Technology WordPress Basics

Difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org

WordPress.com and WordPress.org sound the same but offer very different freedom and control. Here is a clear explanation of the difference, so you choose the right one for the site you actually want to build.

Omkar Bhagat Omkar Bhagat 2 min read

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I personally started out with WordPress.com by having a blog there but eventually I turned to WordPress.org. I find many users who ask me – “what’s the difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org?” And the simplest answer I can give them is –

WordPress.com is a readymade interface for people who don’t want to go into the very details of Wordpress. However Wordpress.org is a “do-it-yourself” kit. It’s for those who want’s to get their hands dirty.

In technical terms, WordPress.com is prehosted by WordPress itself and doesn’t allow you to touch its core files or make any macro level changes. But WordPress.org is self-hosted bundle which means that you need to have your own web space to host the WordPress files.

You can find all the technical differences here at the official WordPress site. For more user friendly details, check out wpmudev.

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What to choose – WordPress.com or WordPress.org?

Choose WordPress Com or Org

If you aren’t into coding and just want to have a website or blog without any mess then choose WordPress.com.

But if you are a coder, web developer or designer and want to customize your website/blog according to your preferences then you must go with the self-hosted version of WordPress.

It will help you to access each and every file of WordPress including the core files and it allows you to reshape your site the way you want.

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For a self-hosted WordPress site you’ll need a webhost. We’ll see that in the next post. You can however check out our article on How to install WordPress on localhost (on your computer).

 

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