It’s been a while, so before I dive in, let me clear this up quickly; There are two WordPresses: WordPress.org and WordPress.com. Briefly, WordPress.org is site-building software offered for free and built and supported entirely by volunteers. WordPress.com is a site-building service that uses and contributes back to the WordPress.org software, adds lots of cool built-in features, and takes care of all the hosting and management tasks for you. But, you don’t have to take my word for it! You can read more about the differences from the folks at WordPress.com and from the folks at WordPress.org.
This site has a long history of moving between WordPress.com and WordPress.org, with the last move to WordPress.org back in 2014 because I wanted to use plugins again. Plugins are powerful tools that extend the WordPress software, and the free directory alone currently has 60,175 of them, so not being able to use plugins on WordPress.com at the time was a big deal for me and finally led me to move. Folks would say that WordPress.com was not the whole WordPress experience, and I wouldn’t blame them for saying that.
Well, good news! Since the Business Plan’s introduction, WordPress.com sites have been able to use plugins and install third-party themes! That means you can now get the whole WordPress experience on WordPress.com without the hassle of dealing with a separate hosting provider and handling all the management yourself. So are there other managed WordPress hosting providers out there? Sure, but WordPress.com’s Business Plan is priced very competitively, and you don’t even have to worry about page view or bandwidth limits!
So, before I continue and this starts to sound like an ad (because disclaimer: I do work for Automattic), I just wanted to mention that this site is finally back on WordPress.com, where you can finally get the whole WordPress experience without the hassle.