Should You Choose Wordpress.com or Wordpress.org?

If you’re looking to create a blog either for personal use or for your business, you’ve most likely heard about what a great resource Wordpress can be for bloggers just starting out like yourself. But what is the difference, and which one should you choose?

Wordpress.com is open source software that is free to use and open to anybody. When using Wordpress.com to create a blog, you can do it all online and make changes to your website simply by visiting Wordpress’ website. Using a login name and password only, you’ll be taken to your account. Here you’ll see a very basic, comprehensible template where you can add to your blog, delete posts, or make minor changes.

Wordpress.com can be a great resource for beginners, but it is very limited and so it’s not usually recommended for business or professional websites. While you will be able to choose from a limited amount of templates and themes, you won’t be able to make major customizations, run any kind of e-commerce from your site, or have any personal domain names or email addresses.

Because Wordpress.com is open source software, you don’t need to pay a web host to host your site for you. Wordpress will host your site for you for free, but it will be on a shared server with possibly hundreds of other websites. This is another reason why Wordpress.com is not usually the best choice for businesses.

Wordpress.org on the other hand, works quite differently. When you create and run a website using Wordpress.org, you can still use the Wordpress software to create your blog. However, it will not be stored online and in fact, Wordpress won’t store it on any of their servers at all. Instead you will need to find a Wordpress web host that will keep your blog on one of their servers.

With Wordpress.org, you get all of the benefits that you would find with Wordpress.com but you can also tailor it to your own needs. With Wordpress.org you can make all the customizations you want, including your own personalized domain name (www.mybusiness.com rather than www.mybusiness.wordpress.com.) You’ll be able to rent all the server space you want by choosing dedicated or VPS hosting, and you’ll be able to install any kind of software you need.

Wordpress.org is simply much more flexible, as well as much more professional, than Wordpress.com. When your customers visit the site you created using Wordpress.org, they’ll never even know that you’re using Wordpress software because it just looks that professional. And it’s fairly affordable for you the business owner, too. Wordpress.com can be a great tool for beginners who are very new to the blogging world; or those that are just looking to start their own personal blog. But when you need the best out of your company’s website, the only Wordpress hosting you should consider is Wordpress.org hosting.