10 Differences Between WordPress.com and WordPress.org
10 is a Magic Number...
I’ve gotten enough questions about this recently that I thought I’d just copy and paste some of my responses via email into a post and structure it a bit easier on the eyes!
Of course, I have chosen to use WordPress exclusively as myblogging platform of choice and I hope you do too!
But I know it’s not for everyone! If you’re interested in investigating some other blogging options, you’ll want to take a look at this very comprehensive showcase. Of course, if you’re still trying to figure out if blogging is right for you, check out this post!
Here are 10 points of comparison as it relates to the difference between WordPress.com andWordPress.org:
| WordPress.org | WordPress.com | |
|---|---|---|
| Users/Downloads (Nov, 2010): | 24,000,000 Downloads | 15,000,000 Users |
| Themes: | Use Any You Want (Modify, Customize, Upload, Design) | Limited Use (No Custom, No Modification) |
| Cost: | Variable, Depending on Hosting Provider/Service | Free |
| Advertising: | Yes. | Yes. |
| Control: | Full! Do Whatever You Want! | WordPress TOS Limitations |
| Maintenance/Updating: | You Do All the Updating | WordPress Does It For You |
| Branding: | You Can Use Your Own Business and Brand | Limited |
| Plugins: | Use Any You Want | Limited, No Uploading |
| Backup: | You Manage It | They Manage It |
| SSL/Security: | You Manage or Provide | They Provide It |
Am I missing anything that you would include here of note? Hope that helps!
Oh, and by the way, just in case you didn’t know… WordPress.org is a self-hosted solution meaning that you pay for your own server and hosting solution. Here’s a good post on how to decide whether self-hosted is right for you!