Once you decided to make a blog, you need to choose a platform to manage it. There is a lot of platforms where you can start a blog, but you may choose one adjusted to your necessities and your abilities. Before continue, you should know that you need have HTML knowledges, at least the basics. All the blogger tools like statistics or widgets are managed by HTML, is not hard because in the most of cases you only must to copy and paste the code and it will work. But in other cases, like editing themes, you will need to have certain level of knowledge to get the wanted look.

Hosted or Self-Hosted ?

This is the big question when you going to start a blog. Now, I will tell you the basics about this kind of platforms:

Hosted: This kind of platform is free. You won’t have to pay for a domain, storage or bandwidth. This kind of platforms are simple, perfect if you want an space in the web for sharing photos,some videos or whatever without a lot of requirements. It give you a subdomain, this mean that your blog will be something like www.yourblog.theplatformname.com. The functions are not hard to handle, in fact are too easy. Now you can have a website without being a Webmaster. It’s simple! There is no HTML to learn and no new software to download and install. The following is a little list with the most popular hosted platforms:

• Blogger.com: another Google’s tool recognized for the orange logo. This is a good choice to a simple blog, it’s very easy to customize because it has a WYSIWYG editor ( What You See Is What You Get ) and you can place codes, photos, polls… with a simple click and draw. Here is two screenshots with the Blogger Dashboard and the Blogger Panel.
• WordPress.com: WordPress is a great platform to blog, and in wordpress.com you can get a hosted blog with this platform, a little limited because you can’t use all the wordpress features but still being very good. Check how looks the WordPress.com Dashboard.
• LiveJournal.com: LiveJournal is an online journal service with an emphasis on user interaction. A basic, fully-functional account is free, while Paid accounts receive access to premium features. This is the LiveJournal Dashboard.
• Blogware.com: Blogware is a tool for creating blogs. Allow you to share pictures, video, links, documents, newsletters, opinions and more, with family, friends and colleagues. This is the Blogware Dashboard.

With whichever you choose, you will be able to create posts, share photos, information and have fun. But there is a series of advantages and disadvantages with a hosted platforms :

Advantages

1. Its free.
2. You don’t need to download or install any software, all is in the web.
3. It’s unnecessary to know HTML.
4. It’s very easy to use and manage.

Disadvantages

1. You won’t have your own domain, for example www.yourblog.com. Instead, you will have a subdomain, something like www.yourblog.blogspot.com, www.yourblog.wordpress.com or something similar with that structure.
2. No FTP access.
3. You are not able to create more pages.
4. You haven’t full control of your blog, like editing or using php files.

As you can see, with a hosted platform you will get a basic blog. It is not bad but if you want to get something more professional, you should get a self-hosted blog.

Self-Hosted: this kind of platform is very professional, because you will have your own domain on the net, you won’t have any strange extension on your link, instead you will have something like www.yourblog.com. To get this, you have to buy and spent money registering your domain and getting a package. Micfo.com and Godaddy.com are some web hosting companies where you can host your blog, buying a domain and getting a package which give you a limit of storage, bandwidth, supported formats and more. The following are the most popular platforms used in self hosted blogs:

• WordPress.org: WordPress has been converted in the preferred platform for bloggers with own domain. Due to its power, plugins and the big support it has, wordpress is the best choice if you want to have a blog with your own domain. Notice that wordpress.org is different to wordpress.com, because .org basically is the blogging platform, wordpress.com give you free hosting with that platform. This blog is made with wordpress, and you can check the great dashboard here. At first glance you can notice that the self-hosted platform has more functions than the hosted platform.
• MovableType.org: Movable Type provided users for the first time with the features necessary for Movable Type to serve as a light weight content management system for web sites. It also provided a framework to developers to define their own custom asset types as illustrated through the Media Manager and Podcasting plugins for Movable Type. Thus are some screenshots of this platform: Dashboard, Compose Screen, Template Editing.
• b2evolution.net: b2evolution is a great blog tool, It includes all the features of traditional blog tools, and extends them with evolved features such as file & photo management, advanced skinning, multiple blogs support as well as detailed user permissions…Not to mention third party plug-ins!. This is the b2evolution Dashboard.

As you can see, a self-hosted blog give you full control of your blog, you can use php files, edit whatever as you want and more. Let’s check the advantages and disadvantages:

Advantages

1. You will have an own domain, something like www.yourblog.com.
2. Full FTP access.
3. You can create and edit many pages as you want.
4. You can use php, asp or another kind of format while your host support those format.
5. Full blog’s control.

Disadvantages

1. Is not free.
2. The setup can be complicated.
3. You need to know about HTML.
4. Problems with the hosting.

Self-Hosted Platforms are for people with motivation and want to have a professional blog. I really consider that there is no disadvantages if you have experience with hosting and HTML. And about the cost, if you monetize your blog in a couple of months you will get your money back , is like a invest.

If you have a problem and you are not sure about your proper platform for you, don’t be afraid to ask me , send me an email or just leave a comment in ths post, I will be glad to help you.