Need help? Check out our Support site, then


WordPress.com Forums » Support

Wordpress.com premium vs Wordpess.org self hosted?

  1. edteach3r
    Member

    Hi everybody,

    Almost a year ago I converted my WordPress.com blog to a self-hosted WordPress.org site. While it has been running successfully for almost 12 months, I still miss the "slickness" of WP.com (e.g. Onswipe for iPad does not work on the .org sites at all). I am therefo considering switching back to WP.com, with my current site serving as redirect.

    My question is whether anybody actually has done a comparison of WordPress.com after an upgrade vs a self-hosted .org site, specifically with regard to functionality and "clunkiness":
    A) do you retain all features of WP .com after upgrading to a WP.com premium, or does an upgrade resemble WP.org more than WP.com?
    B) is there a marked difference between a self-hosted WP.org site and a premium WP.com site (pricing is obviously different, so I was thinking specifically of performance and functionality).
    C) can you run a CDN on an upgraded WP.con site?
    D) any other advice/information?

    Thank you for taking the time!

    Ed

    The blog I need help with is www.teach3r.ca.

  2. supportbot
    Support Bot

    The blog you specified at http://www.teach3r.ca does not appear to be hosted at WordPress.com.

    This support forum is for blogs hosted at WordPress.com. If your question is about a self-hosted WordPress blog then you'll find help at the WordPress.org forums.

    If you don't understand the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org, you may find this information helpful.

    If you forgot to include a link to your blog, you can reply and include it below. It'll help people to answer your question.

    This is an automated message.

  3. timethief
    Member

    Purchasing ugrades from WordPress.com for a free hosted WordPress.com blog does not in any way change the fact that the blog remians free hosted by WordPress.com and is still subject to the same ToS and restrictions that every other free hosted WordPress.com is subject to.:
    WordPress.com vs WordPress.org:The Differences

  4. hnsaifi
    Member

    See this http://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/

  5. edteach3r
    Member

    My old WordPress.com blog can be found at http://www.insyncblog.wordpress.com

  6. timethief
    Member

    Avaialble upgrades for free WordPress.com blogs

    My question is whether anybody actually has done a comparison of WordPress.com after an upgrade vs a self-hosted .org site, specifically with regard to functionality and "clunkiness":

    I believe almost every Volunteer answering support questions regulalry on the WordPress.com support forums has either had bothe WordPress.org installs in the past or has them now as well as having free hosted WordPress.com free hosted blogs. I moved a blog back here because:
    I did not really require plugins;
    I had no intention of monetizing my blog;
    I wanted to have Staff do all the ugrading for me;
    I liked the in-gouse widgets and features here at WordPress.com that aren't available for WordPress.org installs;
    I wanted my blog to be included again in the WordPress.com community;
    I wanted to save the money I spent on web hosting. I spent $10. per year on a domain name and $50. per year on web hosting (total $60. oer annum). Now I spend $17 per year on domain mapping and $30. per year on an Ads-Off upgrade (total $47 per annum).

  7. edteach3r
    Member

    Thanks timethief and hnsaifi for refencing the comparative article. I did review that article before posting my questions, but I was hoping to gather some more information from someone who has compared the functionality of the 2. As I said. .org seems more 'clunky', while my memories of WP.com were ones of being much more slick. Do you have any advice on this, or similar/dissimilar experiences?
    Thanks again,
    Ed

  8. edteach3r
    Member

    Thanks a lot timethief ... that is most valuable advice. This does match my experiences as well, so I will now look at the plugins I currently use that might not be offered at WP.com before packing up and moving back (a daunting thought!).

  9. timethief
    Member

    @edteach3r
    You're welcome. There is no FTP access to free hosted WordPress.com blogs and we cannot install any individual plugins into free hosted WordPress.com blogs.

  10. timethief
    Member

    but I was hoping to gather some more information from someone who has compared the functionality of the 2.

    Do be aware that though WordPress.com and WordPress.org run on different software ( this wpMU is a muliuser blogging platform) , WordPress.com is on continuous roll-out. That means we experience that new versions of WordPress for a month prior to them being released to WordPress.org users.

  11. raincoaster
    Member

    A) do you retain all features of WP .com after upgrading to a WP.com premium, or does an upgrade resemble WP.org more than WP.com? Yes, you retain all the Wp.com features.

    B) is there a marked difference between a self-hosted WP.org site and a premium WP.com site (pricing is obviously different, so I was thinking specifically of performance and functionality). Yes, of course. SEO is better here, tech support is better here (ie it exists). All your upgrades are done for you. You have much, much better security.

    C) can you run a CDN on an upgraded WP.con site? A what?

    D) any other advice/information? If you need to use a lot of Flash, javascript, or iframes, or do ecommerce, WP.com is not the right choice.

  12. timethief
    Member

    CDN Tools is a WordPress.org plugin that allows you to load javascript and media files to an external server to drastically speed page loads.

    There is no FTP access to free hosted WordPress.COM blogs and we cannot install individual plugins into them.
    http://en.support.wordpress.com/ftp-access/
    http://en.support.wordpress.com/plugins/

    That being said, our free hosted WordPress.com blog loads very quickly unless the blogger makes choices that slow page laoding time and refuses to listen to the advice of Staff and Volunteers.

    Example: displaying and excessive number of posts on the front page, all or most of of which have HUGE images and video and audio embeds, and other silliness like making every post in the blog a "sticky" post, which is stuck to the front page.

    We cannot use Javascript on free hosted WordPress.com. See here for restricted codes > http://en.support.wordpress.com/code/

Topic Closed

This topic has been closed to new replies.

About this Topic

Tags