2 Things I Learned Moving from WP.com to WP.org

When I started blogging earlier this year, I wasn’t ready to make an investment on a paid hosting provider so I started a free WordPress.com blog.

Free is better right? Not necessarily.

With WordPress.com I sacrificed the amazing plugins and themes from the thousands of developers out there and control over advertisements and the lack of support for JavaScript/HTML embeds, except from “secure” sources such as Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo,  SoundCloud, and a few others.

I also can’t host a video or audio file on WordPress.com without spending $50+ for the VideoPress and more storage “upgrades”.

After gathering 36 WordPress.com followers, I decided that the time was right to move over to the power of a clean self-hosted WordPress install. There are plenty of strong and powerful WordPress hosting providers out there, but I eventually chose Dreamhost.

Deciding the best web host for you is a whole different story!

There were plenty of reasons for me to stay blogging on WordPress.com, but there were far more many reasons for me to choose self-hosted WordPress. I can’t list them all today so here are two reasons why I chose WordPress.org.

1. Community – There is a community based around WordPress that you can’t find on a paid service. There are people who make their living off the power of this open-source service down to people like me who blog for the fun of it. People are passionate about this software. You can find thousands of free and paid themes and plugins, there are dozens of awesome WordPress websites, such as WP Daily.
2. Power – WordPress.org powers a demanding portion of the web and I can rest easy knowing that my site is based on the same software powering the 20% of the Internet. I can find loads of awesome plugins that can infinitely extend the power of my website. My favorites – Akismet, WordPress SEO, and Jetpack (It deserves a little bit more love).

I have just started my journey and so I’m learning a lot in the process, but it’s definitely exciting and I’m ready to learn so much more!

Before you go to a free service that restricts you to their walled garden, choose the power and passionate community of WordPress.org.