When I started blogging people used to tell me: “Use WordPress it is the best CMS”.

That sparked two questions for me:

1. What is a CMS? and
2. What is WordPress?

I will try to answer these two questions as simply as possible.

1. What is a CMS (Content Management System) ?

A content management system (CMS) in short manages all your website content. These started with blogs, but are now used to run most websites. Over 60 million websites are powered by WordPress. Before CMS we had to learn HTML to be able to write and link each page of our websites. This we then had to upload to a server at our hosting provider.

With a CMS you can just log in to the backend and write your own content in a very friendly and easy to use editor. If you can use Word or Pages you can write a post on your own website.

The CMS also helps you with the look of your website. You can choose and customise themes, change colours, move items around, organise posts in categories, customise your menu and do many more things to the look and feel of your website.

In short a CMS is a must have if you have a website or blog.

2. What is WordPress?

In short WordPress is the most widely used CMS. Some reasons for WordPress being so popular:

• It is the best CMS (in my opinion)
• Lots of Plugins available
• User friendly
• SEO friendly
• Very customisable
• Over 60 million websites are powered by WordPress

So what is the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?

The WordPress software is open source software written by a very large community. You can download the WordPress software from WordPress.org and install it legally and for free on any server of your choice. Some web hosts even give you a one click install for WordPress. I recommend Bluehost as they have a one click install for WordPress and their servers are setup to optimally run WordPress. Bluehost is based in the US, for a local option you can try Afrihost. They also have a one click install for WordPress.

WordPress.com is run by some of the same people from WordPress.org, but it is a hosting spinoff. At WordPress.com you can easily subscribe and then have a hosted WordPress blog or website. Very easy to setup.

Reasons to use WordPress.com:

1. You want the easiest setup
2. It is a personal blog and you want free hosting
3. You don’t mind not having “full control”
4. Limited Analytics are good enough

Reasons to use WordPress.org on a server like Bluehost and Afrihost:

1. One click install
2. Full control
3. More plugins available
4. You need Google Analytics and on these servers you can use Google Analytics

 

What are you using and why? Comment below.