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Website Builders

WordPress.com vs WordPress.org

Which website builders tool is right for you? Compare features, pricing, and user reviews to make the best choice.

W

WordPress.com

4.49,000 reviews

Individuals, bloggers, creators, and small businesses that want an easy, hosted WordPress experience with minimal maintenance and the option to scale into advanced customization and eCommerce.

Starting at Free–$4/month
W

WordPress.org

4.415,000 reviews

Businesses, creators, publishers, and developers who want maximum flexibility and ownership of their website with the ability to customize design, functionality, and hosting—especially for content-heavy sites, marketing sites, and scalable projects.

Starting at $0/user/month (software) + hosting

Side-by-Side Comparison

FeatureWordPress.comWordPress.org
PricingFree–$4/month$0/user/month (software) + hosting
G2 Rating4.4 (9,000 reviews)4.4 (15,000 reviews)
Capterra Rating4.64.6
Best ForIndividuals, bloggers, creators, and small businesses that want an easy, hosted WordPress experience with minimal maintenance and the option to scale into advanced customization and eCommerce.Businesses, creators, publishers, and developers who want maximum flexibility and ownership of their website with the ability to customize design, functionality, and hosting—especially for content-heavy sites, marketing sites, and scalable projects.

Pros & Cons

WordPress.com

Pros

  • + Fast setup with hosting, SSL, and updates handled for you
  • + Strong blogging and content management capabilities
  • + Large theme ecosystem and modern block-based editing
  • + Scales from free personal sites to business/eCommerce use cases

Cons

  • Advanced customization and some plugins/features require higher-tier plans
  • Can be confusing compared to self-hosted WordPress.org (differences in control and extensibility)
  • Costs can increase as you add premium themes, domains, and higher-tier features

WordPress.org

Pros

  • + Highly customizable with thousands of themes and plugins
  • + Full ownership and portability of site and data (self-hosted)
  • + Strong SEO foundations and broad SEO tooling ecosystem
  • + Massive community support and mature developer platform

Cons

  • Requires managing hosting, updates, backups, and security (or paying for managed hosting)
  • Plugin/theme conflicts and maintenance overhead can increase with complexity
  • Performance and reliability depend heavily on hosting quality and optimization