Hosting a Wordpress blog on a home server (and WP versus Movable Type)

I made a test installation (https://smurfmatic.no-ip.org/blog/) of Wordpress the other week on my home server (runs Ubuntu), and it took exactly fifteen minutes to set up (create a new db in mysql, configure apache, and 'apt-get install wordpress'). Wordpress is open-source and free and has the great benefit of being multi-user. By contrast, Movable Type, which currently runs this blog (https://smurfmatic.net/blog), is proprietary, and its free version is single user. MT personal boasts multiple blogs, which WP's cost-free version doesn't have - but who gives? Because you can still install multiple WP blogs that don't interact with each other (on separate directories w/ separate databases).

Unless I get convinced otherwise, WP has really distanced itself from MT, by being open-source. WP is also written in PHP, a programming language that has become the lingua franca in web programming today (MT uses Perl), a great plus when designing templates, or even hacking into the code that makes WP and its plugins.

With a server at home, and a dynamic dns service, you can run a WP blog with your own domain on your own server for 40CAD or less for domain registration and a dynamic dns service, like easydns.com for .ca domains, and no-ip.com for all other types of top-level domains (a standard in the industry, I've used it for four years, and most recently to make metroboulotresto.com point to my home server). Typical hosting services generally cost 50-100USD per year for domain and hosting, and it is the price to pay for reliability.

If you are a DIY type of person, WP on a personal Linux machine is an excellent starter sys admin experience. The only inconvenient is if you ran it on your home connection - whereas it is fine for a text-only blog, once you start putting pictures and get more than a few hundred visits a day, you might start feeling the toll on your upload rate. If you ever reach that point, it might be time to start putting ads, and upgrade to those SME Internet service packages that your ISP may have.