For those just starting to consider what platform to use for their website, the online discussion of WordPress can be a little confusing. WordPress is both a platform and a software and the two don’t have to go together. WordPress the platform charges a monthly fee. WordPress the software costs nothing.
With WordPress the platform, found at WordPress.com, you sign up and pay a monthly fee for a package that includes web hosting (the physical computer space your site lives on), the software that runs the website (a CMS, or Content Management System), and other services like the ability to have a custom domain (the URL of your website).
With WordPress the software, found at WordPress.org, you just download it for free, but all you get is the system that runs your website. Hosting space and domain names are then things you have to figure out and pay for separately.
WordPress.com has a detailed breakdown on their site comparing the two. Here’s a few more answers to questions you may have about the difference.
Why wouldn’t I just use WordPress.com?
WordPress the platform limits the control over your site code. It offers support for hundreds of themes, and that may be all you need – it is for thousands of people. It also is a simpler way to get started for most people. WordPress.com includes their own support. With self-hosted WordPress, you’re much more on your own, and would need to DIY or find help. But for sites that grow and scale, or require more custom design and development, self-hosting WordPress often becomes the way to go.
Can I switch from WordPress.com to self-hosted WordPress?
Totally. The migration might not be totally easy, due to differences in hosting environments, switching themes, and other factors, but you can almost certainly get your WordPress.com site moved over to a self-hosted environment where you have total control, and everything you had before. This is one of the arguments in favor of starting a site with WordPress.com rather than something like Squarespace, which is a closed ecosystem. A WordPress site started on WordPress.com that grows into something you have the desire to extend and customize, is limited only by your vision, resources, and time if you migrate it to your own hosting environment.
Can I switch from self-hosted WordPress to WordPress.com?
This might be difficult or impossible, because self-hosted WordPress sites often have years of customizations and many plugins to contend with. If porting any of this over to WordPress.com is an issue, you would have to either phase out those parts of the site or be ok with something looking or feeling different. But for simpler, text-focused blogs in self-hosted situations that aren’t ideal, migrating to WordPress.com could make sense and be a way to streamline.
Why have the software available separate from the platform? Why is WordPress.com a different thing from WordPress.org?
This is the contextual question that really explains all this, and the answer holds one of the keys to the success of WordPress (both the platform and the software). WordPress the CMS is freely distributed, collaboratively built, open-source software, but that doesn’t mean many people don’t make a living off of it, or that a tech company sponsors it. Many open-source software projects have a corporate or institutional sponsor that profits from its existence, and in WordPress that’s Automattic, the company that runs WordPress.com. In addition to WordPress.com, Automattic does high-end WordPress hosting called WordPress VIP, and owns several important WordPress plugins. Even if they don’t use WordPress.com and opt to self-host, WordPress users can benefit from this arrangement: Automattic has a stake in WordPress being strong, stable and secure, so they actively work to maintain it. In return, Automattic benefits from the huge user base, plugin ecosystem and open-source contributions to WordPress. For the size of their web traffic, Automattic is small compared to other tech giants and represent a unique business model to other tech companies: the biggest for-profit member of a huge global community based around a non-profit piece of software, that comprises a global cottage industry of small to midsize designers and developers and literally millions of website owners of every kind.
