Hosted or Standalone Blogging Platforms - Pros and Cons
Darren started an interesting "open mic discussion" - Hosted or Standalone Blogging Platforms - Which is Best ?
- Do you use a hosted or stand alone blog platform? Why?
- Do you wish you’d made a different choice when you started?
- What are the Pros and Cons of the two options?
- What would you recommend to a new blogger?
This discussion seems obvious to me (after 3.5 years blogging here) - so I decided to participate:
- I have a standalone blog platform. Actually I have my own blog hosting service engine :) It has some crumbs from various services (.NET based) that were popular in 2003 - 2004. I have my own domain name, dedicated server and firewall. Why ?
- Having your own domain name is a must for a serious blogger. I realized this after a month of blogging when decided to switch services for the first time.
- I have a very big traffic/content ratio. My traffic load passed some threshold some time ago - so I had to move to dedicated server hosting to remain stable and grow.
- Firewall helps me a lot to fight spam.
- I have my own engine because I like to have things under control :) It is .NET based and has a ton of optimizations, tricks and advanced techniques implemented over the years. I'm a developer at the end of the day and have to implement things hands on. It is ASP.NET 2.0 based and MSSQL 2005 is a database server (Express edition).
- I wish I'd get my own domain name when I get started.
- Pros and Cons:
- It is more difficult to start and gain authority and traffic when you are standalone. When hosted - you have a piece of network and traffic already established from the beginning.
- The hosted platforms are usually free and easy to operate.
- Standalone blog platform gives me more control over my blog.
- However it takes more time and money to operate.
- However you can monetize traffic :)
- You can learn more when you are standalone.
- Independence and autonomy are valuable.
- Recommendation to a new blogger - at least get your own domain name on a hosted platform to start and see what happens. If you are passionate and manage to get a piece of traffic over time it will be easy to switch services or become hosted.
Sunday, April 22, 2007 2:12 AM
