My story: Moving from Wordpress.com to Wordpress.org (Part I)

07
Aug
2013

My story: Moving from WordPress.com to WordPress.org (Part I)

I started blogging since March 2012 using a free account in WordPress.com. Writing became a helpful distraction at the time. Soon, I was overwhelmed by a number of people liking, commenting, following, and even contacting me through my site. In less than a year, I got more than 3000 blog followers which I initially did not expect. I felt very much appreciated that I continued blogging more.

However, I had a terrible blogging nightmare few months ago which scared me of losing all my posts and interaction with my dear followers. For a week, my site was stagnant and I felt a part of me became sick. Next to reading, blogging became essential to me that the thought of ripping it away made me feel very uncomfortable. After waiting an eternity for WordPress to reply to my feedback, I decided to take the matter in my own hands.

First, I googled my situation and was surprised to find that the same thing was happening to a lot of bloggers worldwide. Some even experienced it five times. A little relieved that I was not alone in my dilemma, I started looking for tips on how to move forward. After a few hours of dedicated searching and reading, I came up with this question:

Shall I move from WordPress.com to WordPress.org?

Just like most of you, I also didn’t know the difference between the two. Good thing there were a lot of search results explaining both. Turned out WordPress comes in two flavors: an open source software with thousands of free themes and plug-ins easy to modify; and a commercial account with free hosting, but limited freedom. They have a lot of differences and to help you understand better, I would compare the two using photos by wpmu.org, a helpful tutorial site for WordPress users.

WordPress.com vs WordPress.org

On Freedom and Limitation

WordPress.com is a free account so some options are limited. For example, you can only use themes provided by WordPress.com and you cannot modify them unless you purchase the Custom Design option. Same goes with the custom plug-ins. Moreover, the storage space is only small if you want to post a lot of photos and videos – a mere 3GB. On the other hand, WordPress.org boasts to have thousands of editable themes and if you want, you can create one for your own. There are also a lot of custom plug-ins you can choose, too. More importantly, you can add and edit files via ftp and make your site cleaner without ads.

[credits to: http://wpmu.org//caption

On Cost
Hosting is free in WordPress.com whereas to use the open source software of WordPress.org, you will need a web hosting site and a domain. Hosting can cost you $5+ per month, and domain $10/year. A bit pricey compared to the free WordPress.com account, but let’s compare the two if you want to avail the add-ons or upgrades.

[credits to: http://wpmu.org//caption

On Maintenance and Development

WordPress.com takes care of everything- from WordPress upgrades to plug-in and theme updates. WordPress.org, on the other hand, requires the blogger’s attention whenever there will be software updates so the site will not be susceptible to spammers and hackers. If you do not wish to study on more technical aspect of blogging, then WordPress.com will be good for you.

On Certain Scenario

There are a lot of factors to consider before one can be able to decide which to use. WPMU.ORG has listed some cases which can help to choose where you want to host your site.

[credits to: http://wpmu.org//caption

After considering all of the things mentioned above, I finally decided to move out from my free WordPress.com site to a self-hosted one using WordPress.org. Being able to choose was a huge step for me, but it would be the first among the many in my journey to make Impressions of a Princess a better home for me and my followers.

For those who requested for me to write in detail what and how I went through the entire process, please stay tuned for Part 2!

14 Comments on My story: Moving from WordPress.com to WordPress.org (Part I)

Marc Kuhn
August 7, 2013 at 9:30 PM (4 months ago)

Good information here and well presented…nice job, Monica! I am staying tuned to Part 2.
Reply
- gongjumonica
  August 8, 2013 at 10:38 AM (4 months ago)
  
  Thanks, Gpop! I hope I will be able to write the part 2 soon!
  Reply
- kiwigal007
  August 15, 2013 at 9:19 AM (4 months ago)
  
  I really appreciate you taking the time out to explain all this to us. I wondered about wordpress.org too and maybe I might look into at some point down the track. Thank you for coming into my own blog recently and stopping by. I never realised how many followers I had until I added that widget!
  Reply
Donah @ SweetJellyBean
August 7, 2013 at 9:33 PM (4 months ago)

Yay, that’s amazing! Congrats on the move. I was on the same boat as you before, too. Not knowing what is best or the difference – thank goodness to Google, you seem to find all answers these days haha. Very thorough post, love it! Btw, which host did you decide to go with? x Donah
Reply
Ste J
August 8, 2013 at 3:35 AM (4 months ago)

I never knew this, although one of my mates was on about it to me just today…you are so topical, add that to your ninja skills. You make it all informative and easy to understand. If only I was a fan of fashion as well, this would be my perfect website, hehe.
Reply
John
August 9, 2013 at 9:41 AM (4 months ago)

Best of luck Monica, the .ORG side takes more time and effort since you have full responsibility for the site in all aspects. It didn’t work for me twice. The .COM side is much better. It allows you to focus on doing the things you want -vs- maintaining the site here and there…
Reply
M.C. Easton
August 11, 2013 at 11:36 AM (4 months ago)

So informative, Monica. Thanks for educating me!
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spencercourt
August 12, 2013 at 12:13 AM (4 months ago)

Now that you have your own domain, you can do more than just blog too!

I followed just the opposite path. I started with my own website and domain and then added the blog. Since the website was taking a lot of time (not so much now), I did not want to go with the “org” because I did not want the additional work.

If you travel, you may want to think about putting your travel photos on a separate travel photo site within your domain and link to that from your blog. Folks looking for travel photos will then learn about your blog.

Whatever works…!
Reply
prisailurophileblog
August 12, 2013 at 12:05 PM (4 months ago)

This is really helpful, Monica. I’m glad things worked out fine for you Looking forward to part 2!
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Jeann @ Happy Indulgence
August 14, 2013 at 6:15 AM (4 months ago)

Great post Monica, I recently moved from WordPress.com to WordPress.org too and while there was a bit of a difficult period in the transition, it’s been running fine ever since
Reply
- gongjumonica
  August 14, 2013 at 3:23 PM (4 months ago)
  
  Thanks, Jeann. How did you work on it? What’s your web host? Honestly, I spent a great deal of time researching until I found mine. I am happy with its performance!
  Reply
apple.e.e-s.
August 20, 2013 at 6:53 PM (4 months ago)

Thank you for posting this Monica. Now I am enlightened. I have been wanting to add more plugins and thought of getting a different host, though I worry about having to put up more time maintaining my site for any upgrades and stuff. I kinda agree with John above about having just to focus on what to blog. I am not very techie. Im glad you had a smooth transition
Reply
neenz87
August 31, 2013 at 10:38 PM (3 months ago)

This is very useful information, Nica!. if you chose the org version when why is your site still gongjumonica.com and not gongjumonica.org?. Thank you for this detailed post. It’s just what I wanted. Gonna read part 2 now…
Reply
Agata
October 13, 2013 at 7:38 PM (2 months ago)

I keeps my fingers crossed for part two Thanks for the post :*
Reply

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