What is the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?

WordPress has almost subverted the industry of building websites, so that people without a code base can also build their own websites.

Whether is been built, a personal website (blog, community) or a business website, it doesn't matter. If new to WordPress, you may not know that WordPress is actually divided into .com and .org, and they are both called WordPress. What is the difference between WordPress.com & WordPress.org?

Note: As long as someone is talking about WordPress (WP)online, 99% refers to WordPress.org.

What is the relationship between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?

Because they have the same name, but different suffixes, many people confuse them.

WordPress.com vs WordPress.org

WordPress.org is a non-profit open source program, anyone can download it for free, just need to buy a domain name and hosting space to use it to start a website, because it is an open source program, the scalability is very strong; any type of website can be built with it.

WordPress.com is a for-profit enterprise owned by Automattic, and uses the open source program of WordPress.org. It does not require the purchase of domain names and hosting space to create blogs for free. In addition to the free service, it also includes a paid service. Due to the third-party hosting, the scalability is poor, and the number of people who use it is very small.

Why are they all called WordPress? Since Matt Mullenweg, the founder of Automattic, is one of the two founders of WordPress.org and the CEO of WordPress.com, his company can also be called WordPress.

The main difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org

Although the core structure of the two is basically the same, the difference in use is huge, mainly including the following aspects.

1. Different host space

There is no doubt that the main difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org is the way the website is hosted.

WordPress.org is self-hosted. Users need to purchase the domain name and hosting space. WordPress.com is fully hosted, meaning that WordPress.com hosts your website for free. No need to worry about domain names and hosting space, and there is no choice in hosting, unlike WordPress.org ’s flexibility.

2. Different autonomy

WordPresss.com is a third-party hosting, and there are many restrictions on its use. When using WordPress.com, a custom domain name cannot be used, instead, it is a subdomain (e.g. mysite.WordPress.com). This is a huge limitation.

In addition to domain names, WordPress.com has more restrictions. For example, the free service only provides 3GB of storage space, and it will show visitors some ads that are not related to your website itself. The profits of the ads are all owned by WordPress.com.

To lift these restrictions, WordPress.com will charge at least $ 4 / month for a personal website plan. Even so, compared with WordPress.org, there are still many restrictions, especially in terms of scalability.

3. Different scalability

The following is the difference in scalability between WordPress.org and WordPress.com.

At a glance, WordPress.org has no limitations and is highly scalable.