paid plan is, the more freedom and flexibility it’s users can enjoy.
So you may end up getting the best of both worlds, depending on the plan.
Anyway, here are WordPress.com’s paid plans and you can click the links to learn more about them as well as their pricing.
Self-Hosting options.
As I’ve mentioned above, with Self-Hosted WordPress websites, you have complete control over which themes, plugins, security and other features that you want to include on your WordPress website.
However, with that freedom and control you also take all the responsibility of running your WordPress site including troubleshooting, security, making sure everything is updated as well as optimizing your WordPress website as well.
Here is a brief run down of the most common plans that Self-Hosting Providers offer today. I’ve put them in order from typically least expensive to most expensive:
- Shared Hosting.
- Managed WordPress Hosting.
- Cloud Hosting.
- VPS Hosting..
- Dedicated Server.
Each of these WordPress hosting plans have their advantages and disadvantages, so always go over their features carefully, since each Hosting Provider offers different variations and features on each.
How to work on WordPress that doesn’t need hosting.
If you just want to get the ball rolling, test out a theme, some plugins etc. and basically see what kind of WordPress site you can put together before even launching it on the web, then why not try building it locally on your computer at home?
That’s right, you can actually build a WordPress website (for free, if need be) on your computer by using a web development environment which you can download onto your computer.
You can also do this without committing to a hosting plan or even buying a domain.
Below, I am going to show you 4 ways you can do this, although I’m sure there are other ways as well. Let’s start with the 2 easiest ways first.
They are using InstantWP or LocalWP by Flywheel.
InstantWP and LocalWP by Flywheel.
As a non WordPress developer, these first two methods of working on WordPress without hosting are my personal favorites.
They’re both easy to use, free and will allow you to create a WordPress website on your computer.
They are of course both readily available for download and once again, both are free.
InstantWP.
One of the easiest ways to work on WordPress locally (on your own computer) is to use “Instant WordPress”
InstantWP is a complete standalone, portable WordPress development environment.
It will turn almost any Windows or MacOS machine into a WordPress development server.
InstantWP is free software, published under the GPL v3 License.
InstantWP is also spyware and adware free.
Instant WP is very easy to use and can even be installed on a USB flash drive, making it completely portable.
You can also easily deploy your WordPress site from InstantWP to the Web by using the “UpdraftPlus Migrator” plugin, (see Migration and Deployment to the Web below).
To use InstantWP simply download, unzip and watch a progress bar. In about a minute you have WordPress installed.
InstantWp is loaded with these features:
- Easy Access to WordPress Shortcuts.
- One button click will launch the local WordPress installation and WordPress Dashboard.
- Web Based File Manager.
- Manage themes and plugins via the web browser using the InstantWP Web File Manager.
- Built in SSH Terminal.
- One button click will launch an SSH Terminal and log you into the InstantWP Linux Virtual Machine.
- SFTP Included.
- Manage your InstantWP website via the supplied SFTP client or WinSCP on Windows and Fugu on MacOS.
An existing WordPress website can also be migrated into InstantWP for testing, development and training offline.
Once completed, the website can then be migrated back to the web server if necessary.
Alternatively you can use the existing WordPress import and export functionality to move your website.
Bottom line, InstantWP will save you time, hassle and money.
LocalWP by Flywheel.
You can also set up a WordPress site locally using a tool called LocalWP by Flywheel.
It’s super simple and like InstantWP, it does all the work for you. So you can spin up, deploy and even redo a site multiple times.
You can also use it for testing addons, like plugins, for conflicts.
If you have, for example, a specific site configuration, just set it up as a blueprint and you can replicate it over and over again. LocalWP is very user friendly.
Using XAMPP or WAMP.
Both XAMPP and WAMP are web development environments. They allow you to create web applications, including WordPress websites right from your local computer, without the need for hosting.
Both XAMPP and WAMP have been around for over 10 years and seem to be the preferred web development environments for Web Developers.
There are differences between the two of course the main differences being that XAMPP is for Windows/MAC/Linux and WAMP is for Windows.
Both applications are free to download and use. You can download them from here:
Once you have the basic framework ready, a domain name, hosting, you can then just upload the WordPress site onto your server, upload the database & just add in your nameservers to your domain registration.
So you can just build out your WordPress site on the “test site” and then migrate it using UpdraftPlus or a similar migration plugin to a proper domain.
Migration and Deployment of WordPress to the Web.
When eventually moving your site you can use the UpdraftPlus Migrator, your WP admin and password will be the same on your local server as it will be on your host’s server.
That’s right, everything gets migrated over including user/admin accounts. That’s the case for most migration plugins.
You can go about all this, build out your website on your laptop or desktop with the aim of transferring to a hosting site in a few months or whenever you’re ready, then launch it live on the internet through a hosting provider.
No need to buy a domain name or fiddle around with SSL certificates, etc. Just build it out and when you’re ready, simply buy a domain name, pick a host, a plan, migrate it over and you’re basically good to go.
If you’re building a website for someone else, it’s basically the same process, except you can transfer everything to them all packaged up in a .zip folder and they could do the onboarding process to their Web Host of choice or you can.
Heck, you can even transfer all the WordPress files packaged up on the .zip folder to a flash drive (USB) with InstantWP.
WordPress does need hosting, but not always. Conclusions.
There you have it. As you can see WordPress does not need hosting.
You can actually work on WordPress on your computer without the need to pay for hosting.
In fact, if you would like to learn how to use WordPress, test out different plugins, theme designs and customizations, etc. then this setup is quite ideal.
Of course, once you build out your WordPress website you can then easily deploy it to your Web Hosting Provider of choice and their servers with a migration plugin like the UpdraftPlus Migrator.
By deploying it to a Web Host you will be able to make your WordPress website that you’ve worked on and built to your specifications, available for the whole world to see on the internet.
