WordPress.com / WordPress.org: Which blog platform to use

This post is part 1 of a series.

       ⥟Part 1: <<You are here>>
       ⥟Part 2 : How To Buy Hosting For Your WordPress Blog
       ⥟Part 3: How To Create a WordPress Blog
       ⥟Part 4: Essential Settings After Installing WordPress
       ⥟Part 5: How To Install WordPress Plugin
       ⥟Part 6: How To Install WordPress Theme

Whenever we into starting a blog, we are bombarded with a multitude of options. Some of the options like Blogger, WordPress, medium.com and Tumblr are very popular, and others, like  Ghost, for example, are "works in progress."

Selecting which blog platform to use depends on the type of blog you have and what you wish to do with your blog. if you are blogging for fun, or as a means of hosting a personal journal, you can use Blogspot, WordPress.com,
medium.com or Tumblr, as they are free and quite easy to manage.

When you are blogging to promote your business or to make money, it is best to use a more professional platform such as WordPress.org (self-hosted).

In this guid, I will tell you all about what WordPress is, and I will illustrate for you the difference between these two variants of WordPress. This will help you to understand which WordPress platform will be best for you.

Let's  have a look🤷‍♀️                            

What is the WordPress platform?

 WordPress was started as a blogging tool, and it later evolved into a full CMS (content management system).

The first version of WordPress was released in 2003, as an open source project licensed under GPlV2. Over the past 15 years, WordPress has evolved into one of the most popular platforms for creating blogs and websites.

WordPress is based on PHP and MySQL. Founded by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little, WordPress is a project backed by their parent company Automattic, which also offers various WordPress related services and products, such

as WordPress.com, ValutPress, JetPack videopress, WordPress VIP, Gravatar, and many others.

(Scroll to the bottom for some more interesting facts about WordPress)

For starters, there are two important things to know about WordPress:

WordPress Themes:

unlike the standard website creators we know of , WordPress is backed by a huge community of freelance of freelance designers and development companies offering free and premium WordPress themes.

One of the biggest challenges for a webmaster of any website today is to create a great design and WordPress themes rise to that challenge very well.

Anyone can download free WordPress themes from the official WordPress repo, or form third party websites. you can also pay a little bit of money in a premium theme market place.

With the few clicks of a button, you can change the design and appearance of your theme. WordPress can be used to create a blog or a website, and the theme aspect makes it really easy for anyone to start a website with no real coding knowledge.

WordPress Plugins:

WordPress plugins extend the core features of the WordPress software.

They help to add new features to your WordPress powered website. There is a WordPress plugin for almost everything. All you need to is find a Plugin (features) that you need for your WordPress Powered site, and when you add that plugin, you are adding those features to your site.

Due to the huge number of WordPress plugins available, one can easily become confused as to which Plugins to use. For this reason, it is a good idea to follow guides like this one: Must have WordPress Plugins for Every Blog.

you can download WordPress plugins form the official Plugin directory or from many individual plugin developers or companies.

WordPress.com vs WordPress.org: what's the difference?    

 WordPress.org.

WordPress.org is also popularly known as a "self hosted WordPress blog," which i  will explain in a minute.

WordPress.com:

WordPress.com is a free blogging platform offered by Automattic, which allow anyone to create a blog for free. 

When you create a blog on WordPress.com, you will get a web address like "name.wordpress.com". your blog will be hosted on the WordPress server. This platform is perfect for someone who wants to have a blog simply for the purpose of hosting his or her personal writings.

There are many paid add-ons available, and you can buy custom domain names, use paid themes and so on.

On WordPress.com, however, you will have many limitations in terms  of managing your blog.

Here are two big limitations:

• you cannot install third party plugins

• you have limited theme choices

From the perspective of a personal blog, however this is not a bad option, as the WordPress team takes care of managing your blog's architecture and back-up.
WordPress.com is good for:

• people who are planing to make money from a blog
• companies needing to have a web-space for announcements,

        where factors like design and branding are not important

WordPress.com is not good for:

• people who are planning to make money from a blog
• companies using a content marketing blog as their marketing channel 
• individuals desiring total control over their website(FTP, custom code, custom plugins, etc.)
• anyone wishing to use ad networks like AdSense or infolinks
• anyone waiting to create a blog for affiliate marketing purposes

Here is the official TOS page for using WordPress.com blogs, which will give you all the information  you need regarding fair usage and the full TOS of WordPress.

• Also read: How to start blogging on WordPress.com

 WordPress.org aka Self-hosted platform

WordPress.org is a complete solution for people who are looking to start a blog for the purpose of making money, for promoting a small business, or for any other use such as creating an e-commerce site.

To use WordPress.org, download a copy of WordPress form the official download page and install it on your own hosting server. since WordPress.org is one of the world's most popular platforms, many hosting companies offer custom solutions or  scripts like Fantastico which lets you install WordPress with one click.

I will write more about the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org later.Frist, let's have a look at some of the features of WordPress.org platform:

WordPress.com and WordPress.org have similar interfaces (i.e. the WordPress dashboard).

Wordpress.org, however, removes all the limitations of WordPress.com, and offers you complete control over your blog.

You can: 

• Create a custom theme/install third party themes 
• Install third party plugins
• Monetize it in any way you chosse  
• (Adsense, affliate marketing, in-text ads, paid reviews, and so on)

Recommend reading: How much does it cost to start a self-hosted WordPress blog?

Here is a basic chart showing some of the differebces between WordPress.com and WordPress.org:












I hope this article has helped you to understand what WordPress is as well as the differnces betwen WordPress.org (self-hosted) and WordPress.com.