WordPress.com vs WordPress.org

The software known as WordPress powers over 40% of the web, but there’s often confusion between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. As an affiliate, it’s important to understand the difference so you can effectively promote WordPress.com to your audience and earn commissions. This guide will clear up common misconceptions and give you key facts and points of comparison to turn interest into conversions.

In short, WordPress is a Content Management System, software that lets you create, edit, and publish website content. To make a website accessible online, you also need separate web hosting. WordPress.com includes both the WordPress software and the necessary web hosting.

WordPress.com	WordPress.org
A complete WordPress website building and hosting platform	The home of the open-source WordPress software, which users can download and host anywhere
Includes superfast hosting, unlimited traffic, security, backups, and support	Users are responsible for their hosting, backups, security, and support
Offers both free and paid plans with varying features	While the WordPress software is free to download, it requires separate paid hosting and site management.

• All-in-one solution: With WordPress.com, everything you need to build and run a website is ready to go, all in one place. There’s no need to download WordPress and then find and pay for separate hosting, security features, and add-ons.
• Unlimited traffic and growth: Every WordPress.com site has unlimited traffic, so you’ll never pay more if your audience grows or you get a sudden traffic spike. Your site grows with your needs, from hobby blogs to online stores.
• Performance and speed: Your site loads fast, stays online, and just works, no tuning or tech skills required. It’s all optimized to help you rank higher, convert better, and keep your audience engaged.
• Technical details managed for you: Updates, security, performance, and backups are handled behind the scenes, freeing you up to focus on your site and content instead of managing upkeep.
• Security and reliability: With automatic protections, malware scanning, and daily backups included, your WordPress.com site stays secure, no extra plugins or manual setup required.
• Experts on hand: From friendly forums on the Free plan to one-to-one expert help around the clock with paid plans, the WordPress.com team is always ready to help.

When you promote WordPress.com, you’re offering a complete solution for anyone working at any scale to bring their site, vision, or business to life. All in one place.

Whether your audience is building their first blog or scaling up an e-commerce empire, WordPress.com offers a price and plan to match.

• Showcase simplicity: WordPress.com lets you get your website up and running in minutes without technical hassle. With automatic backups, upgrades, and security baked right in, you’ll only need to get involved with the details if you want to.
• Highlight value: WordPress.com offers something rare in the hosting world: a flat monthly price with truly unlimited traffic. Whether you get a thousand or ten million visits a month, your price never changes, and your performance never drops.
• Focus on performance and speed: WordPress.com sites run on a globally distributed infrastructure optimized for WordPress, with a global CDN, automated failover, and 99.999% uptime. From daily publishing to viral spikes, your site stays fast, stable, and secure.
• Emphasize growth: From link-in-bio one-pagers to blogs and powerful online stores, WordPress.com has everything you need to start, grow, and scale up any site or business.
• Stress security: Daily backups, firewalls, DDoS protection, malware scanning, SSL, and WAF are all built-in. No separate plugins or setup required, just complete, behind-the-scenes protection that keeps your site safe and recoverable. WordPress.com is backed, built, and optimized by WordPress experts, with a twenty-year track record of making WordPress sites sing.
• Mention flexibility: The Business and Commerce plans support third-party plugins and themes, giving you the ability to customize your site, match your brand, and integrate your favorite tools.
• Don’t forget support: Our support team consists of actual WordPress experts. Get fast, knowledgeable help from people who know the platform inside and out.
• Always include the ‘dotcom’: When talking about WordPress.com, don’t abbreviate it to ‘WordPress’; the two are different, and it’s important to differentiate them.

Detail	WordPress.com	WordPress.org
Hosting	Includes WordPress-optimized hosting, managed by Automattic	Users will need to install WordPress on a third-party hosting platform with an additional layer of control panels to manage
Security	Round-the-clock expert security, scanning, and protection	The chosen hosting provider may provide security, but this will vary
Updates	Automatic updates to the latest versions of WordPress and plugins, with fine-grained controls on advanced plans	Manual, unless automated by the user’s chosen host
Support	Top-tier expert support included with paid plans, with community forum support for free users	Varies widely in format and quality depending on the user’s hosting provider
Customization	Intuitive and helpful features are built-in for all users, with increasing technical controls and design customization per plan	Technical users can control all aspects of the WordPress code, while additional features require installing and managing separate plugins
Cost	Includes a basic Free plan as well as a variety of paid plans to cover all user needs and goals, from a simple, ad-free experience on the Personal plan to access to a range of powerful ecommerce features on the Commerce plan	Although the WordPress software itself is free, users must pay for hosting and any required additional options.
Migration	You can migrate any WordPress site to or from WordPress.com, wherever it’s hosted.	You can migrate any WordPress site to or from WordPress.com, wherever it’s hosted.