WordPress, WordPress.com and WordPress.org- You should not Get Confused of

In the world of Blogging, WordPress is undoubtedly a buzzword. Choosing WordPress as a blogging platform is really thrilling to many people. This is because about 66 million (30%) active websites around the world are powered by WordPress.

There are many reasons behind the great popularity of this website builder. But focusing on this fact is not relevant to our present presentation. You can check-out: What is WordPress: Build up Your Site with World’s Best CMS.

Two terms WordPress.com and WordPress.org associated with WordPress often confuse users. The word WORDPRESS itself is also involved with this dispute. So it is wise to show the relationship and comparison among the three- WordPress, WordPress.com, and WordPress.org.

Major difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org

As a general identity, WordPress is a free, open-source structured website builder or CMS (Content Management System) which is actually a Website-backbone, in other word a Software, built-up mainly with PHP and MySQL scripting language.

For a simple understanding, we can state that WordPress.com is a free Blogging platform like Blogger.com, Medium.com, Tumblr etc. On the contrary, WordPress.org is the Self-hosted WordPress blogging platform. Let us clarify.

To establish a website, we need three basic things-

Now if you like to use free WordPress.com platform, you need none of the three but just an Account. You’ll get site-structure built-in. Your domain will be a subdomain like www.yoursitename.wordpress.com and hosting is free. But blogging with WordPress.com has a great limitation which we’ll clarify later.

On the other hand, WordPress project is managed by WordPress.org. It is the self-hosted WordPress.org platform, you can download the WordPress site-structure (software) any time free from WordPress.org. But you’ve to pay for Domain and Hosting. Such way, you have the full control over the WordPress site and you can say the site is yours. If you think of professional or business site, you need to choose WordPress.org not WordPress.com.

Relation among WordPress, WordPress.com and WordPress.org

Though the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org is apparently clear, there are many things to know, many disputes to settle and much confusion to remove especially for the beginners.

Let’s look back into WordPress development history.

WordPress first started as a Blogging tool. Over time, WordPress emerged as the most influential full CMS which is widely used both for building Blog and Website. The first version of WordPress was released in 2003. In consideration of a website building software, actually WordPress is a Project. Now question- Who own/s or owned this WordPress Project? Simple answer in a word is: No individual or organization.

Among many who played pioneering role in developing WordPress software are Matt Mullenweg, Mike Little, Ryan Boren and Peter Westwood. After WordPress came into being, an organization’s name came into scenario and that is Automattic. Matt Mullenweg was the President of the Automattic. Also other WordPress project developers were the employees of Automattic. So none should confuse that WordPress is Automattic’s product, rather, Automattic itself came from WordPress. Afterwards (in 2005) Automattic founded WordPress.com by using WordPress project which is a for-profit hosted blogging service. Besides WordPress.com, Automattic has other produces like VaultPress, JetPack, VideoPress, Gravatar etc.

You can create an account with WordPress.com and start your blog. But as free service, it has  only simple features available for you. For advanced features, you have to pay. For examples you cannot use third-party theme or plugin for your site. To unlock advanced features, you have to upgrade WordPress.com account to a paid one.

Again, the WordPress project or WordPress website builder software, which is open-source is managed, updated and distributed free of cost by an organization and it is called WordPress.org. It began in 2003, just after WordPress released first, under licence by GPL (General Public Licence). Sometime two terms WordPress and WordPress.org are used to refer to the same things. Anybody is free form restriction to download WordPress structure-files and install on any web host from WordPress.org.

By using WordPress structure files, you can build any kind of Blog, Website or App. It’s easy-to-use user-friendly features, availability of numerous themes and plugins and structural flexibility have made WordPress no. 1 CMS in the globe. 

Hope you’re now skilled enough to explain to others the differences and relations among WordPress, WordPress.com and WordPress.org.

To cast further questions, feel free to comment.