WordPress, WordPress.org, and WordPress.com: What is the difference?

- I want to start off by addressing a common confusion in terms that arises any time we talk about WordPress. On the web, there are two domains that use the name WordPress, wordpress.org and wordpress.com, and you'll find that when talking to people or reading about WordPress, these two domains are often used interchangeably or haphazardly. This is unfortunate, but understandable, so let's bring some clarity to the situation. When speaking about WordPress, we have to make a clear distinction between three different terms: WordPress, wordpress.org, and wordpress.com.

WordPress is the application itself, a free open-source web publishing application you can download and install on any server to publish content on the web. An example of the correct use of the term WordPress would be, "My new website is powered by WordPress." Wordpress.org is the website that hosts the WordPress open-source project. You can download WordPress, the application, from wordpress.org, and this is also where you'll find the official documentation for the application, in the form of the WordPress codex, and the WordPress handbooks, the official support forum for WordPress, and, finally, make.wordpress.org, the blog network used to publish and discuss information about the future of WordPress itself.

An example of the correct use of the term wordpress.org would be, "If you're having a problem with your new WordPress site, "try asking a question in the wordpress.org forums." Wordpress.com is a site that distributes WordPress as a software as a service application, for free or for pay. You can build your own site on wordpress.com without having to install WordPress itself, but your site will be restricted by the platform and its rules. For example, you cannot install your own plugins and themes on a wordpress.com site.

You have to pick from a curated list of functions and options. An example of the correct use of the term wordpress.com would be, "I built my first blog on wordpress.com. "Now I want to add functionality to it, "so I'm moving it to a self-hosted WordPress site." There's one more name worth mentioning here, Automattic. Automattic is the company founded by WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg that owns and operates wordpress.com and a series of associated projects, like Jetpack and VideoPress and VaultPress.

Automattic is often misattributed as the company that runs WordPress, but they're only responsible for wordpress.com. Now, some of this confusion undoubtedly comes from the fact that Matt Mullenweg is also the leader of the WordPress Open Source Project. So there you have it. WordPress is the application. Wordpress.org is where you get it. And wordpress.com is a service built on top of WordPress. In this course, we'll be working with WordPress, the application, and it all starts by downloading it from wordpress.org.