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What does self hosted WordPress mean?
A self-hosted WordPress website means that you are using the WordPress CMS to create a website and are having that website hosted on a hosting provider’s server.
What does “it is fully hosted by WordPress mean?
The term “it is fully hosted by WordPress” means that your website or a website, not only uses the WordPress CMS, but is also hosted on WordPress.com and not another web hosting provider that offers self-hosting.
How good is WordPress hosting to self hosting?
WordPress hosting is good if you want all your WordPress needs taken care of under one roof.
You can start out with a free WordPress blog then seamlessly migrate through to WordPress.com’s paid plans from the Free blog to the Personal, Premium, Business and finally to the eCommerce plan.
Each of these plans have their own features. By having your WordPress blog hosted by WordPress.com you will not only have access to free “premium” themes which are included in your paid WordPress plans, but also plugins and security as well as all updates to each are included. So you have nothing you really have to worry about.
WordPress.com plans also offer you customizations as well as plugins. However, you should know that you will be limited, regardless of the plan to how many themes you are allowed access to as well as plugins.
This is to ensure that any plugins that are offered through WordPress.com are the most up-to-date and secure.
Whereas on a self-hosted WordPress plan through another provider plan, you are technically responsible for all your WordPress needs.
For example, you will have a choice of basically unlimited WordPress themes both free and paid, but you have to make the decision which to go with.
You will also have access to unlimited plugins as well with self hosted WordPress providers.
However, with self-hosting, unlimited access to themes and plugins you will also be responsible for your own security, meaning you will have to pay extra either to a security service as well as making sure that your plugins are up-to-date.
One of the easiest ways that hackers get access to WordPress sites are through themes and plugins that are not updated.
With WordPress.com those problems are not yours they are WordPress.com’s responsibility.
Is a self-hosted WordPress blog better than a free WordPress blog?
If you’re first starting out and you don’t know WordPress, then starting with a free WordPress blog being hosted on WordPress.com for free is probably better than a self-hosted WordPress blog. Why?
Because with a self-hosted WordPress blog you’re going to have to not only pay for hosting, but if you decide to get a free theme you will have little to no support from that theme’s developer if you have any questions or problems.
If you want support for your WordPress theme though, then you will need to upgrade that free theme to their paid version.
Do you see where I’m going with this? Although you have basically unlimited freedom and options going the self-hosted WordPress route, these are not free. Neither monetarily nor does going the self-hosted route free you from responsibility in managing your WordPress website.
Does WordPress provide hosting?
You should know the difference between WordPress, otherwise more commonly known as WordPress.org and WordPress.com.
WordPress.org is a free open source platform that offers free themes and plugins to those who use the WordPress CMS, which is also open source.
By using WordPress.org you can use as many of these free themes and plugins as you like. Almost all of them do have paid premium versions however.
You are also responsible for organizing the hosting of your WordPress CMS website.
Whereas WordPress.com is owned by a company called Automattic. WordPress.com offers a variety of services including domain name registration and web hosting.
You will only be allowed to use the themes and plugins that WordPress.com offers. You will also not have the freedom to use whichever plugins or themes that are not offered within WordPress.com’s plans.
However, with WordPress.com everything is taken care of for you. Your hosting, your themes, plugins as well as security and support. It’s all under one roof.
Does WordPress host domains?
WordPress.org of course, does not host domains, since it is a nonprofit platform. Though WordPress.org does host free WordPress themes and plugins as well as support forums. Basically the whole WordPress open source community.
However, WordPress.com, which is owned by the company called Automattic, does host domains and has a variety of domain hosting plans.
You can even buy a custom domain from WordPress.com as well.
Who provides free WordPress hosting?
Only WordPress.com offers free WordPress hosting. Their entry or beginner level plan is the WordPress Free plan.
Is self hosted WordPress free?
Unfortunately, self-hosted WordPress is not free.
However, the good news is that many self-hosted plans are not only very affordable, but can be downright cheap. Costing as little as a dollar a month.
How does self hosting work?
If you want to have your WordPress website live on the internet, then it will need to be hosted on a server. That server could be from WordPress.com or another web hosting provider.
When you host your WordPress CMS website on a provider other than WordPress.com, this is known as self-hosting.
You basically pick a plan from a number of web hosting providers. Then either migrate your current WordPress website to their name servers.
If this is a new website, then you would need to download WordPress into your new web host’s dashboard.
Once you have downloaded WordPress onto your dashboard in your self-hosted plan, you can then choose your theme, plug-ins, etc and get it live on the internet.
Do I need to pay for WordPress?
WordPress, the CMS, can come in both free and paid versions. You can basically download a number of free WordPress themes and use WordPress for free, as far as the theme of your website.
There are also thousands of free WordPress plugins that you can add to your free WordPress theme to customize it and give it various functions that you would like to have on your website.
However, most free themes and plugins do have paid versions as well that offer advanced features and more customizations etc.
If you decide to host your WordPress website on WordPress.com, then most WordPress.com plans are paid plans. WordPress.com does offer a free WordPress blog as well as hosting.
But you will be limited in the themes and plugins that you can use on that free WordPress.com blog.
You will also not be able to have a custom domain name on their free WordPress blog plan. This means that whatever name you choose for your website, you will have the suffix of “wordpress.com” at the end of your website’s URL address.
What is the difference between web hosting and WordPress hosting?
There’s actually three differences between Web Hosting, WordPress Hosting and hosting on WordPress.com.
First off Web Hosting means that a web hosting provider, a private company, offers space on their servers to host websites.
Whether those websites are WordPress CMS-based, Drupal, Joomla or a number of other CMS-based websites, web hosting companies offer web hosting for those sites and you pay a monthly or yearly fee for that web hosting.
WordPress Hosting is also normally provided by independent web hosting providers, except that your WordPress based website is hosted on their servers that only contain other WordPress CMS-based websites.
They manage those dedicated servers that only host WordPress based websites on them. This allows the Web Host, in theory anyway, to be the most up-to-date as far as WordPress updates, plugin updates and any other security issues that are particular to WordPress websites.
You get a little extra level of service from knowledgeable experts in WordPress. Also their support staff are supposedly trained specifically for WordPress issues.
WordPress.com, as I mentioned above, is his own by Automattic and they provide a full range of web hosting services as well as themes, plugins, security, even domain name registration, all under one umbrella.
Who is WordPress owned by?
WordPress.org is open source and is a nonprofit organization. Whereas,WordPress.com is owned by a company called Automattic.
The founders of Automattic are also, coincidently, the founders of the WordPress CMS ecosystem.
Automattic also owns the name WordPress which is why many websites that talk about WordPress cannot use the name WordPress in their domain name.
Just like this site, most of us use the WP as a prefix because legally we’re not allowed to use the name WordPress since it is copyrighted.
Is WordPress shared hosting?
If you are going to have your WordPress website self-hosted, then most self-hosted WordPress hosting providers do offer a Shared hosting plan.
However, if you are going to have your WordPress website hosted with one of WordPress.com’s plans then they are all basically on shared servers.
So for all intents and purposes, your WordPress website hosted on a WordPress.com server will be shared with other WordPress websites.
Self hosted WordPress conclusions.
If you want full control, or at least as much control over your WordPress website as possible, then going with a self-hosted plan from a web hosting provider would be your option.
You will have total control over not only which themes and plugins you want to add to your WordPress website. But you will also be able to choose what kind of server you want your WordPress website hosted on.
Most self-hosting web host providers offer plans like Shared, VPS, WordPress Hosting as well as Dedicated Servers in which to host your WordPress website on. You can also choose Cloud Hosting as well.
However, you should know that with freedom and control also comes with much more responsibilities in managing and running your WordPress website.
Although most self-hosted plans on the majority of web hosting providers do offer support in various forms and levels, you are still ultimately responsible for your WordPress website and this includes security as well.
So if you are just looking to have a website on the internet and want to relinquish as much control over it as possible, then going with a WordPress.com plan would be best.
However, for full control over your WordPress website as well as potentially saving quite a bit of money, then going self-hosted for your WordPress website would be the best way to go.
