Choosing Between WordPress.org & WordPress.com

While devising your content marketing strategy, you might stumble upon a common point of confusion. I have noticed most of the newbies to land up in a similar state while deciding whether to choose self-hosted WordPress or hosted WordPress.

It is necessary to identify the pros and cons of both these platforms before you plan out the successive steps. Well, here, I am going to provide you with the piece of information you were looking for, the difference between WordPress.Org and WordPress.com. Let’s have a detailed look at the nature and functions of each platform.

Have a look at what each platform means:

WordPress.com – is a blogging and commercial website owned by the organization, called Automatic. You just need to create your blogs and websites and host them on their servers. But it doesn’t provide the users with self-hosting solutions.  With WordPress.com you get fundamental security and backups take care of you.

It offers both free and paid plans. You can go for either a free version which has certain limitations or a full-fledged paid one.

WordPress.org – is the prevalent site stage about which you have heard all the great things. WordPress.org is where you’ll find the free WordPress software that you can first download, and then install onto your own web server. It must be introduced on a web server beforehand.

If you’re using WordPress.org, you will need to purchase a domain name separately and also it doesn’t accompany free hosting i.e. you will need to buy a paid hosting service separately from a third-party web-hosting company.

With WordPress.org you get the opportunity to pick the modules and the execution settings of your site, although it requires some work on your part, but still you are in full control of what occurs on your site.

You will be 100% responsible for not just creating content, but also managing and maintaining your site, it’s security, backup etc. Usually your webhost will take the responsibility of all this depends on the service and package you choose.

Which platform would you prefer for your business? Hosted or self-hosted?

Well, before you decide the most suitable platform for your business, I would like you to have a look at the advantages and disadvantages of these platforms.

Advantages of Self Hosted WordPress.org

WordPress.org allows users to have complete control over their website content. They can not only choose the content that they wish to publish but also remove the older posts at their will. The additional options and flexibility of WordPress.org is vastly superior to the limited version of WordPress.com. With WordPress.org you can control almost everything. You can use any theme you like, any plugin you like, or any other custom mode that you like. Also not to forget that having your own domain name is incredibly important too, since it’s invaluable for your branding.It’s most vibrant feature is that it’s really easy to use and anyone can become expert at it. Revenues from these websites through advertisement is another remarkable benefit.

Disadvantages of Self Hosted WordPress.org

Like all sites you would require web hosting package and this involves certain expenses. But, however as your site develops gradually and gets more movement eventually, the web hosting expenses won’t increase surprisingly.

Advantages of WordPress.com

WordPress.com is distinctive in the sense that you don’t need to download software, pay for hosting, or even deal with a web server. It requires comparatively lesser investment for its set-up than WordPress.org website. Also it deals with refreshing and backing up your site naturally so that you don’t have to stress on anything.

Disadvantages of WordPress.com

Your site will show a controlled by WordPress.com connect and as a consequence, you won’t be having complete control over your website domain. They can even erase your site when they feel that it does not comply with their Terms of Service. They even puts ads on every single free site, thus your clients will see advertisements with eventually no profit of yours. In order to remove these ads, it’s essential to upgrade the website. Users are not even permitted to set up tracking and analytics mechanisms on their sites. You won’t be able to include any WordPress plugin in the website and not also can’t incorporate any customized theme. You can’t assemble Membership sites with wordpress.com. Many users finally conclude that it’s much wiser to set up a website with one’s own domain name as it practically enjoy much more freedom and flexibility.