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Hi there! I want to start a blog and not have to pay any hosting for it. With that said, I was going to use [wordpress.com]) to start the blog and begin to build it out. After it starts to gain traction, I’d like to eventually migrate it from [wordpress.com]) to an actual wordpress website using a theme or a shopify website. With that said, I have a few questions:
1. Is there a better blog platform to do this with than [wordpress.com](https://wordpress.com)? I.e., a better blog platform that will allow transferring to a full fledged site in the future much easier?
2. Is there a way I can migrate all the data (meta data, posting time, images, text, formatting, etc.) from the wordpress.com blog to a wordpress.org or Shopify website? Thanks!
1. Self hosted is significantly better/cheaper than .com. You don’t have any restrictions on being able to install themes and plugins and can access you files if needed. Check the r/webhosting sub for host recommendations.
2. If you can’t install plugins, then you need to use Tools > Export. If you can install plugins, WPVivid makes full migration very simple