When we say "WordPress", some of our clients immediately think of the popular WordPress.com hosted service. WordPress itself is actually an open source piece of software that can be utilized as a base for making websites. WordPress is completely free, and developed by a community of very talented developers around the world. It can be expanded with plugins to extend its core functionality, and provides a great jumping off point for creating new websites. As a custom design and development team, we use WordPress to expedite our development, allowing us to save time and money for our clients. When we're referring to the open source WordPress project, we're actually referring to the software hosted on WordPress.org.

The popular WordPress.com platform is actually built on the open source WordPress project, but is a fully hosted solution. You sign up for WordPress.com, and optionally pay a monthly fee, and they give you easy access to an already set up WordPress site. The problem with WordPress.com is that it removes many of the core features and vital functionality of the open source WordPress project, so it creates a restrictive environment.

We like to recommend that all of our clients, small or large, make sure to start out with the open source WordPress.org software, and don't get sucked in to the WordPress.com offering. While appealing for easy set up, choosing WordPress.com can cause growing pains down the road.