And yet again, the bloggers at Elegant Themes offers us important and helpful information about the world of WordPress web design.This article offers many great insights into both wordpress.org and wordpress.com, and how to use each.
Since we here at Agora Media Services are all about helping you create your own websites, and since you usually want your own domain name, we’ve been big fans of installing WP within your own webhosting account, and using wordpress.org as your source for themes, plugins and documentation. However, using wordpress.com is also a great option — especially if you don’t care about a unique domain name. You can create a blog in under 5 minutes and for free, with a domain name of yourspecialsubdomain.wordpress.com. And for $18/year you can host your own domain at wordpress.com. However, I’ve been a bit confused about what you get for $18/year, and whether in fact you are likely to end up wanting/needing to pay more than that for some features you may want — all of which come free with your own WP install. (As they state, “WordPress.com can get pricey if you upgrade. When you start off with WordPress.com, it’s totally free. However, if you want to unleash some more advanced features, you’ll need to pull out your wallet. And the more you want, the more pocket change you’ll need. That’s the big downside of using it. “)
The post includes lots of information, including:
- An hour-long video in which Scott Berkun “explains the fascinating inner workings of how WordPress.com is made and used. It’s great for a ‘behind the curtain’ look at the company, and its direction. And yes, he explains what the historical difference is between the open source version of WordPress, and the WordPress.com version.”
- A 50-minute long video “Why WordPress?” about wordpress.org, from WordCamp Seattle 2013.
- WordPress.org vs WordPress.com: A Definitive Guide For 2014 (from the folks at WPMUdev.org)
- WordPress.com and WordPress.org (WordPress Support) (from the makers themselves)
- A great many screenshots and clear descriptions of what you can — and can’t — do with each approach to using WP.
Check it out!