Newcomers to WordPress often get confused between the two versions of WordPress that are available. They are
- Hosted WordPress at WordPress.com
- Self Hosted WordPress at wordpress.org
Hosted at WordPress.com
This is for people looking for a free blog/website and is ideal for anyone wanting to learn a little more about wordpress without having to purchase a domain name and host.
Your site is hosted on the WordPress.com hosts and you will get a domain name of the form.-mysite.Wordpress.com.
There are some restrictions on this type of hosting. The main ones being:
- Theme restrictions- can only use what is available on the wordpress.com servers
- Plugin restrictions-can only use what is available on the wordpress.com servers
- Cannot modify theme templates.
Although there are many large established sites using this I don’t recommend it for business sites.
Self Hosted WordPress at wordpress.org
In this configuration you need to purchase hosting space and a domain name and then install the wordpress files on the hosting space.
This is the preferred solution for business sites as you get you own domain name and not a sub domain of wordpress.com.
