Key differences between WordPress.com and WordPress.org

May 29, 2018

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WordPress is a platform powering more than 25% of websites and blogs on the internet. The 2 most popular blogging platforms are: WordPress.com and WordPress.org. We have other Platforms like BlogSpot, Wix etc. BlogSpot is powered by its parent company: Google. The company behind WordPress is Automattic. Automattic offers two blogging platforms:

Table of Contents

WordPress.com
WordPress.org (Mostly associated with Self-hosted WordPress)

Note that Automattic offers other services and products like Jetpack, Gravatar, VaultPress, VideoPress and WordPress VIP.

WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org

WordPress.com

WordPress is a free blogging platform offered by the Automattic. Anyone can create a blog for free. With the free plan, you can only create a web address that is in the form of:

http://www.yourname.WordPress.com

The Blog will be hosted on the WordPress server which is perfect for those people who would like to blog as hobby or just to share their thoughts.

If you want to buy a custom domain name and use paid themes, then they are plans like the, Personal Plan and Business plan.

WordPress.com may be useful to people who don’t want to worry about the technical aspect of setting and maintaining a blog since the team at WordPress, takes care of everything from the structure of the blog, updates and backups. But there are many limitations that come with using it.

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Some of these limitations include:

You may have very limited choices for themes
You can’t install 3rd party plugins
Very limited ways to monetize your Blog

If you have no prior experience of using WordPress, then it is recommended you start with a free blog at WordPress.com then with time you can switch to self-hosting with WordPress.org.

You may also Read: How to Improve the Loading Speed of a WordPress Site

WordPress.com (Free plan) is for people who want to blog as a hobby with no intention of making money on the blog.

WordPress.org

WordPress.org is for people planning to make money online through blogging. With this platform you are free to use any of the ads networks of your choice like Media net, Google Adsense, affiliate networks like Amazon, etc. You have a full control of your site. You are also free to use any theme, install plugins of your choice etc.

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Summary of the Key Differences between WordPress.com and WordPress.org

WordPress.com	WordPress.org
Free Version with Paid upgrades available.	Only Paid Version available.
No Technical knowledge required to set up and run.	Requires technical knowledge to set up and run a blog or website.
The set-up, upgrades, backups, security is taken care of by WordPress team.	You are responsible for the Set-up, Upgrades, Backups, Security hence you need to have some technical knowledge.
Your posts are backed Up Automatically.	You set-up the backups on your end.
They don’t allow plugins from 3rd parties but provide some of the best plugins for all blogs.	You are free to install plugins from 3rd parties.
Custom Themes are not allowed.	You can use any Theme.

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Comments

24 responses to “Key differences between WordPress.com and WordPress.org”

lmosley42

October 13, 2019

This is awesome. Great info. Thanks for sharing.

Reply
1. John Mulindi
  
  October 13, 2019
  
  Hi, thanks for reading.
  
  Reply
Elizabeth | Tired Mom Supermom

April 4, 2019

Thank you for this! It can be so confusing to differentiate the 2 platforms, especially since they have the same name but a different extension.

Reply
1. John Mulindi
  
  April 4, 2019
  
  Yeah, thanks for the feedback.
  
  Reply
Jelena

April 3, 2019

This was great explanation becouse people get confuse about WordPress.com. and WordPres.org. I was just a week on .com and decide to go premium because you have a lot mor option with it.

Reply
1. John Mulindi
  
  April 3, 2019
  
  Hi Jelena, thanks for your input.
  
  Reply
HilLesha

April 3, 2019

I used to get the two confused with each other. However, I finally learned the difference after I moved one of my blogs to a self-hosted WordPress platform.

Reply
1. John Mulindi
  
  April 3, 2019
  
  Thanks for reading.
  
  Reply
notquitesupermommn

April 2, 2019

I appreciate your insight on the differences between wordpress.com and .org. It’s very helpful for anyone trying to figure out where to start their blog.

Reply
1. John Mulindi
  
  April 2, 2019
  
  True, thanks for your feedback.
  
  Reply
jennybhatia

April 1, 2019

Again, such a concise, yet simple explanation that totally makes sense to me. Thank you, as usual. I have .org, but that was by chance as I had no clue the difference when I started blogging. What a learning curve in the past year.

Reply
1. John Mulindi
  
  April 1, 2019
  
  Hi Jenny, am glad you found this post helpful. Thanks for visiting.
  
  Reply
Silvia

February 23, 2019

Is .net the same as .com? And, there any chance to monetize your blog even by staying in the .net? I really have zero technical knowledge and I hardly find the time to post regularly, so I don’t know how could I mantain my own blog even on the technical espects…

Reply
1. John Mulindi
  
  February 23, 2019
  
  You can monetize your blog with .net is just that .com sites are most popular.
  
  Reply
Alicia Jones

February 19, 2019

I never knew the difference. Thank you!

Reply
1. John Mulindi
  
  February 19, 2019
  
  Thanks Alicia! Welcome.
  
  Reply
Emma

August 26, 2018

Thanks John. I have both – one was a hobby and one is a business. Somehow they are linked and it confuses the hell out of me, but I think I’m figuring it out with the help of posts like yours. Thanks again.

Reply
1. John Mulindi
  
  August 26, 2018
  
  Hi Emma, thanks very much for the positive feedback.
  
  Reply
SunSparkleShine

June 5, 2018

Thanks for clearing this up, John since difference tends to confuse many. I started out on .com and then switched to .org within a few months. It was much easier than I thought and with many tutorials out there it’s easy to follow along.

Visiting from #ThoughtfulThursdays

Reply
1. John Mulindi
  
  June 6, 2018
  
  Hi, Thanks for visiting and for the feedback. Yes, this confuses mostly newbies bloggers, the earlier they know the differences, the better.
  
  Reply
pslater1972

May 31, 2018

Useful post. I’m .com rather than .org but would like to migrate at some point.

Reply
1. John Mulindi
  
  May 31, 2018
  
  Hi, WordPress.com is useful especially when you are starting out, and if you don’t want to worry about maintenance and other technicalities then buying their business plans can still work but if you want to control everything on your side, then you can self host with WordPress.org.
  
  Reply
Ryan Biddulph

May 29, 2018

Good breakdown John. Definitely a huge dot org fan here for owning the blog and for branding potential. You can really gussy it up with minimal investment, with plug ins, cool themes and even bespoke themes.

Reply
1. John Mulindi
  
  May 30, 2018
  
  Hi Ryan,True! if you are serious about blogging, then Making some small investment in terms of say Themes, Site design isn’t a big deal otherwise thanks for visiting.
  
  Reply