Hosting or Self-Hosting WordPress? Which is the Right Choice?
WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems (CMS) available today. According to HubSpot Blogs, as of March 2018, more than 11.4 million unique visitors visited the blog platform each month, and nearly 76% of them landed on a blog post. In the U.S., 25.3 million people used the wordpress.com domain name in 2016.
WordPress has been around for more than a decade and is currently owned by a company called WordPress Inc. The open-source project that powers WordPress was forked twice: in 2008 and in 2014. To learn more, you can visit the WordPress website or read their corporate overview.
Why Should You Host Your Own WordPress?
There is a reason why so many people choose to host their own wordpress: the quality of services offered by major hosting companies like Google and Bluehost, as well as smaller hosting platforms like WP Engine and Hostinger are simply incompatible with the needs of a serious blogger or entrepreneur. For example, Bluehost, which currently costs $2.95 per month plus $5.45 per additional site, does not offer any security measures, leaving the host vulnerable to hacking and data breaches. If you’re looking for a stable, affordable option that offers some great features, then self-hosting WordPress is certainly the right choice for you.
Features That Make WordPress Stand Out
WordPress has many unique and powerful features that make it stand out from the crowd. Here is a short list of the most useful ones:
- Easily adjustable layout and appearance
- Clean and minimalistic design
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Full-featured blogging platform
- Multilingual support
- Robust network of developers
- Massively growing community of users and bloggers
- Powered by the open-source WordPress community
These are just some of the features that make wordpress special, and as you can see, it has many advantages over other blogging platforms like Tumblr and Blogger. If you plan on using WordPress to power your blog or website, then these are all features you should know and use.
WordPress Is Not For Everyone
Although wordpress is an amazing platform that many people love, it is not for everyone. Mainly, it is not suited for people who are looking for a simple blogging platform or for those who want to build a website in a hurry. Its extensive feature set makes it suitable for professionals, businesses, and organizations. However, if you’re simply looking for a simple, static, blog-style site, then Tumblr is probably a better option since it is easier to use and has a clean design that is optimized for search engines.
Security
One of the biggest knocks against WordPress is the security issues that it has faced in the past and continues to struggle with today. For starters, the platform lacks many traditional features that would make it more secure: user accounts, password protection, two-factor authentication, etc. Even the most basic WordPress installations are totally unprotected and open to hackers and data thieves. This issue has been extensively covered by cybersecurity news outlets such as The Hacker News and The New York Times. It is well known among system security professionals that WordPress is one of the most hacked platforms on the web. In fact, the frequency of cyberattacks on WordPress is so high that it has its own dedicated web page on the WordPress security page. If you run a WordPress site, then you must take extreme care in securing it since any breach could lead to major fines or even criminal charges. To learn how to secure your WordPress installation, you can follow the platform’s official guidance or you could hire specialized help from a provider who has extensive experience in this area.
Scalability
WordPress has a very high capacity for scale. This is mainly due to the fact that it is hosted on a web server which automatically adjusts its resources according to the number of users. Even the most basic WordPress installations can handle countless blogs, and larger sites can quickly outgrow the most robust hosting services available today. For example, the New York Times website is powered by WordPress and it currently has over 1.5 million monthly unique visitors and 14.7 million monthly views on its YouTube channel. When it comes to scalability, WordPress really shines.
To top off this amazing feat, WordPress is also extremely efficient when it comes to server resources. This is mainly because it is a content-centric platform with a minimalist design. Since it has fewer moving parts, it requires less resources to operate than other platforms like Shopify and Squarespace, which are heavily dependent on JavaScript for rendering their blog themes and widgets.
Maintainability
Just like any other piece of software, software applications evolve with time, and this is exactly what happened to WordPress. Back in 2008, the open-source blogging platform was based on the Expression Engine framework, and it used tables for layout, required a lot of hard coding, and had a clunky appearance. Today, all of these things are considered drawbacks, and WordPress has moved on to become one of the most powerful and popular content management systems available. This evolution has made WordPress much more maintainable, providing you with tons of templates, shortcodes, and customization options. Even the most basic WordPress installation is extremely customizable and hackable via the platform’s immense documentation.
All of these factors make WordPress the go-to platform for any serious blogger or entrepreneur who is looking for an all-purpose CMS that can handle everything from content creation to publishing to marketing and more. If you’re looking for a content management system that can do everything for you, then you should try out WordPress today!