WordPress.com review: A heavyweight site builder that makes you work for it

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WordPress.com is supposed to be the easy way to run a WordPress site without dealing with the headaches of hosting, security, or server maintenance. You pay them, they keep the lights on, and you get to focus on your content. Simple enough.

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The platform’s been around forever, starting life as a humble blogging tool. Now, it powers a huge chunk of the internet. Everyone from travel bloggers to small businesses to online stores leans on it. The problem is, in 2025, WordPress.com looks a little like a landlord who never fixed the wiring but still raised the rent every year. It’s powerful, sure. But you’ve got to put in work, and you’re often paying extra for what feels like table stakes.

WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org

First, let’s clear up the confusion: WordPress.com is the hosted version, where Automattic (the company behind it) handles the servers, updates, and security. WordPress.org is the open-source version, where you do everything yourself. If you want total control, plugins from day one, and the cheapest route in the long run, you go with .org. If you want a turn-key option where someone else unclogs the pipes, you pay WordPress.com.

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Themes and the block editor

The theme situation is typical WordPress, about 300 options, half free, all mobile-ready. They look clean, but the strings are attached. Basic plans let you change a few colors and fonts. You want to mess with CSS? That’ll cost you. You want to upload your own custom theme? That’s a Premium plan or higher.

The editor (Gutenberg) is the poster child for this love-hate relationship. It’s a block system. Every paragraph, picture, or button is a “block” you drag around. Once you get it, it’s fine. But it’s not “grandma can build a site in an afternoon” fine, and some veterans actually dislike it. Wix and Squarespace, they’re plug-and-play. Yes, there’s an AI assistant now that will write your headlines or generate stock images, but that just papers over the complexity.

Plugins, monetization, and pricing

The biggest draw is plugins. WordPress has tens of thousands of them. Tools for SEO, memberships, e-commerce, analytics, etc.. The catch? You don’t even get to touch them until you cough up for the Business plan (unless they have some sort of special going on). That’s the cruel joke of WordPress.com. Its best feature is locked behind the expensive tier. On the lower plans, you’re basically in a sandbox with plastic shovels.

Monetization exists, but it’s nickel-and-dimed. You can slap a payment button on your site even with the free plan, which is nice. Premium plans let you run WordAds, its answer to Google AdSense, though it’s not nearly as smart. If you want to sell real products, you’re back in Business or e-commerce territory, with WooCommerce bolted on. At that point, you’re paying almost $50 a month, which starts to look ridiculous when you remember you could spin up a WooCommerce store on your own hosting for a quarter of that.

Marketing and analytics follow the same playbook. You get the basics free, like SEO that’s just good enough, simple site stats, Mailchimp signups. You want real analytics, custom metadata, Yoast SEO? Guess what. Business plan. Again.

Pricing is where the whole picture comes into focus. Free gets you 1 GB of storage and WordPress ads stamped on your site. Personal is about $4 a month, which is fine for hobbyists. Premium at around $8 a month lets you run ads and unlocks premium themes. The real action starts at $25 a month for Business, where you finally get plugins and real SEO tools. E-commerce is $45. And if you’re a glutton for punishment, there’s an Enterprise tier that starts at $25,000 a year.

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Security and happiness engineers

To be fair, WordPress.com does nail security and maintenance. SSL certificates, firewalls, malware monitoring, and auto-updates are all included. You don’t have to think about it, which is worth something if you’ve ever had your self-hosted WordPress site nuked by a bad plugin update.

Support is also better than the wild west of WordPress.org forums. Free users get community support, paid users get email, and Premium and up unlock live chat. The staff, hilariously called “Happiness Engineers,” generally know their stuff.

So what do we end up with? WordPress.com is still one of the most powerful web hosting platforms you can use. It scales from a personal blog to a serious e-commerce store, and the plugin ecosystem makes it endlessly flexible. But the user experience is stuck in the past, and the real power is locked behind expensive plans.

If all you want is to throw together a five-page portfolio, you’d be better off using something simpler, like Wix. If your site is content-heavy, if blogging is central to your business, and if you’re willing to climb the learning curve, WordPress.com still makes sense. It’s not cheap, it’s not frictionless, but it’s powerful. The question is whether you want to rent space in Automattic’s walled garden, or if you’d rather grab the keys yourself with WordPress.org.

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ZDNET’s buying advice

WordPress.com is a great fit if you’re planning to run a blog or any site with a lot of content. It takes care of the hosting and security side of things for you, so you can just focus on building your site and adding content. And if your site grows, it scales with you. That part works.

But if you’re hoping for a point-and-click, drag-this-here, drop-that-there experience, you’re going to be disappointed. Same if you’re trying to build a serious online store on the cheap. There are easier, cheaper ways to do both.

The truth is, WordPress.com is still one of the most powerful website builders around, but it makes you earn it. If content is your business and you’re willing to fight through the learning curve, it’ll reward you. If not, you’ll probably be happier somewhere else.

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