Countless people get confused – let’s clear this up. If you want WordPress, the free, open source, self hosted software (CMS), wordpress.com is not the place to get it, not really. You should go to wordpress.org, and find a separate hosting (my hosting recommendations) to put your website online (and yes, naked domains make baby Jesus cry 🙂 ). But, as far as managed WordPress hosting goes, wordpress.com can be a decent choice (with some caveats discussed below). Let’s dive into that and explain it.
Guess where I first ended up when I started Googling about WordPress about ten years ago? 🙂
Table Of Contents (T.O.C.):
1. What is “WordPress hosting?”
Practically any hosting server that can run PHP, a database, and let you store files can be used to host WordPress. There is nothing special about hosting WordPress compared to hosting any other database-driven (see dynamically generated content – vs static) website.
Sure, some providers offer better service compared to others, but that is not the point of this article – for those details you can see my web hosting reviews, or jump straight to my web hosting recommendations.
Having said that, some providers advertise “(Managed) WordPress Hosting.” Very often that is a marketing gimmick, but sometimes, some providers really offer something extra, like taking care of your theme and plugin updates, providing a one-click staging environment creation, offering support by people who know how WordPress in particular works etc.
With that in mind, the really managed WordPress hosting often comes with more or less limitations (here, I wrote more about the “WordPress hosting“). For example, I don’t think you should use a WordPress plugin to backup your WordPress – it is more reliable and more efficient to do that on the server level, instead of having WordPress trying to back itself up. So, if I wanted to offer managed WP hosting, I could prevent you from installing and using such plugins (along with the Yoast and Rank Math SEO plugins, to name just a few) and consider that to be a jolly good idea for the benefits of my clients (keeping the sites running well, and the costs low).
My point is that more freedom means more responsibility, and managed WordPress hosting takes a big chunk of that burden from customers to themselves. That cuts both ways. What do I mean? For example:
I like to think that I know what I’m doing, so I prefer to have more freedom, but I know many users who prefer to not think about the technical stuff and just have a site that works.
Either is OK, but this is important to have in mind when discussing the wordpress.com hosting.
2. WordPress.com hosting (owned by Automattic)
WordPress.com is owned by the Automattic company, with Matt Mullenweg as its CEO. Technically, it is a managed WordPress hosting platform (see above), but with some caveats:
- The company’s owner has a huge influence on the WordPress community, including the self-hosted wordpress.org version. For example, they’ve blocked a competitor from accessing WordPress updates. Just like that!
- They’ve scraped and copied the entire wordpress.org plugin repository, so that if you Google search for a cetain plugin, you might end up on their wordpress.com website and think that you must pay for their hosting service in order to use that plugin.
- They own the WordPress branding and logos, and are allowed to use the wordpress.com domain, which confuses many people who are looking for the free, open source, self-hosted WordPress (.org).
In terms of hosting quality: I would say it is fast, very stable, reliable, and that technical support is not bad.
When it comes to managed WordPress hosting, it can be a good choice (but read on).
Caveat 1:
You need to pay for the Busines or a more expensive plan (starting at $300 per year) to get to install any plugins.
I’ve been using their free hosting (with all the limitations) for years (the free option doesn’t let you use your domain, you must use a yourdomain.wordpress.com subdomain, and you can’t install any plugins) and haven’t had a problem. I’ve also tested the paid version when I applied for a job there (so didn’t pay any money for it, got it for free, but this review is not sponsored nor endorsed by the company).
Caveat 2 – my presonal major concern at the time of writing:
With the above-stated in mind, I am currently not in a position to test how easy it is to move a website away from wordpress.com. I know that I can quickly and easily move between different non-managed-WordPress hosting providers (and have done so in the past countless times, either “manually” or using automated tools), but I’m waiting for feedback from other “ordinary” hosting providers on how easy it is to migrate away from the wordpres.com (should a customer desire to do so) compared to moving from the “standard” cPanel or DirectAdmin hosting accounts. I would expect moving away after a few years of hosting at wordpress.com (and many photos and articles published) can be a pain in the neck. Sort of a “soft lock-in” (compared to the more “standard” cPanel / DirectAdmin hosting).
An older article where I listed the differences between wordpress.com and the self-hosted wordpress.
3. Conclusion
This article was inspired by the latest WordPress drama and confusion – that I’ve docummented on my forum:
https://www.bikegremlin.net/threads/wordpress-com-owner-matt-bashes-on-wp-engine-and-silver-lake-capital.352/
Despite that, I know some high-quality people who work for wordpress.com (which is why I too had applied for a job there), and in terms of hosting quality, I still think it can be a good option if you are looking for managed WordPress hosting (apart from the above-discussed caveats). However, at the time of writing, I highly prefer giving my money to MDDHosting (to name one), and you can see my up-to-date hosting recommendations here:
https://io.bikegremlin.com/services/hosting/#4
Last updated:
Originally published:
Hi, I want to comment about 2 caveats:
First caveat 1, I agree that the price is high (for me). But what is often forgotten is that some portion of the benefits will go back to supporting WordPress.org (for example, to finance the ecosystem in the WP.org cloud which is rarely asked who has been financing it). Now, back to price, I have several times seen people say WP.com is expensive, but then they use other products which are actually have higher price, for example Shopify, Wix, or even WP hosting Siteground (we can compare it with the GrowBig package in terms of renewal price/not the initial price and limitations). Maybe only EasyWP by Namecheap that truly managed hosting with a lower price than WordPress.com.
Then, for caveat 2, I used the WP business package, and I managed to move it to shared hosting for USD 10/year without any problems (just export and import the backup file).
I don’t work for Automattic and I’m not a Matt fan either, but I just wanted to look more objectively.
Hi,
Fair points. Some of my thoughts about the caveats:
1) I’ve had clients who are quite happy with some of the listed providers. Still, they would not be on my list of hosting recommendations – not just because of the price (to clarify, I don’t think they are bad, just think there are better options, that also happen to be cheaper as well).
Still, to be fair, those recommendations are by no means extensive (just what I’ve managed to test so far and been very happy with), and they aren’t truly managed WordPress hosting.
It is also fair to note (I think I mentioned this in the article) that WP.com hosting is very fast, and secure (I have no fresh first hand info about the tech. support quality).
2) I’m curious about the migration process. With “standard” hosting I can just export the database, files, and import them on a new server. Works even with huge databases via terminal. I can finish the whole process, then change the DNS records, so apart from a short purchasing pause on web-shops, the migration is done without any downtime.
How does migration from WP.com look nowadays? Have you tested it on some large websites?
Thanks in advance for any info.
P.S.
I would also argue that WP.com is the main (or one of the main) benefactor of WordPress development (while WP.org still relies on a huge number of free, volunteer man-hours). Countless people who hear about WordPress end up on WP.com (me included when I first started about a decade ago). So by improving and managing the repository, they are helping themselves (along with the others). Based on the latest events, it is also clear that WP.com controls the free WP.org tightly. Finally, this hot take makes me question how good of a job they are doing.
Relja