Should you be using a free hosting and domain or pay a monthly fee for your own domain name and hosting. That is a question that I hear often enough to address it here. Both options have some advantages that I would like to describe.

Free Hosting:

Well, it’s free which means you do not have to pay a monthly fee for the domain and / or hosting which you would if you would buy a domain name and hosting. Another advantage might be that a failure, e.g. choosing a topic that does not motivate you to write regularly has no consequences but that you lost some time.

Paid Hosting:

Flexibility is the main reason here besides that a domain name looks more professional than a hosted subdomain somewhere. In the end you trade money for being able to configure the blog the way you like it.

You can be successful with both choices. There is nothing wrong in using a free host for a while before you start a second website with a real domain. I have always preferred to use my own domain name which is excellent for branding as well. It does not cost that much anymore, lets say $10 for the domain per year which is less than $1 per month and some more bucks for a webhost.

The downside is that you have to setup the website by yourself. If you use Wordpress it is not that complicated but it still requires at least some knowledge. You do have more configuration options once the website is setup. In case of Wordpress for instance you can change the theme and even create your own, you can add plugins and extend the functionality of the theme.

There is nothing wrong in using a free theme at the beginning, professional websites do that as well. They tend to customize the theme so that it is not that easily recognized anymore. If you want to stick out you order a custom theme for your website.

Back to the topic. If you want to test waters and see if you could blog regularly I would advise to go for a free host. You can use several advertising schemes with them as well which means that you can make good money with them as well. Take Digital Inspiration for example. It is hosted at blogspot and one of the most successful blogs in the world !

There is no definite answer to the question. I would advise to go for paid hosting if you can afford to pay a few Dollars per month for it and have the time to setup (or learn how to setup) the website. If you do not want to pay for that at the beginning choose a host like blogspot and create your first blog there.