Wordpress.com Review: A Heavyweight Site Builder That Makes You Work For It

1 day ago

ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

WordPress.com gives you a lot, but you won't get nan bully worldly for illustration plugins and superior SEO devices unless you're connected nan pricier Business plan
The artifact editor useful erstwhile you fig it out, but it's obscurity adjacent arsenic beginner-friendly arsenic drag-and-drop builders for illustration Wix aliases Squarespace
It's awesome for blogs aliases content-heavy sites, but not nan champion prime if you're caller to building websites aliases want a inexpensive measurement to tally an online store.

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WordPress.com is expected to beryllium nan easy measurement to tally a WordPress tract without dealing pinch nan headaches of hosting, security, aliases server maintenance. You salary them, they support nan lights on, and you get to attraction connected your content. Simple enough.

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The platform's been astir forever, starting life arsenic a humble blogging tool. Now, it powers a immense chunk of nan internet. Everyone from recreation bloggers to mini businesses to online stores leans connected it. The problem is, successful 2025, WordPress.com looks a small for illustration a landlord who ne'er fixed nan wiring but still raised nan rent each year. It's powerful, sure. But you've sewage to put successful work, and you're often paying other for what feels for illustration array stakes.

WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org

First, let's clear up nan confusion: WordPress.com is nan hosted version, wherever Automattic (the institution down it) handles nan servers, updates, and security. WordPress.org is nan open-source version, wherever you do everything yourself. If you want full control, plugins from time one, and nan cheapest way successful nan agelong run, you spell pinch .org. If you want a turn-key action wherever personification other unclogs nan pipes, you salary WordPress.com.

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Themes and nan artifact editor

The taxable business is emblematic WordPress, astir 300 options, half free, each mobile-ready. They look clean, but nan strings are attached. Basic plans fto you alteration a fewer colors and fonts. You want to messiness pinch CSS? That'll costs you. You want to upload your ain civilization theme? That's a Premium scheme aliases higher.

The editor (Gutenberg) is nan poster kid for this love-hate relationship. It's a artifact system. Every paragraph, picture, aliases fastener is simply a "block" you resistance around. Once you get it, it's fine. But it's not "grandma tin build a tract successful an afternoon" fine, and immoderate veterans really dislike it. Wix and Squarespace, they're plug-and-play. Yes, there's an AI adjunct now that will constitute your headlines aliases make banal images, but that conscionable papers complete nan complexity.

Plugins, monetization, and pricing

The biggest tie is plugins. WordPress has tens of thousands of them. Tools for SEO, memberships, e-commerce, analytics, etc.. The catch? You don't moreover get to touch them until you cough up for nan Business scheme (unless they person immoderate benignant of typical going on). That's nan sadistic joke of WordPress.com. Its champion characteristic is locked down nan costly tier. On nan little plans, you're fundamentally successful a sandbox pinch integrative shovels.

Monetization exists, but it's nickel-and-dimed. You tin slap a costs fastener connected your tract moreover pinch nan free plan, which is nice. Premium plans fto you tally WordAds, its reply to Google AdSense, though it's not astir arsenic smart. If you want to waste existent products, you're backmost successful Business aliases e-commerce territory, pinch WooCommerce bolted on. At that point, you're paying almost $50 a month, which starts to look ridiculous erstwhile you retrieve you could rotation up a WooCommerce shop connected your ain hosting for a 4th of that.

Marketing and analytics travel nan aforesaid playbook. You get nan basics free, for illustration SEO that's conscionable bully enough, elemental tract stats, Mailchimp signups. You want existent analytics, civilization metadata, Yoast SEO? Guess what. Business plan. Again.

Pricing is wherever nan full image comes into focus. Free gets you 1 GB of storage and WordPress ads stamped connected your site. Personal is astir $4 a month, which is good for hobbyists. Premium astatine astir $8 a period lets you tally ads and unlocks premium themes. The existent action starts astatine $25 a period for Business, wherever you yet get plugins and existent SEO tools. E-commerce is $45. And if you're a glutton for punishment, there's an Enterprise tier that starts astatine $25,000 a year.

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Security and happiness engineers

To beryllium fair, WordPress.com does nail information and maintenance. SSL certificates, firewalls, malware monitoring, and auto-updates are each included. You don't person to deliberation astir it, which is worthy thing if you've ever had your self-hosted WordPress tract nuked by a bad plugin update.

Support is besides amended than nan chaotic westbound of WordPress.org forums. Free users get organization support, paid users get email, and Premium and up unlock unrecorded chat. The staff, hilariously called "Happiness Engineers," mostly cognize their stuff.

So what do we extremity up with? WordPress.com is still 1 of nan astir powerful web hosting platforms you tin use. It scales from a individual blog to a superior e-commerce store, and nan plugin ecosystem makes it endlessly flexible. But nan personification acquisition is stuck successful nan past, and nan existent powerfulness is locked down costly plans.

If each you want is to propulsion together a five-page portfolio, you'd beryllium amended disconnected utilizing thing simpler, for illustration Wix. If your tract is content-heavy, if blogging is cardinal to your business, and if you're consenting to climb nan learning curve, WordPress.com still makes sense. It's not cheap, it's not frictionless, but it's powerful. The mobility is whether you want to rent abstraction successful Automattic's walled garden, aliases if you'd alternatively drawback nan keys yourself pinch WordPress.org.

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ZDNET's buying advice

WordPress.com is simply a awesome fresh if you're readying to tally a blog aliases immoderate tract pinch a batch of content. It takes attraction of nan hosting and information broadside of things for you, truthful you tin conscionable attraction connected building your tract and adding content. And if your tract grows, it scales pinch you. That portion works.

But if you're hoping for a point-and-click, drag-this-here, drop-that-there experience, you're going to beryllium disappointed. Same if you're trying to build a superior online shop connected nan cheap. There are easier, cheaper ways to do both.

The truth is, WordPress.com is still 1 of nan astir powerful website builders around, but it makes you gain it. If contented is your business and you're consenting to conflict done nan learning curve, it'll reward you. If not, you'll astir apt beryllium happier location else.