Generally speaking, it's best to host your own blog, if you can, as it tends to afford you more control and flexibility. Like hawkfish, I use WordPress (I also use Nucleus CMS, but I'm working on converting those to WordPress). Web hosting can run you anywhere from a few bucks to infinity, based upon your traffic and other factors. But, for most people, a $10 a month hosting plan is probably enough. And then a domain name will cost you around $10 a year. And those would be the minimum expenses for hosting a blog. That said, depending on your goals and limitations, a free host can work. If I was going to use one, from what I've heard about it, I'd go with WordPress.com. I'd still use my own domain name, and pay for that service on WordPress.com ($15 a year), just so that I could take my name with me when/if I was ready to graduate off the service. Good luck. Thanks, Patrick