WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org

Posted: July 2nd, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Technology | Tags: , | 8 Comments »

You’d think this explanation would already be written somewhere, in succinct, plain language. But it’s not. At least not that I’ve found.

People often ask me “What kind of blogging software should I use?”

My answer is usually “WordPress.”

Then they go and do a search for “wordpress.”

A few days later, they come back.

“Which version of WordPress should I use? WordPress.com or WordPress.org?”

“Well,” I say, “it depends.” Then I babble on incoherently for several minutes.

When they get bored, they ask: “But which is the free one?”

Aye, there’s the rub.They are both free. And neither of them is free.

If you want to get involved in blogging, then you have to learn about a few marginally technical things like “hosting.”

“Hosting” is the process of storing a website somewhere. Your blog isn’t going to just sit on your computer, right? It has to live somewhere else, in some big, powerful computer. That’s a “host.”

Well, you are probably thinking, I don’t give a shit where my blog is hosted. I just want to start writing. Is there someone who will host it for free?

The answer is yes. WordPress.com will host it for free.

But wait!

A blog hosted with wordpress.com is more limited in features, less customizable, than a WordPress.org. blog.

And this is the part that starts to get confusing to a lot of people. Look at that last sentence. It has URLs in it that should not be taken to mean actual websites. Let’s take a quick interlude to clarify.

WordPress.com and WordPress.org are both websites. But they are also separate, but related, organizations, each of which provide a separate, but related, service. For the rest of this post, forget about the fact that both names sound like domain names. Think of them as groups of people, not as websites.

Both organizations can help you get a blog started. And in both cases, your blog will be a WordPress blog. It will have a look and feel and general functionality that both types of WordPress blogs have in common.

However, the services that each organization provides cannot be compared apples-to-apples, which is what’s so confusing for new bloggers and non-technical people.

WordPress.com is a company that provides free hosting of WordPress blogs, and charges you for certain features. All the basics are free, it’s easy to set up, and you don’t have to mess with semi-technical stuff like using an FTP client or choosing a hosting provider. However, in the long run, when you get used to blogging, and start forming strong opinions about what to do with your blog, you’re going to find that you either can’t do some of those things, or you can, but it involves paying WordPress to provide you with additional services.

WordPress.org is an organization that provides free, highly customizable blogging software. They never charge you for anything, and there is a worldwide community of people who can help you solve problems or figure out how to make special changes. However, they don’t provide hosting. If you want to use WordPress.org, you have to download a bunch of files, and then find a host on which to run them. Finding a host is actually not that hard, and some hosts, like Dreamhost, anticipate this need, having already uploaded all the WordPress.org files for you. But you still have to figure out details like what your URL is going to be, and how to buy it, and then how to associate it with your host, and so on.

Hosting is not free, and neither are domain names. So the use of WordPress.org software is not actually free, even though there is no charge for the software itself. You pay someone, but that someone is never WordPress.org.

WordPress.com, on the other hand, ensures free hosting. You don’t have to pay anything to start. But, when you eventually do pay to improve your blog, it is WordPress.com whom you will be paying.

In the world of free software documentation, the following phrase frequently appears:

This software is free as in “freedom,” not “free beer.”

And that’s pretty much the whole distinction right there.

WordPress.org is free, as in “freedom.”

WordPress.com is free, as in “free beer.”

Which of those two sentences appeals to you more, at an intuitive level?

Take your pick.

  • http://Website Flash

    Perfect!

  • http://www.motherhoodinnyc.com Marinka

    This is exactly the explanation that I’ve been looking for. Of course, I’m not sure that I fully understand it, but I’m going to keep reading it until I do!

  • http://www.hostingcove.com Ro

    Your post is confusing to people and misleading

    Correction

    WordPress.org And WordPress.com is the same “organization”

    .com is just their hosting platform and .org is where you can download the source to use on your own platform as well as cool add-ons and themes people have made. One is not a different company or organization from the other.

    The “freedom” part of their (free) hosting platform means that they are simply giving users the freedom to not need to pay for blog hosting (thought their hosting is limiting..since it is free). The “Free Beer” term is a commonly used term by open source developers. (we made this product free to use and change ..so if you ever meet us then buy us a beer)

  • http://miconian.com miconian

    Ro:

    WordPress.com is owned by a company called Automattic. WordPress.org is an open-source commmunity project. Many people are involved in both, and it’s unclear from my research whether or not all of the WordPress.com core developers are also employees of Automattic. It’s quite possible that they are. (More information here.) In fact, the results of a little googling for phrases such as “contribute to wordpress” suggest that the emphasis is on fixing bugs, not adding features. In other words, a group of people who work at Automattic (whether acting as employees of Automattic, or not) probably control the core development of both WordPress.com and WordPress.org. They are using the open-source community to fix the bugs in their product, and in return, they are allowing that community to have unfettered access to the code.

    But the truth is that none of that really helps the average non-technical user make a decision about which way to go. So what matters is this:

    WordPress.com is a for-profit venture. They can afford to give free hosting because they are owned by a corporation, and because they charge for premium services. They also greatly limit customizability. (If your blog is hosted on WordPress.com, you can’t edit the CSS.) This is good for security and standardization, and it also makes it more likely that the average user will eventually want to pay for more features.

    WordPress.org is a non-profit venture in which no money changes hands at all. They don’t charge for hosting, and they also don’t provide hosting, so you have to pay for it yourself. On the other hand, you can customize whatever you want. Or, more likely, you can make use of customizations that other people have created and made available for free.

    Also, Ro, as far as I know, neither WordPress.org nor WordPress.com officially talks about the “freedom/free beer” dichotomy anywhere. I was just bringing up the concept to make a point, but my use of the terms was correct. More information here

  • http://Website RobD

    There’s good info here. I did a search on the topic and found most people will agree with your blog. Keep up the good work mate! :)

  • http://blog.mdsuburbanhomes.com Ken Montville

    I often get confused about which is which since both are “free”. For me the “.org” would be the way to go. The next big confusion – and this can be overwhelming – is the huge number of WordPress Themes out in the world – free vs premium. Then you need to consider whether it’s worth it to try and design the blog yourself or hire a designer/coder to make it pretty and functional the way you want it to be.

    Sigh. Nothing is ever as easy as it looks and nothing is ever really “free”.

  • http://Website vishnu87

    Heres my explanation:

    There are two ways to start a wordpress blog:

    1. Goto wordpress.com and sign up for a free blog. Your blog will reside on wordpress.com. It has limited functionality as determined by the site owners – wordpress.
    2. Goto wordpress.org and download the (free) wordpress blogging software to your own website (not free). Your blog will reside on yoursite.com. It has unlimited functionality as determined by the site owner – you.

    The wordpress.com solution is more user friendly as wordpress installs and maintains the blog software, the web servers, etc. All you do is blog. You will also receive more traffic due to sharing in the wordpress.com tagspace, as well as a higher google pagerank simply by being on such a big/popular site as wordpress.com. The drawback is less control over how your blog looks and functions, inability to run ads, etc. Essentially you do not really own anything – including your blog – you simply are using a free service provided by the site owners – wordpress.

    Installing the wordpress software (downloaded from wordpress.org) on your own website is more powerful – you control how the site looks/functions, you can monetize the site (ads, donations, etc), you can do whatever you want. The downside is you must create a website (domain name, hosting) which is not free (but not that expensive for a typical site) and maintain and configure it (backups, installs, upgrades, etc) – essentially you are not just a blogger but also a website owner and administrator.

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