While working with WordPress, you have heard two names WordPress.com vs WordPress.org but you have considered both as same but in reality, both are different blogging platforms.
I have been searching on the same and collected some interesting information that is worth reading for if you are doing blogging using content management tool WordPress.
If you have gone through our detailed guide on is WordPress free to use or sell? Then I imagine you already got an idea of how WordPress an open-source software under GPL license is free to access by everyone.
But WordPress has two parts to discuss, wordpress.com vs wordpress.org and which one is free and how both works differently and as a beginner, if planning to start then which one is best.
To answer all your queries, I have made this informative detailed guide and I hope it helps you to get a more detailed idea of what makes WordPress different than other CMS and their benefits and cons.
Benefits and Cons of WordPress.Com vs WordPress.Org
As a beginner, while you planning to start blogging journey or have any time planned to start writing a blog of your interest than the very first thought come into your mind is where to start?
The very best two platforms which bling in your mind or all over the internet are
- Blogger
- WordPress
Here the Blogger is a free content management tool provided by Google which has certain limitations in terms of use and customization, however, WordPress is your self hosted CMS.
Here we are not going to discuss in detail what is Blogger or WordPress and how both are different from each other as to answer the same, we have already detailed an exclusive guide.
Here we will focus more on how WordPress.com is different than WordPress.org and which one you should choose. Let first focus on what is WordPress.org and what are its Pros and Cons.
What is WordPress.org and how it works?
WordPress.org is a free suite of CMS software which is owned by a nonprofit organization named as WordPress foundation.
It was first created by the co-founder of WordPress Mr. Matt Mullenweg and their key focus is to provide an open-source software under GPL license.
The WordPress which we all are referring is WordPress.org and this is the first choice for everyone in case you want to start blogging with WordPress.
But what benefits you will have and how it helping the community and what cost involved to use WordPress let discuss each individual.
Benefits of WordPress.org
As I said WordPress is an open-source software which has no limitations to use but the very best part with WordPress is allowed to customize according to your need.
WordPress is not created by any single company, it is a contribution of thousands of developers and even if you want, you can become a member of the same community.
In the case of WordPress, only the name “WordPress” is registered under the official trademark and WordPress’s foundation is ensuring no commercial activities around WordPress use.
Here are highlights for the same.
- WordPress.org is free to use and easy to customize. Which means anytime you can download the Software and can start using it without paying any single penny.
- WordPress allows us to customize its source code and bundle the same under another pkg which you can sell further for making money but the condition is new customized solution should be under GPL license.
- WordPress Library has a collection of thousands of free themes which you can use to customize your site according to your need and the best part is completely free.
- In order to automate any processor to increase ranking in the search engine, it has collections of more than thousands of plugin in its plugin library which helps you to automate your site and make it easier for your many complicated tasks.
- WordPress has also a collection of paid plugins or themes which can get you exclusive support in case you are facing any issue with the site.
- WordPress.org has a huge community all around the world as per the stats around 70-80% of websites are hosted on WordPress and it is completely free to use.
- WordPress allows monetizing your website using different Ads networks like Google Adsense, Media Net and almost every possible ad network available in the market.
- On WordPress, you are authorized to monetize your post by affiliate marketing or selling online learning materials or online eBooks, etc.
- WordPress is hassle-free and easy to install software, which does not need any special assistance from any technical support.
- WordPress.org can also link with wordpress.com to get advanced features like auto social shares and jetpack security features.
Well, it seems you are getting a bundle of the gold package for free but do you really think it is completely free, maybe till this point yes but here is some additional cost involved to use WordPress.
Let discuss the cons of using WordPress.org which can give you more ideas to differentiate between WordPress.com vs WordPress.org.
Cons of WordPress.org
We talked about WordPress which is a suite of software that can bundle your post, pages, categories and maintain the integration with the theme, database, and plugins, etc.
But what about making your site live on the internet, which needs two basic things one is hosting and other is the domain name. So here are cons for the use of WordPress.org.
- WordPress is a self-hosted platform which requires to install on a hosting. Ideally shared hosting could be bought at the price of 5-7$/Month but companies like Bluehost offer a 60% offer which can minimize the further cost of hosting.
- Every WordPress site needs a domain name which will be an address of your site to search in a browser that may cost around 7-10$/Year but Namecheap may offer some additional discount in price.
- You are the owner of the website which means you have to make sure the strong security of your website, but free plugins can solve your problem and you can connect your site with Cloudflare for additional security.
- Website Backup will also be on your shoulders, either you can buy any paid plugin or can take plan under the hosting you planning to buy, but for free, there is WordPress plugin Updraft where you can take manual backup.
The above four are the major cons of any WordPress website which is not that much concern. In general, if summarize than you would need an average hosting and domain price of close to 5-8$/Month.
Rest for security and site backup you can use free plugins or Cloudflare, which ensures extra security and improve the website speed and Updraft for backup is good enough to take manual backup with just a single click.
By default, every hosting company is offering free installation of WordPress, which ensures no more installation for wordpress.org software suite.
It seems now you are confident enough with the use of wordpress.org and what cost involved to use it and how as a beginner you can start using WordPress.
Let discuss, if WordPress.org already exists then who is using WordPress.com and for what purpose?
What is WordPress.com and How it Works?
WordPress.com is a paid service created by the same founder of WordPress.org, which has a bundle of all WordPress features including Hosting and default provided domain like Blogger.
It is also like wordpress.org, free to use and easy to customize but has certain limitations to use but what are those and why this could be the best choice for you,let highlight the same.
To figure it out let first discuss the pricing plans offered under the use of WordPress.com.
Free Plan – No need to Pay
Personal – 4 GBP/Month
Premium – 7 GBP/Month
Business – 20 GBP/Month
eCommerce – 36 GBP/Month
This means it allows you to use the wordpress.com features for free up to a certain limit but later for more customization, you would need to upgrade to its paid membership.
Let highlight what are the benefits of using WordPress.com for a beginner for free.
Benefits of WordPress.com
If talking about the benefits then we can only limit our view under the free plans as only this can match with the best need for a beginner, so let see what wordpress.com is offering as compared to wordpress.org.
- It is the best platform for those who are only willing to have a free blog for passion or hobby with better customization and WordPress features.
- It has limited free storage of 3GB data.
- Dozens of free themes are available to customize your blog for free.
- Free domain by WordPress which ended with an extension .wordpress.com.
- Timely backup of the website by WordPress.
- Website security will be ensured by WordPress, so you won’t need to bother about it.
I can imagine, having 3 GB of free storage is good enough to run any blog and you won’t need to care about backup and security.
But in addition to this what if you need a professional blog that you could monetize for future earning?
Cons of WordPress.Com
Free services offered by WordPress only suits for those who have no future plans to make money from the blog. But in case you want something more than that here are the cons.
- Under the free plan, you can not add any custom domain by replacing existing WordPress subdomain .wordpress.com.
- You are not allowed to monetize your website with different ad networks.
- You are bounded to display the ads provided by the WordPress Ads.
- You can not add any custom theme or plugins if you have subscribed to the free plan.
- You are limited with storage up to 3 GB only.
- You are limited to stick with their default stats analysis on the dashboard as you can not trace the traffic by linking with Google analytics tools.
- In order to upgrade any of the above features, the subscription will start from 4 GBP – 25 GBP/Month in the yearly plan.
- It won’t support any eCommerce feature which means you can not start any e-commerce site on wordpress.com.
- Your site will have powered by wordpress.com feature link which is not allowed to remove until you upgrade to any paid subscription.
- Your site will be under the control of the WordPress.com team which is subject to be deleted or banned in case you violate any standard guidelines or policy.
While going through the benefits and cons of both WordPress.com vs wordpress.org it seems the list of cons with WordPress.com is higher as compared to WordPress.org.
Hence I summarize every comparison all together to get you a good idea of how it works?
Differences in between WordPress.com vs WordPress.org
If you have learned all the major benefits or cons of each individual then you are almost sure which one could be the best choice for you but in case not, then let me summarize each one of them.
WordPress.com vs wordpress.org – Best in Pricing plan?
While considering the investment which you need with WordPress.org will be only with domain and hosting which may cost around 60-70$/Year.
Just by investing that much with wordpress.org you will have full freedom to customize your blog or even you can make this as your professional website.
However wordpress.com free plans, not suits for business purposes as it has many restrictions and if you buy the minimum plan of around 5 GBP that even cost the same as wordpress.org.
Upgrading to personal plans will also put some restrictions on the use or services, so better to check from their pricing plans.
Considering the investment strategy, I would say better to go with WordPress.org as it seems to be a true winner.
WordPress.com vs WordPress.org – Best in Control and Customization
In this race of search engine optimization, having a site is not good enough to rank higher in search engines. It has many more factors involved, the few of them are having good user engagement and full customization.
Without having full control of site it won’t be possible to change the things and if you have a certain limit to the access of customizing your site you may lack somewhere.
WordPress.org provides full control and customization feature however WordPress.com ask for upgrading to a higher subscription but will always have certain limitations.
So in the race of site control and customization again wordpress.org is true winner.
WordPress.org vs WordPress.com – For a passionate blogger
If your plan is to just have a blog where you can get the advantages of WordPress features without considering any future business plan or monetization.
Then divert your route to wordpress.com where you can express your views and share your ideas and experiences for the free and perfect choice for people like you.
WordPress.org vs WordPress.com – Monetization
The real idea for most of the people behind having a blog is to monetize the same in the coming future and it won’t be possible using WordPress.com free feature where you are not allowed to monetize.
However, in WordPress.org, you are the owner of your website hence you can get the approval of your site from any 3rd party ads network or affiliate marketing site and can make money online.
Additional Tips and Query
After reading through this, you may ask one query that what if you want to move your existing wordpress.com blog to wordpress.org,Is this possible?
How To Move WordPress.com to WordPress.org?
This process will be very simple and easy where first you have to go to wordpress.com and there under Tools>> Export option-click and export all your posts, pages, theme, products, etc.
Now come to self-hosted wordpress.org and there under Tools >>Import >>Wordpress, just click to install WordPress and allow to run the importer, now browse the file and just upload it and you are done.
WordPress.com vs Blogger – Which one is best?
Both are free where bloggers owned by Google, however, wordpress.com owned by WordPress in such cases I recommend to decide based on the monetizing ability and pricing plans.
Blogger has no limitations to bandwidth or theme customization and unlimited hosting for your site and the best part is you can monetize your site with any ad network or affiliate network.
However, wordpress.com can only provide you WordPress features but with certain limitations, unless you upgrade to pricing plans and you can not make money under their free plans.
Here is the end of the detailed guide and I hope you learned a lot and expecting you got a good overview to decide in between.
The bottom line on WordPress.com vs WordPress.org
If planning to have your business website and willing to monetize your content in the future then I recommend starting with WordPress.org and as a beginner, you can start with shared hosting.
WordPress.com only fits well for the VIP customer services which charge you a lot and if you can manage your hosting, privacy, and backup then always head over to wordpress.org.
Even the site mrvyasidea.com on which you are reading this post is in wordpress.org and if you like the content then I recommend to share this with your social friends.
