What’s The Difference Between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?
December 28, 2009
By: Drew Meyers
Author's Website: http://youreachmedia.com
What’s The Difference Between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?
This question came up several times at RE BarCamp a few months ago, numerous times with individual agents I’ve spoken to, and again when I spoke at the Coldwell Banker Bain Tech forum, so I thought I’d address it here:
Short answer: WordPress.com is a less customizable version of WordPress.org that includes free web hosting.
Long answer: Josh Ferris wrote a very detailed answer to the question in his latest Monday Q&A on his Online Real Estate 101 Blog. I’d highly recommend reading the whole article.
I have to admit, this post has been sitting as a draft for about 3 months; I guess Josh beating me to answering it is what I get for being a slacker and not writing this months ago. On the plus side, Josh did all grunt work for me — so thank you for helping me with my workload.
- Stumble it!
- Categories: Blogging, Wordpress
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Comments
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Josh Ferris on December 28, 2009 3:07 pm
Thanks for posting it up Drew! You've contributed a great deal of important news updates to GeekEstate (don't make me start linking!
) over the past year so I think you can be forgiven for not finishing that post.
Tony Hunthausen on December 28, 2009 3:51 pm
Thanks for the post. I just finished converting to a WordPress based website (with much tech help) and will check out Josh Ferris's long answer for some greater insight. It seems the knowledge base keeps growing exponentially.
tastatur on December 28, 2009 9:50 pm
Hi,
As far as I know WordPress.org is free blogging software. With WordPress.org, you can install themes and plugins, run advertisements, edit the database and even modify the PHP source code.
WordPress.com is different. You do not have to download software, pay for hosting or manage a web server. When you sign up for a WordPress.com blog, you will get a URL like “andy.wordpress.com” or you can map a domain so your blog is available at “example.com” without the “.wordpress.com” portion.
matthewswanson on December 30, 2009 6:17 pm
Great post, I did a quick review summary as well on my personal blog back in May on the differences of each type, here's the link
wine club on January 4, 2010 10:10 am
Generally speaking I think if you have to ask the question….you are better off using .Com.
.Org is more complicated and takes more time/effort to keep up.
For those of us using blogs for our real off line business, ads probably shouldn't show up anywhere on the site anyway.
Michelle on March 20, 2010 4:01 pm
Anyone who is running a business should use self-hosted wordpress (wordpress.org)
Why? Well to sum it up nicely Matt Muellenweg, the developer of WordPress said at Wordcamp Portland using wordpress.com is akin to sharecropping.
Do you want to be a sharecropper or do you want to build a professional, online presence?
Michelle on March 20, 2010 11:01 pm
Anyone who is running a business should use self-hosted wordpress (wordpress.org)
Why? Well to sum it up nicely Matt Muellenweg, the developer of WordPress said at Wordcamp Portland using wordpress.com is akin to sharecropping.
Do you want to be a sharecropper or do you want to build a professional, online presence?