What are the differences between WordPress.org and WordPress.com?

WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com

What are the differences between WordPress.org and WordPress.com?

WordPress.

• Your Website and all its data belong to you.
• Full control of your website – you can do everything you want to customize the page to what you need.
• Complete management over the database and files.
• Full freedom in adding ads.
• The ability to add free and paid plugins and themes.
• You can create your own online store or sell membership for premium content.
• Possibility of using tools like Google Analytics.
• You have full SEO control.
• Direct access to files (FTP/SFTP/etc. – depends on hosting provider – good for development).
• Direct access to database (phpMyAdmin/Adminer/etc. – depends on hosting provider – good for development)

WordPress.com:

• They place ads on all free sites, so you have to go to a paid plan to delete them.
• To delete powered by WordPress.com, you have to go to the Business plan.
• No possibility of adding your own ads.
• There is no way to add your own plugins (allowed in a paid plan).
• You can not install your own themes (allowed in a paid plan).
• You cannot use such tools as Google Analytics (allowed in a paid plan).
• Building any membership sites with WordPress.com is forbidden.
• Creating your online store is possible only in the E-commerce paid plan.
• SEO tools are not available in the free plan (allowed in a paid plan).
• They can delete your content without your consent if they think you’ve broken the rules.
• No access to files.
• No access to the database.

WordPress.org the best solution to start a blog

You want to be a blogger. You want to share something valuable with others, and the content is the thing that matters to you the most. It has to captivate the readers and spark their interest. Why start a blog if you don’t control your content? It does not make sense.

Don’t let anyone control your content!!!

That’s why you shouldn’t waste your time on free of charge blogging platforms, such as WordPress.com, Tumblr, Blogger, or Medium, especially if you are serious about blogging.

These types of platforms control your content, have a lot of constraints, and contrary to what you may think, it is challenging to relocate the content, which you have been creating there for years.

So, what steps ahead of you?

First, you’ll select the name of your blog and pick a domain name (that is the address of your blog). In the next step, you will choose a hosting provider, and you will buy hosting (so that your new blog has the place of residence). Finally, you will install WordPress, thanks to which you will be able to publish your first post.

Seems complicated? It is not so, do not worry! Step by step, we’ll go through all these stages; you’ll see how simple it is. In the end, you will be the owner of your blog. And you’ll be able to teach others how to start a WordPress blog.

Now, let’s move to the second step on how to start a WordPress blog; we’ll take care of the name for your blog.