WordPress.com vs WordPress.org: which one for a first site?

WordPress.com and WordPress.org run the same free software; the difference is who runs it. WordPress.com is a hosted service: you pay for a plan and it handles the updates and security. As of October 2026, every paid plan from Personal, at $48 a year, can upload a theme you bought elsewhere and install plugins. WordPress.org is where you download WordPress to run on hosting you rent yourself, at about $50 the first year and about $150 every year after, with the upkeep yours. So start from the theme you want: if it runs on Personal and you’d rather not look after a server, WordPress.com is the simpler choice. If you want full control, server access and no platform fee on sales, host it yourself.

Same software, two ways to run it

WordPress itself is open-source software, free to download from WordPress.org. To put a site online with it, you need a web host and a domain. Most hosts will install WordPress for you; before you buy, check that the plan offers what WordPress recommends: PHP 8.3 or later, MySQL 8.0 or MariaDB 10.11 or later, and HTTPS. This is what people mean by self-hosted WordPress.

WordPress.com is a company’s service built on that same software, from Automattic. You sign up, pick a plan and start building; there’s no server to choose or set up. The plans run from Free through Personal, Premium and Business to Commerce, and what each lets you install is the main thing that separates them.

	WordPress.com	Self-hosted (WordPress.org)
Who runs the server	WordPress.com	Your web host
Updates and security	Done for you	Yours, with help from your host
Themes and plugins	Any, on a paid plan; none of your own on Free	Any
Fee on sales	8% on Personal down to 0% on Commerce, for its own payment tools	None from WordPress; card fees only
Server access	From Business up	From day one

Start from the theme you want

The theme is the look of your site, and it decides more of this choice than the hosting does.

A free theme from the WordPress.org directory runs on both. Twenty Twenty-Five, WordPress’s own default theme and the one Theme Match suggests for a writer’s site, is listed as free on WordPress.com too.

A theme you buy from its maker or a marketplace comes as a .zip file. On your own hosting, you upload it from Appearance > Themes. On WordPress.com, uploading a theme works on the Personal, Premium, Business and Commerce plans. The file must be under 50 MB, and from a marketplace like ThemeForest you download the “Installable WordPress file only” version. WordPress.com is also plain that it can only help so much with themes it didn’t make, so the theme’s maker is your support.

Check what the theme needs besides itself. Many themes import a starter site, a ready-made demo you make your own, and that import installs the maker’s plugins. Installing plugins is available on every WordPress.com paid plan; until recently it needed Business, and many guides still say so. The free plan can’t install plugins or upload a theme.

What each costs a year

US prices on yearly billing as of October 2026, rounded to the nearest $10:

Route	First year	Every year after	What’s in it
WordPress.com Personal	about $50	about $70	$4 a month billed yearly; the domain is free the first year
WordPress.com Business	about $300	about $320	$25 a month billed yearly; real-time backups and server access
Self-hosted on shared hosting	about $50	about $150	hosting at about $4 a month, then about $11; a .com after year one

The “every year after” figures add a .com at about $20 a year once the free year ends. WordPress.com’s pricing page shows the yearly price but not what each plan renews at, so check the renewal line at checkout before you pay. On your own hosting the jump is certain: shared hosting sells the first year cheap and renews at the regular price. The hosts on our Tools page show both figures, and what a website costs per year adds up the rest of the bill: email, apps and a paid theme.

On paper, then, Personal is now the cheapest way to run WordPress with your own theme and plugins, provided it renews near its listed price.

Who looks after updates, backups and security

On WordPress.com it’s done for you. Every plan, the free one included, gets automatic WordPress updates, malware detection and removal, a firewall and protection against attacks. Backups are less clear-cut. The pricing page lists automated daily backups on Personal and Premium, and real-time backups with one-click restores from Business up, while WordPress.com’s own guide to its plans mentions backups only from Business. Ask WordPress.com which backups your plan includes before you count on them, and download your own export from Tools > Export now and then whichever plan you’re on.

On your own hosting it’s yours, and it’s a short routine rather than a hard one:

1. Updates. WordPress installs its minor and security releases by itself on most sites; major releases wait for you to click Update Now under Dashboard > Updates. Turn on automatic updates for each plugin and theme from their screens.
2. Backups. WordPress’s guide to backups splits the job in two, the files and the database, and suggests a weekly backup for a small site, plus one before every update. Your host probably backs up its servers, but getting a copy back can take time, so keep your own with a backup plugin such as UpdraftPlus.
3. Security. Keep everything updated, use a strong password, and delete themes and plugins you don’t use, since each one is code to keep patched.

Tip: before you choose your own hosting, open the host’s help pages and find out how to restore a backup. If you can’t find the answer before you pay, you won’t find it on the day you need it.

Plugins, stores and what you’ll add later

Most first sites add a few plugins in the first year: a contact form, an SEO plugin, a newsletter sign-up. WordPress.com now allows that on any paid plan, and your own hosting always has.

Selling is where they part. WordPress.com takes a fee on payments made through its own tools (paid subscriptions, paid posts and other payments) on top of Stripe’s processing fee: 8% on Personal, 4% on Premium, 2% on Business and nothing on Commerce. For a real store, WordPress.com points you to Commerce, at $45 a month billed yearly ($540 a year), which comes with WooCommerce’s store tools. On your own hosting, WooCommerce is a free plugin and nobody takes a cut beyond the card fees, though paid extensions add up and a busy store deserves better hosting than the cheapest plan.

If you’ll ever hire someone to work on the site, they’ll want server access (SFTP and SSH). WordPress.com lists that from Business up; on your own hosting it comes with the account.

Moving from one to the other

Going from WordPress.com to your own hosting is a well-worn route. Export your content from Tools > Export: the file holds your posts, pages and comments, but not your media files, theme or plugins, so download the media library separately too. On the new site, go to Tools > Import, choose WordPress (install the importer if asked), upload the file and tick “Download and import file attachments”. Then install your theme and plugins again, put your menus back, and move the domain. WordPress.com’s own import tool handles the trip the other way.

Either way the theme has to be set up again on the new site, which is the same job as changing themes. Our guide to switching WordPress themes without breaking your site covers the menus, widgets and settings that need putting back.

Which one to choose

• Choose WordPress.com if you want one bill and the upkeep done for you, your theme is free or a .zip you upload, and you’ll sell little or nothing through the site. Personal is enough for most first sites.
• Choose your own hosting if you want to pick and change your host, have server access from the start, or run a WooCommerce store without a platform fee, and you’re happy to keep up with updates and backups.
• Either works for a blog or a small business site on a free theme. Pick the one whose yearly bill and upkeep you’d still accept in year three.

Our WordPress section is for people who aren’t developers: setting up, the block editor, plugins, and keeping a site safe and fast.