For people who are interested in getting a blog started up, many choose WordPress over the competition for a variety of reasons. But once that decision is made, people often get confused on the differences between wordpress.com and wordpress.org (otherwise known as self-hosted WordPress). Well, here’s the main differences:
Hosting
Hosting is a service that allows you to place your files and databases on servers so that they can be accessed on the internet. With wordpress.com, they provide the hosting free of charge. If you choose wordpress.org, you have to provide the hosting yourself, which is the only downside to choosing self-hosted, in my opinion. It typically costs about $5/month. If you’re looking for a host, I personally recommend HostGator (use coupon DIWW25PCOFF to save 25%).
Domain name
With wordpress.org, you automatically are responsible for your own domain, which you will need to purchase. This gives your site a very unique and professional appearance. On wordpress.com, your blog will be a subdomain of wordpress.com (e.g. myblog.wordpress.com), unless you pay a premium fee to use a custom domain with your site (on top of the cost of the domain). So unless you’re happy having a wordpress.com URL, then you’ll want to go self-hosted.
Installing plugins
On wordpress.com, you can’t install plugins. Plugins are the way in which you can unleash the true power of WordPress, so it’s a real setback if you can’t use them. You can use plugins to place ads on your site, add social sharing buttons, improve the search function, or set up custom redirections. With your self-hosted site, you are free to install plugins from the thousands in the official WordPress directory, and even plugins that aren’t in the directory. The ways in which you can extend WordPress truly are limitless, so long as you can install plugins.
Modifying themes
Another limitation of wordpress.com is that you can’t modify the themes. You can select from about 170 themes, but you must take them as they are. With self-hosted, not only can you choose from thousands of themes (either from the WordPress directory, or from marketplaces like ThemeForest), but you are free to edit them if you want to tweak them. You can change the fonts, colors and styles using CSS, or the layout by editing the PHP files.
So, which one?
For me, there’s only one option: wordpress.org. The only setback to choosing wordpress.org is that you have to pay for hosting (at about $5/month). Other than that, wordpress.org wins out in every category and all of the advantages are well worth the small cost assocaited with hosting the site.
If you just can’t afford wordpress.org, you can still start on wordpress.com and then move to wordpress.org later, by exporting your site from wordpress.com and importing it straight into your new wordpress.org site.
So, now that you know the difference, you’ll either want to sign up on wordpress.com, or arrange hosting and install WordPress on your own server.
March 9, 2012 at 4:15 pm
Dave, I totally agree with you. WordPress.org is the only way to go. The upside is tremendous compared to the small investment!
March 10, 2012 at 4:44 pm
Agreed. There’s a small cost, but the benefit is hayooooooge
March 9, 2012 at 9:37 pm
It’s funny. It took me a while to figure out the difference between the two as well. I agree that by far it’s better to self host so that you have complete control over your blog. But I wouldn’t necessarily feel compelled to stay with wordpress as a hosting provider if I decided to self host. There are a ton of good hosting providers such as hostgator that provide a great service.
March 10, 2012 at 4:45 pm
Well, by definition, if you’re self-hosting, WordPress isn’t hosting you any more and you need to find your own host, such as HostGator.
March 10, 2012 at 5:59 pm
GREAT post, we talk about this time and time again. Out of the 70+ million WordPress websites online most people don’t understand that about half are hosted at WordPress.com and the other half are self-hosted (or the differences). It’s great to see it all laid out in one blog post – thx for that!
March 13, 2012 at 12:05 am
Dave, thanks for making the distinction. Self hosting is the only way to go. As I read about improving sites, I see that they are often called “properties.” If you are going to do the work to improve a property, you might as well own it.
March 15, 2012 at 12:22 am
It has been years since I used wordpress.com but I loved it then. Now, I would be totally lost without the ability to edit the themes I use. That goes along with progressing in anything. The more I learn about themes, the more I want to change them (at least a little) to the way that will help me show off my content in a way I prefer.
March 15, 2012 at 8:13 am
I couldn’t agree more. I started out on wordpress.com and it fit the bill, but once I started tinkering with themes and layouts, I could never go back. There’s just too much that you can do with them
April 8, 2012 at 12:24 pm
I’d previously used Joomla for my site and moved to WordPress a while ago. I didn’t realise there was a wordpress.com until recently, as I’d always self hosted. Good explanation, as you say small outlay on domain name and hosting, giving you a great deal of flexibility..
Graham
June 19, 2012 at 2:54 pm
There is a consideration that you don’t mention here. One very big advantage to choosing WordPress.com (the free option) is that it is becoming a community. Bloggers using WordPress.com can connect with other bloggers on the site by using the subscription reader and surfing through ‘tags’ on posts the other “.com”‘ers have made.
If you move to a “.org” self-hosted WordPress install, you’re like an island out there and you really have to promote yourself before people will find you.
True, there is freedom in the self-hosted version. But the freedom brings isolation.
June 20, 2012 at 5:10 pm
You make a really good point there actually. It takes a while to keep writing the content and build up relationships with people through social media and organic followers from Google, whereas that is much easier on WordPress, I’ll grant you that. Thanks for your input.