Image by Kristina Alexanderson
When building a successful long-term website, WordPress is one of the most preferred platform people tend to choose.
However just when you’re about to start building, you noticed that there are 2 versions of WordPress.
So what’s the difference between these two versions?
To understand, let’s have a closer look at…
The WordPress overview
WordPress is basically a Content Management System (CMS) which is just simply a platform for you to build a website easily without any hassle.
I remember 10 years ago when I had to learn coding just to create an ugly website, how I regretted not trying out WordPress!
However WordPress.com isn’t that accessible to everyone because of the high maintenance price which costs more than $100 a month!
It may be moderately-priced but for other low-income earners, it’s too much for us to be spending that much money without getting anything back in return (Except for a nice website).
That’s why WordPress.com created another version of itself – WordPress.org for those who like to build their sites and get their hands dirty.
So what’s the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org then?
WordPress.com basically provides everything right down from hosting to plugins whereas WordPress.org is just a platform where you need to do everything yourself.
In a nutshell, here are some great differences between the two:
1) Web hosting
Every website needs a web host which acts like a storage for you to keep all those website content.
If you’re using WordPress.com, you are covered in terms of hosting because it is already included within the package.
However when using WordPress.org, you will need to find your own web host.
It sounds hard but trust me, it’s actually very easy and there are many platforms that help you create a WordPress.org website for less than $5 or even free such as Wealthy Affiliate.
2) Ease of use
When using WordPress.com, you definitely score the ease of use because everything is handled for you – all you need to do is just write content.
You can just drag and drop pictures and not worry about installing plugins because all of those will be handled for you by the WordPress team.
You are after all, paying them hundreds per month are you not?
WordPress.org is a bit more of a hassle because you need to do everything yourself from installing plugins to choosing themes and images.
But that trouble of learning will only bother you for a day or two because after that, everything will come naturally to you.
3) Flexibility
WordPress.com is less flexible as your website is in fact, handled by them after all.
Because the WordPress team wants to make it easy for you, all you need to do is write content and leave all the dirty work to the WP team.
However when using WordPress.org, you have the flexibility of a ninja.
You can install which plugins that suits your website best, you can tweak and basically play around with anything regarding your website which means WordPress.org is way more flexible than WordPress.com in this case.
Which WordPress is better?
WordPress.org in my opinion, is much better because you have the flexibility of doing anything you want with your website which will make you care about it even more as it is your business.
Also, due to the fact that WordPress.org is more independent as you will use your own web host, you can be rest assured that your website will not be under WordPress.com hosting.
This means that if anything happens to WordPress.com, you won’t be affected by it because your website is a separate thing.
For example, did you know that WordPress.com is blocked in China?
This means that if you use WordPress.com hosting, your website will automatically be banned from China because everything that you keep on your website (the files etc.) are within WordPress.com’s web hosting server.
Whereas if you use WordPress.org, you won’t be affected by that incident which means that you have the benefit of getting China’s market when other WP users can’t!
How cool is that?
Conclusion
WordPress.com sure is cool and fancy but nothing is perfect and every good thing has some sort of hidden weaknesses.
Therefore if you want to be independent and have the flexibility of creating a website, it’s always good to use WordPress.org.
For more information on building WordPress websites, check out my review of Wealthy Affiliate here.
