On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…
Two WordPress Flavors.
WordPress comes in two flavors:
- A version that’s managed by Automattic.
- A version that’s managed by you.
This service is managed by Automattic, a company that’s heavily involved in the development of the WordPress platform. You can get a WordPress-powered site at WordPress.com for free, but you can also pay for extra features like having a dedicated domain name. Automattic maintains the domain name, servers, etc. All you do here is set up an account.
This website is where you go to download the WordPress software to install on your own server. Because you’re maintaining the software yourself, you have more customization features such as plugins which are like apps that extend the functionality of your website. If you have a WordPress.com account, you can up your self-maintained software to connect to your WordPress.com account, which gives you a “best-of-both-worlds” scenario.