WordPress is a publishing platform which is focused on creation of content and thereby making an audience and a name for oneself during the process. WordPress offers two different flavors to the users’ one is WordPress.Org and other is WordPress.Com. WordPress.Org is also known as self-hosted WordPress as you need to install it yourself. Though, both are used for publishing the content online but there are certain differences between the two in functionality, freedom and flexibility. Choosing which one of the two is always a serious question from some beginners. We will be looking at both of them taking one at a time. Both have their fair share of advantages and disadvantages.
WordPress.Org: An Overview
It is open-source software for blogging and content management system based on plugin architecture and template system. WordPress.org is the place where you have to download the installation files and are free to choose and download thousands of themes for the best look and feel of your website. WordPress.Org is like a world of freedom without any restrictions. You are free to modify the underlying code, add bit of fancy elements to your site, and install any theme or plugin you want. It offers flexibility and also require domain hosting for which a small fee needs to be paid.
WordPress.Com: An Overview
It is a different from WordPress.Org in many aspects with many unique features of its own. Most importantly it is already a hosted service which means that you do not have to download any installation file or any theme you want to apply. WordPress.Com offers many impressive features like built-in protection from spam, backing up your website automatically, regular updating of the service and an atmosphere of security where do not have to worry about anything. The service takes care of everything.
Advantages of WordPress.Org over WordPress.Com
The biggest claim in support of WordPress.Com is that you will be getting the WordPress blog which is free from the developers who originally created the WordPress and they will be the ones managing all the behind the scene technical details without you worrying about anything. And at WordPress.Org you have to manage everything yourself only.
Design:
WordPress.Org offers you to completely change the overall look and feel of your site with very large number of free themes available from many third-party developers. You can modify your site the way you want it to be. Whereas WordPress.Com do not offer such freedom. There is only a very limited number of free themes available as it do not support third-party theme developers and the graphical appearance of all sites are almost same when it comes to WordPress.com.
Installing and Tweaking Plugins:
WordPress.org allows uploading of any free, paid or custom plugin you want and further tweaking it to maximize the potential of the site. WordPress.com is a total loss when t comes to plugin as it do not support plugins.
Financial Benefits:
WordPress.org allows you to sell as many number of ads you want to sell on your website and an option to select any ad service of choice and you are the one keeping the full 100% earnings from the website. In WordPress.com you are not allowed to sell ads until you reach a certain number of page views and you have to share the earnings from the website with the WordPress.com team.
Related: Why WordPress Is Better Than Blogger For Hosting Your Website?
Ultimate Control:
WordPress.org gives you the full control of your website. You can do whatever you want to do with your website i.e. change it, apply themes, install plugins, sell ads, FTP access to files and modify and tweak underlying code and WordPress settings to improve performance. You are free to do almost anything with your site. WordPress.com do not offer any of the above mentioned functionality and environment is very restricted with large number of limitations.
If you are blogging WordPress.com and want to migrate your website to Self-Hosted WordPress (WordPress.org), check out our Migration service. We have helped a lot of people to migrate their blogs from Hosted WordPress to Self-Hosted WordPress without a drop in traffic.
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