I remember my first experience with blogging. I said its truly a bad experience with self-hosted but if you have a little experience of CPanel, PHP and HTML then it will be great for the self-hosted blogs.

Few of the highlighted points are

• Cost
• Hosting Plan
• Storage Space
• Advertisement removal
• Freedom

Who should use free blogs?

Free blogs are best for people who are just exploring the blogging world or are not very serious about blogging. If you’re just blogging for fun, then by all means start with a free blog!

Pros of a free blog:
There are no initial start-up costs.
Free programs like WordPress and Blogger are easy to set up and maintain without any prior website design knowledge.

Self-Hosted Blogging Platform
What is it? A self-hosted blog is one that resides on your own server. Most people, however, pay a third-party to host their blog, which opens them to all the benefits of a self-hosted blog.

Pros of a self-hosted blog:
You have full control over your blog, including in its layout, search engine optimization, advertising revenue, additional functions, and more.
You can install custom themes to brand your blog.
You have complete access to your backend files, which allows you to make any necessary code changes.
Using a third-party host usually costs only a few dollars per month.

From building a house to getting a website, cost is something universal to anything that you might want to get and, therefore, must be analyzed in-depth in order to make the optimal decision based on both your budget and needs.

When comparing the costs associated with self-hosted WordPress and WordPress.com,

There are for major factors that are associated with a cost:

• Domain name.
• Hosting service/plan.
• Storage space.

Also Read: How to Start a Blog From Scratch

The cheapest option is to sign up with WordPress.com, not be picky about domain names and activate the default themes and plugins you get with the website. This basic, stripped-down alternative won’t cost you a dime and your WordPress.com site will be live on the web. Even so, if you want a domain name of your choice, the option to purchase premium themes, remove advertisements, and get more storage space on the server, the otherwise free WordPress.com becomes costly.

On the other hand, WordPress.org is a far more cost-efficient option with which you can get the domain name from a registrar and unlimited server storage space (depending upon your hosting plan). You won’t even have to pay extra to remove advertisements.

Self-Hosted WP

The costs associated with self-hosted WordPress.org are easy to understand and depend mostly on the hosting provider you opt for.

Domain name. With self-hosted WordPress.org, you’ll be required to purchase a domain name from a domain name registrar. Often times, users can purchase a domain name from their respective hosting provider instead of a third party.

Hosting service/plan. Most new webmasters opt for a shared hosting plan with a reputable hosting service. The hosting provider you decide to go with may charge you as little per month as part of a promotional package.

Storage space. The cost of purchasing additional server resources such as more space, CPU, or memory .

Advertisement removal. WordPress.org doesn’t come with advertisements packed onto your site so you don’t have to worry about removing them.

Free WP.com

Things get a bit trickier with free WordPress.com. As we discussed above, WordPress.com is free for everyone to create their website with but it comes with some pre-set limitations and restrictions. What if you’re absolutely fine with WordPress’s free, high-quality hosting service but want to fully avail the little control that you have over your free WordPress site – even if it means spending some money?

Domain name. you can pick a custom domain name offered by WordPress.com. This ensures that your website’s URL will look something like www.mywebsite.com instead of www.mywebsite.wordpress.com.
Hosting service/plan. Hosting with WordPress.com is completely free. All users get a high-quality hosting service free of charge.

Storage space. Unlike self-hosted WordPress, with free WordPress.com, users get only limited of storage space on the server. To increase storage capacity, users have to pay an additional amount per year.

Maintenance

WordPress.com handles site maintenance and development for their users but with a self-hosted site, you’ll have to take care of that yourself too (or outsource it!). One thing to be certain about here is that regular WordPress updates are guaranteed by Automattic for both WordPress.com and WordPress.org ensuring your site is safe from malware and security threats.

WordPress site maintenance and development includes updating plugins and themes, ensuring plugin compatibility after WordPress core upgrade, and measures to take if your site faces unprecedented downtime.

Self-Hosted WP

With self-hosted WordPress, you’re completely on your own. Every aspect of development and site maintenance depends entirely on you. Every time a plugin needs to be updated, a notification appears on the admin panel and webmasters are required to handle it manually. Failing to update plugins and themes or accidentally activating incompatible resources simultaneously can lead to problems.

A webmaster with ample knowledge of site maintenance should go for WordPress.org. There are several plugins and forums out there to help you ensure your site’s upkeep isn’t compromised but taking responsibility for it is a huge commitment in itself.

Free WP.com

WordPress newbies who are testing out the blogging waters or dipping their toe into the online business world often don’t have the technical skills or the budget required to handle the maintenance and development of their site on their own. If you fall into a similar user persona, it’s in your better interest to let the folks over at Automattic take care of it on its own.

Those of you who don’t have the skills, time, or budget to devote to maintaining and developing their WordPress site should go for free WordPress.com. On the other hand, if you have the skills and time to take care of your site then self-hosted WordPress is best for you. Lastly, those of you who don’t mind outsourcing their maintenance and development tasks should check out managed WordPress hosting or a service that takes care of WordPress site upkeep such as Stylemix.

Restrictions

Self-Hosted WP
One of the biggest reasons webmasters opt for self-hosted WordPress is that it ensures full control and full ownership of the WordPress site. The only limitations you’re bound by are those set by the hosting plan you opt for. With self-hosted WordPress, you can use any theme or plugin you fancy (free or premium), enable advertisements, customize your site’s appearance, add custom code to your files, and even tweak the database if need be.

Free WP.com

With free WordPress.com, you have limited control over your website and you don’t actually own it. WordPress.com users cannot upload premium plugins, they get limited space on the server, and come with advertisements added to the site’s pages. Webmasters don’t even have access to their site’s core files which basically means that if your site is hacked, you can’t restore it because you never made backups of the site’s files.

What is WordPress?

WordPress is an open-source platform that has been developed by tens of thousands of people. Essentially, WordPress was created by a community of developers, and it is now a free blogging platform that can be used on a free or self-hosted basis.

WordPress.com

To get a free WordPress site, all you have to do is visit WordPress.com to start designing your site within minutes. WordPress.com is run by Automattic, a company created by WordPress s co-founding developer Matt Mullenweg. Here, you can use a restricted version of the WordPress software, and your site will be hosted on their servers.

WordPress.org

WordPress.org, on the other hand, offers the full extent of the software. However, in order to use it, you’ll need somewhere to store your website’s files. That is where a third-party host comes in handy.

Conclusion

If you are not sure which way you want to go, it’s worth starting a blog at WordPress.com and then later upgrading to a self-hosted blog while still using WordPress software. In my opinion, both are good one platform needs some basic technical skills and others need not. in pricing and storage point of view both the platform are almost equal. That depends on users choice which platform suitable or cost effective.

Good Luck and happy blogging