What is WordPress.org?
WordPress.org is fully open-source, meaning that anybody can find the source code for the website publicly posted and can see how the developers went about coding/creating the website. The website itself is used to build and host your own websites.
What is WordPress.com?
WordPress.com is also used for website building/hosting. It offers free services which are useful for hobby bloggers.
What are the similarities?
Both WordPress.com and .org allow you to customize your webpage and offer a decent amount of features in terms of customizations. They both help you create and host a website that others can view and enjoy.
What are the differences?
Surprisingly enough, there are actually quite a few differences between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. The first main difference is that in WordPress.org you get much more creative freedom in terms of customization. Unlike it’s counterpart WordPress.com, the .org variant allows you to use your own personally created themes whether that be for commercial or personal use. With WordPress.com you are restricted to exclusively the websites preset themes and they cannot be customized in any way. The same thing applies to plugins. Another difference is price. With WordPress.org, you must pay monthly to host your website. The advantage is, the website is entirely in your possession and you may freely do whatever you want with it. With the .com version, you can choose to upload a website for free. The problem with that is the fact that you will have ads displayed on your website and you cannot have custom domain names. Another advantage of the .org version is the fact that you can monetize your website by displaying ads from other companies. With the free version you cannot sell ads whatsoever. However, if you average 25,000 monthly page views. You can apply for advertising at the expense of sharing revenue. You are also forced to display branding on your website, e.g “powered by etc” unless you pay to get it removed. This is annoying because it can kill the flow of your website and limit your customization options even more.
Which one would you prefer to use?
Honestly, If I had to choose, I would 100% opt for the paid .org version of WordPress. There are just so many advantages for a reasonable price compared to the free version.
What are the reasons for your preference?
The reason for my choice is the fact that the customization options are fantastic. I am going into film/videography so being able to express my creative freedom through everything I do is really important to me. Not only that, as I build a brand in videography being able to display ads and have branding freedom is really important for revenue and it is likely something I will do considering the career path I intend to go down.
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