WORDPRESS.COM OR WORDPRESS.ORG
Just starting out a blog or thinking about moving your current blog to WordPress? The next question usually popped up is “Should I use WordPress.com or WordPress.org?” or “What’s the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?”. There are quite a few notable differences between these two similar techy things.
WordPress.com
Basically, it is a free publish platform where you could create a website free of charge. Register an account, choose your desired theme from their theme library and bam, your website is ready! No code editing and other tech stuff needed. Sounds pretty easy and looks like it’s the best choice for those who are not tech savvy. In short term, yes it is great. However, if you are planning on expanding your blog, there will be a lot of limitations that you should aware of before settling down with WordPress.com.
NO GOOGLE ADSENSE OR AFFILIATE PROGRAM WIDGET
Everyone is trying to make money from blogging and these two features play a vital role in this money making game. WordPress.com helps you to avoid complicated code editing part to the point that you can’t even insert your own Google Adsense code and affiliate widget code to your blog.
NO PLUGIN IS ALLOWED
A plugin can seamlessly extend the functionality or add new features to your WordPress website. Some IT experts create a bunch of different plugins that cover almost anything that you could possibly imagine for a website. Enhance your SEO and search ranking, build an e-commerce website or even boost your page speed. That’s right! That’s how amazing plugin is. Unfortunately, WordPress.com does not allow users to install a third-party plugin.
DEFAULT THEMES ONLY
There are a bunch of free WordPress themes provided by WordPress for .com users. However, we always get asked from .com users if they could use third party themes and getting comments on how the default themes are not what they are looking for. They’d rather spend extra $$ on a third party theme instead of using the default ones. Unfortunately, WordPress.com does not allow users to use the third party themes.
Unless you are willing to pay $25 per month for their business plan which is cost so much more than purchasing a hosting plan from other decent hosting company. Otherwise, a basic, free WordPress.com does not support third party plugins and themes.
WordPress.org
The only disadvantage of WordPress.org I would say is the cost of it. You must purchase a domain name and a hosting service from hosting service company. Hosting service plan price range from $12 per year to almost a hundred bucks and it usually does not offer an installment plan. And if your blog is encountering any hiccups, you may have to deal with it by contacting your hosting company yourself. Nevertheless, if you take your blog serious enough to publish blog posts consistently. At the end of the day, you will still find it worth every penny you spent on it.
