If you are new to blogging, it can be really confusing when confronted with the choice: WordPress.com or WordPress.org? Here is a handy guide that highlights the main features and differences:
| Wordpress.com | Wordpress.org |
| Themes:there are many themes you can choose from, free and paid. However, you are restricted to the CSS code of your site, so you can’t tinker with the theme code and make customisations. | Themes: you can choose from loads of free themes, and also alter the theme of your blog.This means you can modify and customise to your hearts’ content. Essentially, you can do whatever you want with your site. |
| Cost: WordPress.com is a free hosting service. You can get a .wordpress address absoulely free, but you have to pay a small fee to have your own domain (e.g. .co.uk or .com). | Cost: you have to pay a monthly hosting subscription, as well as a yearly domain registration fee. Hosting can be pricey for high traffic blogs. |
| Hosting: WordPress.com hosts all your blog content, so you have less wiggle room. However, this is perfectly suitable for beginner bloggers | Hosting: yes you have to pay for hosting, but this means your blog is 100% your own. |
| Monetization: you can’t monetize with wordpress.com unless you reach 25,000 visitors per month, and if you do, you have to pay a 50% ad fee. | Monetization: you can use any ad system you want, and get to keep 100% of the revenue. |
| Site Maitenance: your blog will automatically be optimised, updated, backed up, and checked for spam. | Site Maitenance: It’s up to you to take care of spam, optimisation, updates, and backups. Organise yourself! |
| Plugins: no plugins with wordpress.com – they have some basic option installed, but nothing to take your blog to the next level. | Plugins: you can download as many plugins as you want, which is really useful when using different social media platforms, so you can really take advantage of the CMS process. |
For me, I think Worpdress.com is a great way to get in to blogging, especially if you have never used code and are looking for a bit more support. However, if you are looking to expand and customize your blog, WordPress.org is the more responsive option.
I hope you found this post useful. Do you have any more questions about WordPress? Comments always welcome!
I’m looking to start a blog of my own so this is a really useful article. I didn’t even know there was a ‘.org’ version but it clearly has some strong benefits if you’re a serious blogger. As I’m only just starting out I think I’ll go with ‘.com’ as it seems most suitable for beginners, though it’s a shame about the lack of plugins. Never mind! Thanks for the advice