What's the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com?

What's the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com? Lauren Holliday WordPress.com So here’s the website for...

What's the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com?

Lauren Holliday

WordPress.com

So here’s the website for www.wordpress.com

You know when you register for a new social network, it usually takes you through this guided setup process?

WordPress.com is kind-of like that, as you’re about to see.

So to start creating a website, I’ll click “Get Started,” and it’ll guide me through the basic steps to setup my website.

I’ll do things, like pick a category for my website, choose a theme, pick a domain name, which is generally a subdomain of wordpress.com or I could pay to get my own custom domain name.

Once I finish setting this baby up, I’ll log into my account, which takes me to my dashboard. Via my dashboard, I can manage my website by clicking “Manage my site” as well as engage with other users’ websites or blogs by clicking “Reader.”

The reader is like your WordPress News Feed and is pretty self-explanatory. You can like, share or comment on other WordPress blogs.

I want to check out the “Manage my Site” though because I’m not using this as a blogging platform. I’m using it as a way to design a beautiful website.

At the top, it shows me my stats -- how many views I’ve gotten this month, etc. On the left, I can add web pages or blog posts and customize my site’s design.

Let’s check the customize feature.

The customizer is a basic, frontend “styler” for your site. You can make very basic changes to stuff, like changing the color of a word and stuff like that.

You can get some of the customization limitations removed if you upgrade your plan, but it still wouldn’t be worth it, if you want to make a beautiful, professional website.

Now, let’s compare this to WordPress.org

So this may be surprising, but you don’t manage WordPress.org sites by visiting WordPress.org.

WordPress.org is more of a community resource for WordPress developers/designers, as opposed to an online website builder app.

So if you want to use WordPress.org, you’re going to have to pay for hosting first.

I recommend GoDaddy because it’s affordable, and it’s what I used before switching to a bigger account.

I show you how to do do this a bit later, but here’s the high-level overview of how you get WordPress.org.

First, I visit godaddy. Find the managed WordPress hosting services, and purchase it.

Next, I’ll log into GoDaddy and go to hosting. That’s where I’ll find my managed WordPress site.

See, WordPress.org is software that your hosting provider installs and WordPress.com is a web app that lives on someone else’s property (WordPress.com).

Of course, as with anything in life, there are pros and cons to both.

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