When you want to sell online or just channel your hobby of writing and telling stories on the internet for many people to see, what you should do is create a website so you can visit it. There are many easy ways to create a website now and one of them is using WordPress.
But did you know that there are 2 kinds of WordPress: WordPress.com and WordPress.org. Hmm, what’s the difference between the two?
WordPress at a Glance
In general, WordPress is a content management system (or so-called CMS / Content Management System) to create your own website easily, simply, and quickly. Creating a WordPress account only takes a few minutes and voila! You already have your own website.
Based on research conducted by W3techs, WordPress now controls almost 40% of websites on the internet. Many companies like Microsoft, and bloggers whose websites are powered by WordPress. In addition, WordPress is also widely used for e-commerce stores, portfolios or someone’s resume, social networks, forums, and membership sites.
Apart from being commonly used by many people, there are also many tutorials to learn the system yourself. Up to now, WordPress has 5,000 themes and 50,0000 beautiful plugins that you can customize to your individual needs. With so many themes and plugins, one doesn’t need to be a reliable website developer and start one’s own website.
Similar but not the same
But did you know that WordPress has 2 different platforms? One is WordPress.com and the other is WordPress.org. Ordinary people or maybe they will be confused to choose which one is actually the right one to use.
The selection should be tailored to the level of online success that each user wants to achieve. So the following will explain the difference between WordPress Hosted and WordPress Self-hosted.
Difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org
The main difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org lies in who manages your site. Do you have full control of the site yourself or are you assisted with WordPress? All will be described below
WordPress.com or WordPress Hosted
WordPress.com is also known as WordPress Hosted.
At WordPress.com, everything has been provided for you from themes that are free to use so you just have to adjust a little according to your taste. Change the background color, and change the typeface according to the one provided by the WordPress site.
WordPress.com doesn’t require any external hosting and domain because it’s all 100% free and provided by WordPress. You just need to create an account! So easy right?
WordPress.org or WordPress Self-hosted
While WordPress.org or any other language WordPress is self-hosted, then you are the one who fully manages and manages the website. All you need is a domain name and WordPress hosting.
Even though you have to make a purchase for these two things, you will not be limited to the availability of themes or plugins, or tools that WordPress has provided. If you want your website to stand out and stand out from the rest, self-hosted WordPress (WordPress.org) is highly recommended.
So… Is WordPress.org Suitable for Beginners?
One of the best things that WordPress has is that it is easy to learn. WordPress itself is not difficult to get started. In fact, you can learn the basics pretty quickly. This is one of the reasons why WordPress is gaining so much popularity.
Before WordPress came along, building a website was quite technical and frustrating. Only designers and developers with a solid understanding of HTML, CSS, and compliance standards can build a good website.
And although we had web design apps like Dreamweaver long before WordPress came along, they functioned more like word processors. You’ve chosen File > New, and then have to create your web page from scratch, every time.
But WordPress has largely removed these technical barriers. Anyone with any skill level — even just general computer skills — can use WordPress to build and run their website.
And because WordPress is a CMS, you don’t start over with a blank page. Instead, you start with a fully designed website that is ready for your content and customization. It makes getting your website online easy.
And here’s what’s great!
As a newbie to web design, you can keep things simple and stick to the basics of WordPress. Use a point-and-click interface to run your website and add new content as needed. Maybe that’s all you want to know about WordPress — and that’s fine! Or if you prefer, you can delve deeper and deeper into WordPress. Maybe you decide to learn about custom theme design. Or maybe you speed up your HTML and CSS to keep up with your WordPress skills — who knows! The point is, you can go as far as you want with this stuff.
In fact, in many ways, WordPress can serve as a gateway to the larger world of web design and running projects online. And as you continue to dig into WordPress and web design, they evolve and grow with you, taking you as far as you want.
If there’s one area of WordPress that’s hard to learn for beginners, it’s WordPress themes and plugins. It can be difficult to learn because it is so unregulated. This makes it a bit of the Wild West out there. As great as themes and plugins are, sometimes the documentation is unclear or even non-existent.
Install a new plugin, for example, and you may find yourself fiddling with it for a while as you figure out how it works. So there may be some trial and error, and this can be frustrating at times.
But not reflected in WordPress. This is poor documentation on the plugin or theme developer section. On its own, WordPress is very easy to use.
How Long Does It Take To Learn WordPress?
Are you wondering how long it will take to learn WordPress? The good news is, you can understand the basics of WordPress in no more than a weekend — let’s say about eight to ten hours. It doesn’t take long to get started with WordPress.
And if you continue to work with him, after about a week you will feel quite comfortable with him. Again, because WordPress is a CMS designed with non-technical users in mind, it’s easy to learn.
Beyond the basics, it really depends on how far you want to go with WordPress. Remember, WordPress can be as big or small as you want. If you just want to know the basics, this is all it takes. But if you want to go further into WordPress, you certainly can.
Maybe you want to get into building layouts with a website builder plugin like Elementor. Or maybe you want to start developing a custom WordPress theme or plugin. Understanding these more intermediate and advanced WordPress topics will of course take longer.
Oh yes, one more important thing, you have to make sure the hosting service you use can serve you well, such as providing one-click installation and friendly and easy-to-contact customer support. In this case, I usually entrust it to ASPHostPortal, they have a very good experience, and their servers are very rarely down.
But initially, you can get WordPress up and running very quickly.
