From the course: WordPress Essential Training

The difference between .com and .org - WordPress Tutorial

From the course: WordPress Essential Training

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The difference between .com and .org

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- [Narrator] When researching WordPress, you may come across two different types. WordPress, the software found on WordPress.org, and WordPress as a service-based website solution found via WordPress.com. It's important to know the difference because it will affect how you launch and maintain your website. Simply put, building a website with WordPress.com means you're using and often buying a service that includes the WordPress software. WordPress.com includes hosting, a domain, and other support services provided by a company called Automatic. On WordPress.org, you can download the WordPress core software as well as some plugins and themes all for free, and you can use all this to build a website. Any hosting or other services you buy come from third parties that you choose. The WordPress software, accessible through WordPress.org, is completely free, and it can be downloaded as many times as you want in order to build as many sites as you want. If you found yourself here in this course, but find that you're actually looking for help with WordPress.com instead, check out this amazing WordPress.com Essentials course by my friend Carrie Dils. WordPress.com is a great option for some because it takes a lot of the technical steps off of your plate. Using the service means you don't have to worry about hosting, security, updates, domains, et cetera. All of this comes in one handy package. WordPress.com does offer a very limited free option, or you can purchase a personal, premium, business, or e-commerce package. The package you purchase will affect what your site can and cannot do. This does mean that you might get less flexibility or less customization, and you might pay more upfront in order to get your website launched. WordPress.org is great because it's 100% free to download it, and you can do almost anything once you have that software in your hands. You can build any site, big or small. It does mean that there are some additional steps required like buying hosting and a domain name, and you have to be more proactive in the long run about keeping your site up. There's also a slightly larger learning curve to using the WordPress software provided for free via WordPress.org. In this course, I will primarily focus on the WordPress.org software rather than the WordPress.com service, but a lot of the information will carry over.

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