If you’re not using data to guide your website strategy, you’re just guessing. Google Analytics is one of the most widely used tools for understanding how your site content performs.

In this post, we’ll show you how to connect Google Analytics to your WordPress site so that you can start uncovering actionable insights about your content and users.

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a free website analytics tool that helps you understand how visitors navigate and interact with your site. It’s easy to connect (more on that below) by adding a tracking code to your WordPress site. Once installed, it helps you better understand:

• Your website visitor demographics (like location, device type, and browser)
• How people find your site (like Google search, social media, and direct visits)
• Individual page interactions (like which pages are viewed most and how long your readers stay on your site)
• Conversions (like purchases, signups, and downloads)

Installing Google Analytics on your site enables you to make data-driven decisions, like tailoring your website experience and marketing campaigns according to visitor preferences and behavior.

Install Google Analytics on your WordPress site

Ready to add Google Analytics to your site? Follow these steps to start collecting data:

Step 1: Sign up for Google Analytics

You’ll need to create a Google Analytics account if you don’t already have one.

1. Go to the Google Analytics website and click “Get started today.”

2. Give your account a name by entering an “Account name” and customize your data sharing settings. These settings will allow you to control how much of your site data you share with Google.

3. The next step is to “Create a property,” which is the website Google will track. Enter the name of your business or website here. You will also choose your reporting time zone and local currency.

4. The final steps are about your business or website. Choose an industry that best matches your niche and your business size.

5. Choose the business objectives that fit your purpose of using Google Analytics. For example, if you want to increase blog traffic, select “Understand web and/or app traffic.” You can choose multiple categories if you have more than one goal.

6. Click Create and accept Google’s Terms of Service Agreement.
7. Finally, choose your data streams. These sources will help Google collect information about your content’s performance to provide accurate analytics. Choose Web and type your URL. Enter your site name in “Stream Name.” Google Analytics turns on “Enhanced Measurements” by default, allowing it to measure interactions on your website. You can toggle this off if you just want to measure page views.

8. Click “Create and continue” to finish setting up your Google Analytics account.

Step 2: Copy your Measurement ID

Once you finish setting up your account, Google Analytics will provide you with your web stream details: your Stream Name, Stream URL, Stream ID, and Measurement ID.

Click the copy icon next to your Measurement ID. This is the number you’ll need to connect to your WordPress site.

Step 3: Add the Measurement ID to your WordPress website

There are three ways to add your Measurement ID to your WordPress site:

• Use a plugin like Site Kit by Google or MonsterInsights
• Add a code to your WordPress theme
• Use Jetpack, which comes pre-installed on WordPress.com sites

You only need to add your Google Analytics information to your website once using one of the methods above; adding your analytics measurement to your site more than once may result in inaccurate reporting.

If you want to use a plugin, simply activate it and follow the step-by-step instructions. Each plugin has a slightly different process, but they should guide you through the connection process.

If you want to add code to your theme manually, follow these steps:

1. Go to your Google Analytics dashboard.
2. Click Admin in the bottom-left corner.
3. Under the Property column, click “Data Streams.”
4. Scroll down and click “View tag instructions.”
5. Copy the full tracking script under “Install manually.”

6. Log in to your WordPress dashboard.
7. Paste the code in your theme’s header.php file.

We recommend only using the code method if you’re comfortable editing theme files. The plugin method works just fine if you aren’t confident in editing your website theme’s code. Moreover, when your theme updates or changes, this code may be overwritten.

If you have a website on WordPress.com, you don’t need to use a plugin or code to integrate Google Analytics. Sites on our Premium, Business, Commerce, or legacy Pro plans can use the pre-installed Jetpack plugin to easily connect your site to your Google Analytics account:

1. Go to your WordPress.com dashboard.
2. Navigate to Tools → Marketing (or Jetpack → Settings if using WP Admin).
3. Select the Traffic tab.
4. Find the Google section and enter your Measurement ID in the “Google Analytics Measurement ID” box.
5. Click “Save settings.”

After following one of the three methods outlined above, Google Analytics will start capturing your website data in 48–72 hours.

How to use Google Analytics to improve your site performance

While Google Analytics has plenty of information and data for site owners, it’s only valuable if you know how to use it. Here are three use cases to make sense of the data you see in Google Analytics now that it’s connected to your WordPress site:

1. Analyze the behavior of your website visitors

Google Analytics tracks how your website visitors interact with your content. You can see:

• Clicks
• Page views
• Bounce rate
• Average engagement time

You’ll find this data under the Reports section in Google Analytics. If you open the “Life cycle” collection, you can dig into the Engagement reports, including the Pages and screens report, which summarizes content views and how long users stay:

These metrics can help you understand how your website content is performing. For example, they can highlight pages with low views, minimal clicks, or high bounce rates and help you investigate why visitors aren’t engaging. Is the content missing the mark? Is the load time too slow? Is it just a seasonal dip?

You can use the insights here to improve the user experience on your website.

2. Gain a deeper understanding of who your ideal visitors are

How well do you think you know your website visitors? You likely had a certain target audience in mind while creating your website; Google Analytics can help you verify whether or not you’re reaching them.

In Google Analytics’s “User attributes” section, you can monitor the demographic details of your website visitors: location, gender, interests, and age.

If you want to dive deeper, go to the Audiences section. It will show you the nitty-gritty details, such as the demographic information about your customers with high purchase activity, people with abandoned carts, and engaged visitors.

These insights are especially valuable if you run a business using your website. For example, if you notice that most of the audience in your abandoned cart is on a mobile device, it might be a signal to make your design more mobile-friendly.

3. Inform your SEO strategy

If you’re working to improve your site’s search result rankings, Google Analytics (especially the Search Console report) can provide valuable data to inform your strategy.

You can monitor which keywords you rank for, click-through rates from Google search results, and how your ranking changes over time.

These insights can fuel your search engine optimization strategy to include more of the right keywords in the right places. Combining these SEO insights with the engagement metrics (also present in GA4) allows you to strategically make changes to ensure people stay on your site longer.

On websites powered by WordPress.com, you also get a host of additional SEO features to boost your efforts, such as adding meta descriptions and customizing your titles for search results.

Turn data into direction

Once you have Google Analytics set up on your WordPress site, you’ll want to ensure you’re regularly checking in on its performance. Don’t let those numbers just collect dust; use them as your guideposts to understand what’s working on your site and what needs improvement.

And as your website grows, you’ll need reliable hosting and built-in tools to help you work more efficiently. WordPress.com brings everything together—hosting, domains, ecommerce tools, performance, and expert support—in one seamless platform that scales with you. Get started with WordPress.com or migrate your existing WordPress site today.

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When you’re building websites for a living, you want to make sure you pick the right tool for the job. We’re comparing Webflow vs WordPress in this article to help you decide between two of the most popular website-building platforms.

Both solutions offer powerful features but take very different approaches to website building and design. We’ll examine key areas like setup, user experience, design flexibility, performance, security, SEO, and pricing. The goal is to help you understand which platform better fits your and your clients’ needs.

What is Webflow?

Webflow is a SaaS platform that combines visual design tools, content management, and hosting into one streamlined website builder.

Among content management systems, Webflow has a market share of 1.2% and powers 0.8% of all websites.

What is WordPress?

WordPress is the most popular software solution for website building. Free, open source, and initially built for blogging, WordPress has evolved into a flexible CMS capable of powering everything from portfolios and business sites to ecommerce stores and enterprise applications.

WordPress delivers a lean core product that you can extend and customize on demand thanks to themes and plugins created by its massive community. WordPress’ market share is 43% of all websites globally and 61.3% among CMSs, with a significant lead over its next competitors.

WordPress vs Webflow: key differences

This section breaks down important differences between the two platforms. Strapped for time? Here’s everything you need to know in one handy table:

1. Setup

Because Webflow is a SaaS platform, it doesn’t need any installation. You just sign up and can start building websites right away, including the option to buy a domain and automatically connect it to your website.

If you use self-hosted WordPress, you must purchase hosting and a domain, connect the two, download WordPress, and set it up in the web space with the famous five-minute install.

In reality, most providers now offer one-click automatic installs for WordPress, so you can forgo the manual setup process.

For example, if you get hosting through WordPress.com, you automatically land in the back end of your readymade website.

In addition, you can purchase a domain through WordPress.com, and we’ll automatically connect it to your website and account. Annual plans even include a free domain for the first year.

2. User friendliness and client onboarding

If you’re a designer or developer who is used to working with layout tools, you will feel right at home in Webflow’s visual editor. It allows you to create layout elements, assign classes to them, and style them using familiar CSS properties.

While this is great for people with CSS and web design experience, it may be a learning curve for clients or content editors without such knowledge. While Webflow has an automated tutorial and AI-powered learning assistant, less technically inclined clients may struggle.

If you compare Webflow to WordPress, the latter is known for being user-friendly for beginners and experienced users alike. Its dashboard provides easy access to the menus for creating posts and pages, making design changes, or modifying settings.

At the same time, the WordPress Block Editor provides powerful tools to modify your site design and create multimedia content.

As a developer, you can use it to make entire websites without a single line of code, from navigation menus to headers, footers, and media management. 

That said, the flexibility of using code to create sites, themes, or plugins is at your disposal as well.

3. Design options

To complement its visual editor, Webflow offers 6,000+ templates, about 50 of which are free.

You can use them as starting points for your website and modify them to fit your needs. However, you can’t apply a new template to existing content; you would have to start a new project instead.

For building out your pages, Webflow offers 20+ customizable elements and layouts from containers and sections to headings, text, buttons, images, animations, headers, footers, and galleries.

You can define properties like height, orientation, padding, margins, backgrounds, and borders, as well as implement styling changes in mobile design.

You also have the ability to create reusable components, called “collections,” for things like blog posts, and you can export Webflow markup to use elsewhere.

In WordPress, you most often start with one of the 13,000+ free responsive themes. They exist for many specific niches—like blogs, portfolios, and business sites—making it easy to begin with a tailored look.

You can change themes at any time on existing websites to alter their design while preserving content.

Themes are also fully customizable. You can change basic styling like fonts, font styles, background colors, and color palettes in the Site Editor with a few clicks. Many themes also come with variations built in.

Page templates allow you to define and customize layouts and designs for different types of content.

At the same time, block patterns allow you to drag and drop common design components with a few clicks.

In addition, you can add layout elements and customize them individually, both in the sitewide editor and for individual posts and pages. That includes the ability to edit HTML directly or use the custom HTML block.

Design capabilities can be extended with plugins, third-party themes, or custom code.

4. Flexibility and extensibility

To go beyond Webflow’s built-in features, you can embed custom code or integrate third-party tools like forms, social feeds, or chat widgets.

Again, these are great choices for developers; however, they might be beyond the technical capabilities of clients or end users. Webflow also has a marketplace for apps, integrations, and APIs for tools like Hubspot, Typeform, or Events Calendar. There are around 300 options, both paid and free.

In contrast, WordPress offers nearly 60,000 free plugins for pretty much any purpose, be it email marketing, form building, or social media sharing.

Its vast ecosystem gives WordPress the flexibility to build anything from personal websites, membership sites, online shops, and forums to one-page sites, food blogs, and many other types of websites. And both you and your clients can manage it all conveniently from the WordPress dashboard.

Additionally, headless WordPress allows you to build custom front ends with your favorite JavaScript framework and use the content management power of WordPress in the backend.

5. Content management

Webflow includes a CMS option, and like the main editor, it allows you to edit content in or outside the visual canvas.

This setup makes it easy to make basic updates and is great for design but can be cumbersome for pure content creation and less intuitive for large-scale publishing. To use it, you need at least the CMS plan, which is currently $29/month and has limits on how much content you can store on your site.

WordPress, on the other hand, was built for content-centered websites and remains unmatched in this area. 

Its content editor is a default feature and lets you insert text, images, media embeds, and anything else you or your clients need to write high-quality blog posts.

Use the revision history, schedule posts ahead of time, and organize content using categories, tags, and custom taxonomies to make them easy to find and rank for relevant keywords. There are also plugins for advanced editorial workflows.

In short, if content is a central part of your website project’s marketing strategy, WordPress has the tools you need. Plus, if you host with WordPress.com, we offer even more ways to help you grow your traffic.

6. Performance

Webflow offers out-of-the-box performance optimization. Their hosting is CDN-backed and offers image optimization, but it provides limited control beyond that.

With self-hosted WordPress, performance depends on your hosting provider, performance-enhancing plugins, and site architecture. Since WordPress is an open source software, you have access to all parts of the software, meaning you can tinker with every aspect of site performance.

Alternatively, you also have the option to relinquish speed optimization to a managed hosting provider. For example, with WordPress.com hosting, you benefit from optimized servers, caching, fast themes, and a CDN. Business and Commerce plans can also take advantage of the Site Accelerator.

7. Security

As a hosted solution, Webflow takes care of security. That includes SSL encryption, DDoS and bot protection, vulnerability scanning, backups, and software updates. That said, they give users little control over security settings.

With a self-hosted WordPress site, site security is part of your duties. In addition to using strong usernames and passwords, this includes installing software updates for WordPress itself, its themes and plugins, as well as doing backups. Dedicated security plugins are also available.

With a managed hosting plan from WordPress.com, software updates, SSL, automatic backups, firewalls, DDoS protection, and daily malware scans are all included. On higher plans, you also get access to one-click restores.

8. Collaboration

Webflow has a number of features to improve collaboration. Its design, build, edit, comment, and view modes allow users to access different parts of a website and work on them separately. You can also branch pages into separate versions and merge them later.

You have to be aware, however, that the number of users who can work on your site is limited, and adding certain user types may cost extra.

In contrast, on WordPress, you can create unlimited site users for free and assign them user roles with clearly defined permissions.

WordPress user roles enable teams to collaborate on site design, functionality, and content without interfering with one another while giving clients as much or as little access as they need. In addition, there are plugins available for additional collaboration features.

9. SEO

Webflow’s built-in SEO tools include automatic sitemaps, redirects, and the ability to set image alt text, page titles, and meta descriptions.

Code solutions, like manually adding schema markup to the header, are also possible. While these workflows are fine for developers, they can leave marketers and content creators wanting. Webflow also offers SEO add-ons to see insights into your site performance.

WordPress is extremely SEO-friendly and customizable. It gives you full control over permalink structure, the ability to set image alt text in the editor by default, and, for sites hosted on WordPress.com, you can customize title tags and meta descriptions for all content out of the box.

There are also many free SEO plugins that make things like schema markup implementation, on-page SEO analysis, and metadata customization available in the backend. More information can be found in our essential guide to WordPress SEO.

10. Developer features

Webflow is great for frontend designers but limited in terms of backend and database control.

In contrast, WordPress offers full access to the codebase, database, and server environment. It supports customizations via PHP, WP-CLI, and headless setups, making it highly flexible for development workflows.

Developer features like GitHub deployments, custom code, SFTP, and database access are available on WordPress.com’s Business and Commerce plans. There’s also Studio, our local, free, and open source development tool.

11. Scalability

You can scale Webflow websites, but the platform’s plans all come with content and bandwidth limits. That means hosting will get more expensive the more your site grows and the more traffic it attracts. Though great for static websites, it’s harder to scale content-heavy sites on Webflow.

As an open source platform, WordPress doesn’t have these limitations. With the right hosting environment, it scales into anything from personal blogs to enterprise-level platforms. That said, many hosts enact traffic and bandwidth limits across their plans.

If you want to start off on the right foot, WordPress.com hosting offers unmetered traffic, unlimited bandwidth, automated burst scaling, automated data center failover, and high uptime across all plans.

12. Maintenance

As a SaaS offering, Webflow handles all software updates, hosting, and backups.

Self-hosted WordPress requires users to manage those manually, including core, plugin, and theme updates. Alternatively, you can also outsource website maintenance to a managed hosting provider. 

WordPress.com websites are kept up to date automatically unless you manually disable this feature. As mentioned, automatic backups are also part of every plan.

13. Support and community

Besides its AI learning assistant, Webflow offers email-based support along with documentation and video tutorials. There is also a community forum you can turn to.

WordPress has a massive global community. Besides the official support forums, you can find tutorials, blog articles, and videos on almost any topic or issue. Regular events, like WordCamps, meetups, and online meetings, allow you to meet and interact with thousands of other WordPress users. 

Finally, you can turn to your hosting’s support. At WordPress.com, that includes live chat and email, online forums, video courses, and a comprehensive knowledge base.

14. Ecommerce

Webflow has built-in ecommerce features to sell physical goods, services, and digital downloads. In order to use them, you need to be on Webflow hosting and at least the standard plan (currently $29/month), which includes a 2% transaction fee and only a handful of payment processors.

WordPress offers full ecommerce functionality through WooCommerce and other ecommerce plugins. These support digital and physical products, subscriptions, membership sites, tax rules, shipping, and global payment options.

15. Pricing

Pricing can be a bit tricky to figure out in Webflow. It offers two different types of plans:

• Site Plans: You need this to create websites and publish them.
• Workspace Plans: Required to manage your website and unlock additional features.

For example, a Workspace supports unlimited sites but limits you to a certain number of pages, CMS items, and users per site. The number of Site Plans determines how many websites you can publish and, among other things, your bandwidth allotment. Prices also differ based on your need for ecommerce functionality or team usage.

Here’s a quick overview of current prices for Webflow’s annual plans:

• General site plans ($14-$39/month)
• eCommerce site plans ($29-$212/month)
• Team workspace plans ($19-$49/month)
• Freelancer and agency workspace plans ($16-$35/month)
• Enterprise plan prices (available on request)

There are also extra costs if you want additional users/seats for your workspaces:

• Review/comment seats (free)
• Limited seat for CMS access ($15/month)
• Full seat for design/development ($39/month)

You may also encounter added costs for things like paid Webflow templates ($49-$79) or extensions. In short, you have to be really clear about what exactly you need for your website project; otherwise, costs can add up quickly if you’re not careful.

WordPress itself is open source and thus free to use. Typical costs you have to calculate with beyond that are:

• Domain (~$10-$20/year)
• Hosting (~$5-$15/month)
• Theme (~$30-$70+ for premium)
• Plugins (~$10-$100+/month for premium)

Keep in mind that there are thousands of free WordPress themes and plugins, so you may not need to go with a paid solution at all.

You can also reduce your needs for third-party components by choosing a hosting provider that comes with essential functionality built in. WordPress.com takes care of speed optimization, security, and many other features.

WordPress vs Webflow: which is better?

Both Webflow and WordPress offer powerful tools for building modern websites, but they cater to different needs and skill levels.

Webflow is a great tool for designers, teams with a budget, and building more static websites. But if you want control, flexibility, and unparalleled features for content creation and management, WordPress is your tool of choice. It’s scalable, usable for almost any website project, client-friendly, and infinitely extendable.

WordPress.com provides a streamlined, all-in-one website solution with the power of WordPress minus the maintenance.

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When starting a website, many beginners wonder about the differences between domains and hosting.

In short: 

• A domain enables people to reach your site files.
• Web hosting stores the files that make up your website.

Since this topic is such a fundamental one to understand when starting a website, it’s a good idea to make sure you grasp it fully. So to help you do so, we’ll discuss exactly what web hosting and domains are, how they differ, where to acquire each, and how they work together to make your website available online.

What is a domain name?

Your domain name is the unique address people type into their browser to visit your site. It’s your site’s name and location on the internet. For example, wordpress.com is the domain of this website.

Every website lives on a physical server, or a computer connected to the internet. That server has a unique address, called an IP address, which looks something like this: 192.0.2.1. You can think of it like the street address for a website; just like you need an address to send someone a letter, your browser needs an IP address to find and load a website.

But since strings of numbers aren’t easy to remember, we use domain names instead—a simple, human-friendly shortcut that points to the website’s IP address behind the scenes. So when you type in a name like wordpress.com, your browser uses that to look up the correct IP address and bring you to the right website.

Besides making websites easier to reach, having a custom domain name also:

• Signals ownership over your domain.
• Strengthens your website’s or company’s branding.
• Describes what your business or website does.
• Establishes trust with your customers.

Because domains express so much about your website, it’s important to know how to choose a domain name that’s memorable and clearly reflects what your site is about.

It’s also important to note that owning a domain name doesn’t automatically publish a website or display content; it’s just the address that points visitors to your content, wherever it’s hosted.

For more details, we have an entire article on domain names and how they work.

How to get a domain name

If you want your own domain name, you need to purchase it through a domain registrar, or a company that manages the reservation of domains.

You’re in luck because WordPress.com is a domain registrar for over 350 domain extensions (like .com, .shop, and .blog). Simply type in your desired domain name into our domain finder tool to check for availability and price.

If it’s already taken, the tool will propose alternatives.

When you find a domain you like, simply add it to your shopping cart and go through the purchasing process.

When you register a domain, you’re not actually buying it forever; you’re essentially renting the right to use the name. To keep it, you’ll need to renew it annually or set it to auto-renew.

While it’s possible to use a registrar just for your domain and connect it to a site hosted elsewhere, you can purchase a domain as part of a website-building plan that includes hosting.

Case in point, if you get an annual hosting plan on WordPress.com, you can get most domains for free for the first year (with free privacy protection for as long as you keep your domain registered with us). After checkout, your domain will be connected automatically to your site—no extra setup required.

What is web hosting?

Web hosting is the service that stores your website files on an internet-connected computer (i.e., a server) to make them accessible to visitors. A hosting provider gives your website space on a server and handles the technical setup that connects your domain to your website.

Without hosting, your domain doesn’t display any content. But hosting isn’t just what makes your website available online; it also affects speed, uptime, security, and overall reliability.

What’s more, hosting plans vary in features like storage space, bandwidth, support, scalability, and price depending on the type of hosting you choose.

Types of web hosting

There are several kinds of web hosting, each suitable for different needs and budgets:

• Shared hosting: Shared hosting is often the most affordable hosting option because multiple websites share the resources on one server. Shared hosting is sufficient for smaller websites and hobby blogs but can quickly become a handicap if your site starts getting more traffic.
• VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting: With VPS hosting, your website still shares a server with others, but everyone only uses their own assigned resources. This makes it a good middle ground for growing sites.
• Dedicated hosting: With dedicated hosting, your website has an entire server just for itself. Dedicated hosting is powerful but can be costly and requires you to manage the server yourself.
• Cloud hosting: Cloud hosting is a type of hosting in which multiple servers work together to provide processing power on demand. You can easily scale your site as needed.
• Managed hosting: In managed hosting, your provider takes care of technical tasks like updates, security, and backups for you. This is the kind of hosting we offer at WordPress.com.

Choosing the right hosting type depends on your website goals, traffic expectations, and how hands-on you want to be.

Managed hosting vs unmanaged hosting

Let’s take a closer look at the differences between managed and unmanaged hosting.

With unmanaged hosting plans, you primarily just rent web space. Everything else that has to do with running a website and keeping it safe and functional is on you, especially software updates, performance, and security.

With managed hosting, your provider actively manages tasks like updates and security and has an active role in making your website run well. 

For example, when you host your website on WordPress.com, your plan includes:

• Automatic software updates to the latest WordPress version so you benefit from security and performance improvements as well as new features.
• Built-in security features like malware scans, a firewall, and DDoS protection to keep your site safe from threats and unauthorized access.
• HTTPS/SSL certificates that encrypt traffic between your site and visitors’ browsers and protect sensitive information.
• Speed optimization out of the box through optimized servers, caching, a content delivery network, and image acceleration. On our Business plan and above, you can also take advantage of additional features like the CDN that speeds up file and image loading.
• Your plan handles plugin and theme updates for you (unless you manually switch them off), so you’re not left with outdated or vulnerable software.
• On our Business plan and above, your website is automatically backed up, and you can restore it to an earlier version with just a few clicks if something goes wrong.
• Friendly support is included with every plan, so you’re never on your own if you get stuck.

Because of the extra help, managed hosting is often most suitable for anyone who doesn’t want to handle the more technical aspects of running a website, especially beginners. Instead of worrying about admin tasks, you can focus on creating content, connecting with your audience, building your business, and growing your website.

Domain vs hosting: Why you need both

As you’ve probably figured out by now, domains and web hosting are separate services but work hand in hand to bring your website to life.

A domain name helps people find your site, but it doesn’t hold any of your content. On the other hand, web hosting stores everything that makes up your website—text, images, layout, and everything else—but it’s useless if nobody can reach it without a domain.

Because domains and hosting are so closely intertwined, it can seem like they are the same thing or that they overlap significantly. And while that technically isn’t the case, both are required to make your website accessible, memorable, and functional.

Should you get a domain and web hosting together?

As we have established, you can often get your domain and hosting at the same place, eliminating your need to connect the two. 

In fact, WordPress.com allows you to get hosting and domains separately or together. Both approaches offer different benefits and downsides.

When you get your domain and hosting from the same provider, it’s often more convenient. You don’t have to manually connect the two through changing nameservers and other technical steps—the provider sets everything up for you.

Renewals, billing, and support will also happen in the same place, and in the case of WordPress.com, you can even save money by getting a free domain for the first year of your hosting plan.

Keeping your domain and hosting separate can make it easier to manage each one individually, but you don’t need to transfer your domain to switch hosting providers. You can simply update your domain’s DNS settings to point to your new host.

If you don’t want to deal with that and prefer to streamline the process, bundling domain and hosting is often the easier path.

Final thoughts: domain vs hosting

Understanding the difference between web hosting and domain hosting is a key first step in building a website. In the end, you are going to need both—one without the other won’t get your site online.

Whether you keep your hosting and domain together or separate depends on how hands-on you want to be and how confident you are in your technical abilities. For most beginners, having them in one place makes the process faster, easier, and less error-prone.

Get your WordPress.com hosting plan and benefit from first-class managed hosting and a free domain for the first year.

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​These WIRED-tested wearables reduce your reliance on a phone while keeping you connected. 

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Think of a WordPress maintenance plan as your website’s safety net; it protects your site against unexpected downtime, security threats, and costly technical issues. 

These care plans give website owners peace of mind, knowing someone is actively looking after their online presence. And for WordPress agencies, they’re a way to create valuable long-term client relationships through ongoing support. 

So let’s explore what’s included in a good WordPress maintenance plan and how to select one that truly fits your business needs—and why your hosting plan might already cover the essentials.

1. What are WordPress maintenance plans?
   1. Key inclusions in a WordPress care plan
2. How to choose an ideal WordPress care plan for your site
   1. Budget 
   2. Business size
   3. Website complexity
   4. Range of services offered
   5. Experience and reputation
3. How can WordPress maintenance plans benefit you?
   1. Benefits for individual site owners
      1. Achieve peace of mind
      2. Maintain consistent uptime
      3. Optimize website performance
      4. Gain protection against threats
   2. Benefits for agencies
      1. Build stronger client relationships
      2. Create a recurring revenue stream
      3. Maximize customer lifetime value
4. WordPress.com advantage: premium features at your fingertips
5. Care plan features without the care plan

What are WordPress maintenance plans?

A WordPress maintenance plan keeps your website secure, up-to-date, and functioning optimally. A care plan takes a 360-degree approach to things like optimizing site performance, installing and testing updates, and performing security checks. 

Key inclusions in a WordPress care plan

Most WordPress maintenance plans include services like:

• Backups: Most care plans include automated backups of your entire website. These regular backups are stored off-site, so you can easily restore any version if something goes wrong.  
• Core updates: Your service provider should implement core WordPress updates (both minor and major version upgrades) promptly. This maintains site stability and security while giving you access to new features.
• Plugin updates: These plans may include regular updates for all plugins used on your site and testing updates in a staging environment to fix bugs and patch security issues before publishing changes to your production site.
• Uptime monitoring: Service providers should continuously monitor your website’s availability and get immediately alerted if your site goes down. Advanced monitoring also includes performance tracking to analyze load times and identify slowdowns.
• Security insights: Providers proactively monitor suspicious activity and vulnerabilities on your website. They also configure a firewall, perform security scans, and offer recommendations to mitigate risks.
• Technical support: A care plan should give you quick troubleshooting support. You get access to WordPress experts for strategic guidance and problem resolution. 
• Database optimization: This service includes regularly cleaning and optimizing your WordPress database to improve performance. It removes unnecessary data that accumulates over time, like spam comments.
• Analytics and reporting: You’ll get monthly or quarterly reports about your WordPress site’s health. These reports indicate tasks completed and their impact on your traffic and security.

This is what a maintenance timeline could look like for each of these services:

How to choose an ideal WordPress care plan for your site

Don’t treat your WordPress site like a one-time project. You need a care plan to continuously update, protect, and optimize your site.

Here are some crucial factors to weigh your options and choose the right plan.

Budget 

Your website’s growth can stall without proper maintenance. So your budget for a care plan can’t just be what you can afford. You have to estimate the right value-to-cost ratio.

Before setting a budget, ask yourself two questions:

1. What is my site’s function—a small blog or a full-fledged business?
2. How much does downtime, bugs, or security issues actually cost me?

The first question allows you to assess your website’s risk tolerance. 

If your site generates direct revenue (like an ecommerce storefront), you want to invest in a comprehensive plan. Let professionals take care of your site and save yourself the trouble of breaking and fixing things. 

However, if you have a purely informational site, it may be sufficient to choose a more basic care plan. You can start there and look for upgrade options as your site structure changes. 

The second question gives you a clear picture of what’s at stake.

For a software website driving sign-ups worth $1,000 daily, even a few hours of downtime is a huge loss compared to paying an extra $100 monthly for premium support.

Estimate the cost of poor maintenance and factor in your risk tolerance to arrive at a realistic budget.

Tip: If you want to go for a cost-effective plan, remember to read the fine print and question the service provider to check whether it meets all your requirements.

Business size

A freelancer running a personal website probably doesn’t need the same support as a brand offering a subscription membership with regular payment processing.

The size of your business (and website) can impact your maintenance needs. Here’s how:

• Solo creators: Your blog or portfolio needs the essentials without the overhead. You may want to look for a plan with basic support like core, plugin, and theme updates, backups, and security monitoring.
• Small businesses: Limited in-house tech resources mean you can benefit from a more extensive care plan. Choose a reliable service provider to act as your outsourced IT support.
• Medium-sized businesses: These sites may benefit from highly customizable plans that complement your in-house resources. For example, you might have staff for backups but need external support for performance optimization. Find plans with space for such flexibility. 
• Enterprise businesses: Downtime or security lapses translate to lost revenue and damaged reputation. You need a plan with dedicated support, fast response time, security layers, and higher levels of technical expertise. 

It’s equally important to consider what role your website plays in your business. 

Think about it: A growing ecommerce store losing $1,000 every hour due to downtime needs enterprise-level care, even if they’re small. Meanwhile, a large company with a one-page site might need less intensive support.

Evaluate your website’s actual role, in addition to your business size, to find the right maintenance plan.

Website complexity

Some WordPress sites are sleek and simple. Some others are more complicated with multiple plugins, custom code, and other elements.

The way your site is built determines the kind of maintenance it requires. 

For example, a photography portfolio with lots of media assets needs a care plan focused on performance checks and speed optimization.

On the other hand, a site using WooCommerce, membership plugins, and custom payment integrations might need a more specialized plan for uptime monitoring, payment gateway testing, and security scans.

To assess your site’s complexity, you have to inventory its components:

• How many plugins are you running? 
• Do you use custom code or themes?
• Do you handle sensitive customer data?
• How frequently does your content change?
• What integrations connect to external services?

Here’s a framework to choose a care plan based on website complexity:

Range of services offered

At first glance, most maintenance plans might look the same, including updates, backups, security, and so on.

However, these services can look different on paper and in practice. Before you sign up for a plan, you should understand exactly what’s included in every service. 

Here are a few questions to evaluate the finer details of a care plan:

• Are backups daily or real-time? Where are they stored?
• Is support unlimited or capped? Can you email, call, or chat?
• Does the plan include malware removal or just security scanning?
• What performance optimization tactics are offered, and how often? 
• Are updates tested on a staging site first or directly implemented live? 

This exercise will also help you shortlist plans that closely align with your pain points.

If you’re constantly struggling with slow load times, prioritize performance optimization. If you’ve lost revenue to security breaches, find providers specializing in security monitoring and risk mitigation.

Remember that the ideal care plan offers both preventative maintenance and responsive support, so be sure to look for services in both brackets when finalizing your plan.

Experience and reputation

Lastly, you want to work with a credible service provider who helps you understand what’s happening on your website behind the scenes. 

Do your due diligence to evaluate each provider’s background. It’s best to start with general verification and collect details like years of experience maintaining WordPress sites. 

You also want to see client testimonials to assess their reliability and actual results beyond the sales pitch.

Go a step further and review case studies from your industry if you can, as this will highlight their backend process and knowledge of your vertical.

You can also ask about their team structure. It’s important to know how many clients a member typically handles. Check if you’ll get a dedicated account manager, or someone who will be your single point of contact.

Finally, trust your communication experience during the buying process.

If a provider is responsive, thorough, and transparent while trying to win your business, they’re likely to maintain those standards afterward.

How can WordPress maintenance plans benefit you?

Both care plan providers and site owners have skin in this game. The right maintenance partnership delivers value on both sides of the table. Let’s see how.

Benefits for individual site owners

Individual site owners will experience plenty of benefits from WordPress maintenance plans, provided they choose a provider who’s proactive, reliable, and transparent about what’s included.

Achieve peace of mind

If you’ve ever found yourself in a state of panic about the upkeep of your website, a care plan can take away this tension. 

You don’t have to worry about breaking something or lose hours trying to roll back a failed update. 

The payoff? When you’re not stressing about whether your site might crash tomorrow, you can focus on high-value tactics that actually grow your business.

Maintain consistent uptime

Downtime can damage your credibility, create friction for potential buyers, and lead to lost revenue. 

These plans typically offer 24/7 site monitoring to catch issues before they turn into crises. The difference is reactive versus proactive care—instead of waiting for frustrated customers to report problems, your service provider prevents them in the first place.

Optimize website performance

Visitors will quickly leave your site if it takes more than a few seconds to load. 

That’s why performance audits are a key aspect of WordPress maintenance plans. Your service provider will set up your website for optimal performance through services like caching configuration, image optimization, and database cleanup.

All of this adds up to a faster, more responsive site with a delightful user experience. 

Gain protection against threats

When it comes to site security, prevention is always better than a cure; that said, a WordPress maintenance plan offers both. 

Care plans secure your website with IP blocking, malware scanning, firewall configuration, and more. And if a security breach does occur, your provider can respond immediately to contain and mitigate the threat. 

Benefits for agencies

Maintenance plans are more than just routine check-ins; they’re a way for agencies to build recurring revenue, deepen client relationships, and offer ongoing value. 

Build stronger client relationships

Instead of taking one-and-done projects, this ongoing care can help you transition into a long-term partner. You’re actively checking in, sharing performance reports, fixing issues, and more to demonstrate the ongoing value of your work. 

Put simply, offering these maintenance features can create regular touchpoints to deepen your relationships beyond transactional exchanges.

Create a recurring revenue stream

Another critical benefit for agencies is creating more predictable revenue. 

With this kind of support, you can maintain (and increase) your monthly recurring revenue so you can add more stability to your cash flow and create breathing room for your business to grow.

Maximize customer lifetime value

Maintenance plans extend your client relationships beyond the website launch. With regular support, you can stay top-of-mind for future opportunities like a redesign or site expansion.

WordPress.com advantage: premium features at your fingertips

Many of these service inclusions in a premium WordPress maintenance plan are built right into WordPress.com managed hosting plans, benefitting users and agencies alike: 

• We automatically update your sites to the latest WordPress version and install all the theme and plugin updates effortlessly
• Security monitoring and malware scanning are already baked into regular audits of your site’s security, and if your site is hacked, we’ll fix it for free
• Daily backups ensure you can restore your site to a previous version if something goes wrong*
• Built-in caching boosts site performance and improves page-loading speeds without extra caching plugins
• Free SSL certificates for all WordPress.com domains to encrypt your data and enhance protection against malicious attacks 
• Jetpack’s CDN setup speeds up your site by loading images and other assets from servers closest to your visitors*
• Dedicated customer support is available around the clock, where experts answer your queries, troubleshoot issues, and offer guidance**

* Available on our Business plan and above
** Available on paid plans only; free plans have access to public forums for support

WordPress.com hosting builds a strong foundation for your website without the extra cost of a care plan. We manage infrastructure, updates, backups, and security so you can focus on content and building your site, not upkeep.

And if you’re an agency, WordPress.com gives you a head start. Many of the infrastructure tasks you’d typically handle in a care plan—like plugin updates, security scans, or daily backups—are already built into our platform. That means less manual work for your team and more time to focus on the strategic, creative, or high-touch elements your clients actually notice. 

Care plan features without the care plan

Whether you’re building your own site or managing many for clients, WordPress maintenance plans provide reliable peace of mind—and with WordPress.com, that protection comes built in.

Of course, maintenance plans come at a cost. But at WordPress.com, you can get hosting, domains, security, and speed all for one, predictable price. 

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​These tips and recommendations can help you get some shut-eye before you fly. 

​Read More

 Gear, Gear / How To and Advice, Smooth Landing Gear, Gear / How To and Advice, Smooth Landing

WordPress 6.8, codenamed “Cecil,” includes loads of goodies for developers to tinker with. As usual, I’m like an overwhelmed toddler in a toy shop, just trying to figure out which toy I want to take for a test spin first.

The 6.8 update touched many areas of the WordPress Core code, including everything from the block library to performance to patterns. Plus, there are plenty of other quality-of-life improvements in 6.8 for anyone building plugins and themes. 

Without further ado, let’s jump straight into them.

For detailed information on each development change, check out the official WordPress 6.8 Field Guide on the Make WordPress Core blog.

1. More performant block type registration
2. Style Book sections and more
3. Block Library updates
   1. New block: Query Total
   2. Gallery lightbox
   3. Details block
   4. Nice-to-have feature additions
   5. Notable block CSS changes
4. Design tools extended to more blocks
5. Organizing patterns
   1. Add patterns to subfolders 
   2. Starter patterns category
6. API updates
   1. Interactivity
   2. Block Hooks
7. Security: switched to bcrypt for password hashing
8. Performance improvements
   1. Speculative loading
   2. useSelect performance warning
   3. Filter hook for loading block assets on demand
9. What will you build with WordPress 6.8?

More performant block type registration

WordPress 6.8 eliminates the need to manually register block types thanks to its new wp_register_block_types_from_metadata_collection() function. It is a wrapper for the blocks-manifest.php file and the wp_register_block_metadata_collection() function introduced in WordPress 6.7. 

Because all of the block data is stored as PHP in blocks-manifest.php, you can register all of your plugin’s block types without reading individual JSON files. Overall, it’s just a more efficient way to register block types—and yes, you can use it for registering single block types, too!

In WordPress 6.8, you can register all of your block types with this call:

wp_register_block_types_from_metadata_collection(
    __DIR__ . '/build',
    __DIR__ . '/build/blocks-manifest.php'
);

Read the developer note on the Make WordPress Core blog for more information or to find out how to use this in a backward-compatible way when supporting older versions of WordPress.

Style Book sections and more

One of the biggest improvements in 6.8 is the interface update to the Style Book, which separates your style settings into sections. Shown in the screenshot above, you can see how selecting a typeset makes it easier to test and preview your site’s typography.

There are also a couple of other notable upgrades to the Style Book. It now has its own route, which lets you link directly to it. The new URL path is /wp-admin/site-editor.php?p=%2Fstyles&preview=stylebook. Additionally, Style Book support was added for classic themes.

Block Library updates

Between new blocks and additional ways to use existing blocks, WordPress 6.8 brings useful enhancements to the Block Library that expand what you can build and how you build it. 

New block: Query Total

WordPress 6.8 ships a new block for sharing information to visitors about the current posts query: Query Total. It should be used inside an existing Query Loop block and has two display options:

• Total results, which displays the total number of query results found.
• Range display, which shows the current results you’re looking at in the total results range.

Gallery lightbox

WordPress 6.8 brings the lightbox effect to the Gallery block. The feature is the same as it already works for individual Image blocks. You set the lightbox effect at the Gallery level by clicking on the Link button in the toolbar and selecting the Enlarge on click option.

It’s worth noting that this feature does not create a lightbox slideshow where you can scroll through all images for the Gallery; it merely applies the existing lightbox feature to the individual Image blocks.

Details block

You can now group multiple Details blocks together via the name HTML attribute. When multiple <details> elements share the same name, browsers will automatically close an open element when another is opened, creating an accordion effect. You can set the name attribute under Advanced → Name Attribute in the block inspector sidebar.

The Details block also gained HTML anchor support in WordPress 6.8. It is located under Advanced → HTML Anchor.

Nice-to-have feature additions

WordPress 6.8 boasts smaller feature additions to several other blocks, including:

• The Navigation Link block now allows any non-interactive RichText format within the link content.
• The Separator block can now be set to a <div> element for decorative-only use cases (the default <hr> is meant for an actual thematic break in the content).
• The File block now supports content-only editing so you can use it for locked patterns while allowing the user to still edit it.
• The Cover block can now be set to a specific image resolution (also possible when using the featured image).
• The Social Link block now has a Discord block variation and an associated icon.
• The Query Loop block gained a couple of nice additions:
  • You can sort pages by menu order in either ascending or descending order.
  • You can also ignore sticky posts for custom queries.

Notable block CSS changes

WordPress 6.8 includes a couple of CSS-related changes that are unlikely to break theme designs, but they are worth noting as general improvements:

• The Buttons block now has box-sizing: border-box applied, which brings consistency with other blocks.
• The Image block’s overlay styles are now handled via a data-wp-bind--style directive rather than an inline <style> tag.

Design tools extended to more blocks

Many Core blocks received much-needed design tool updates, improving consistency in block styling options. 

In this context, design tool support means that the supported options appear for these blocks in the editor UI. Even if a block doesn’t support the tool, you can still configure the associated styles via theme.json.

The Archives, Category, Content, and Page List blocks now support more color tools. Many blocks also gained border support:

• Archives
• Comments
• Comments Link
• Comments Count
• Content
• Latest Posts
• Page List
• Query Total
• RSS

The Content, Page List, and RSS blocks also now support spacing design tools.

For a full list of design tools support, check out the roster of design tools per block (WordPress 6.8 edition).

Organizing patterns

Developers can now organize patterns in more intuitive, straightforward ways.

Add patterns to subfolders 

If you ship a lot of patterns with your theme, you may have been frustrated with a seemingly endless, unorganized list under your /patterns folder. 

With WordPress 6.8, you can organize your custom patterns in subfolders under /patterns, making navigation more straightforward.

For example, you may separate header and footer patterns in your theme folder like so:

/patterns
	/header
		centered.php
		default.php
	/footer
		default.php
		links.php

Starter patterns category

In the UI, patterns that have been assigned to the core/post-content block type (the method for registering a starter pattern) appear under the Starter Content category. This goes hand-in-hand with another update that lists all patterns in the inserter. 

Content creators who want to prevent the Starter Content modal from appearing for every new page can disable it with a toggle switch on the bottom of the modal or via the Editor → 3-dot-menu →  Preferences screen.  

With the new version, theme developers can add starter content patterns for all post types: posts, pages, and any registered custom post types. 

API updates

WordPress 6.8 introduces several API-level improvements aimed at making development more robust and extensible. These changes enhance how developers interact with data, insert blocks, and work with patterns.

Interactivity

The wp-each directive has been improved to better handle data by first checking if a property is iterable instead of attempting to call its .map method directly. This will avoid errors when non-iterable values are used.

You can find a best-practices guide for the 6.8 release on the Make WordPress Core blog. Following these best practices will help keep your code up to date with the latest standards and set you up better for future iterations of the API.

Block Hooks

The Block Hooks API received two major updates. The first extends the Block Hooks mechanism to post content, allowing you to dynamically insert hooked blocks directly into posts and pages. The second update lets Block Hooks work with synced patterns.

Security: switched to bcrypt for password hashing

The algorithm that WordPress uses to hash and store user passwords in the database changed in WordPress 6.8 to bcrypt. 

It previously used phpass, but the adoption of bcrypt strengthens password security by requiring significantly more computational power to crack password hashes.

If your plugin uses the wp_hash_password() or wp_check_password() functions, it should continue working as expected. However, if you were directly handling phpass hashes, you would need to update your code. 

Read the developer note on the update for more details. The post also provides details on the new wp_fast_hash() and wp_verify_fast_hash() functions for hashing a randomly generated string with sufficient entropy.

Performance improvements

Finally, WordPress 6.8 brings some helpful performance improvements to all sites.

Speculative loading

WordPress 6.8 introduces speculative loading, which lets supporting browsers prefetch or prerender URLs. It can lead to almost instant page load times since they are loaded before the user navigates to them.

This feature was initially released in April 2024 as the Speculative Loading plugin. Since then, contributors have refined the code until it was ready for inclusion in WordPress Core.

The new feature comes with several filter hooks for you to modify how speculative loading works:

• wp_speculation_rules_href_exclude_paths: For excluding URL patterns from speculative loading.
• wp_speculation_rules_configuration: For modifying the speculative loading configuration.
• wp_load_speculation_rules: For including additional speculative loading rules.

useSelect performance warning

When you have SCRIPT_DEBUG enabled (as is common practice in development), WordPress will now output potential performance warnings in the console when useSelect is used to unnecessarily re-render. This change will benefit anyone extending the block editor and help them write more performant code.

Filter hook for loading block assets on demand

Before WordPress 6.8, the should_load_separate_block_assets filter hook had two responsibilities:

1. To load separate stylesheets for Core blocks instead of always loading the combined wp-block-library stylesheet containing all block CSS
2. To load scripts and styles on demand based on whether they are used on a particular page

In 6.8, a new filter hook named should_load_block_assets_on_demand exists for the second purpose of determining when to load assets. The original hook will work as before, but it’s recommended to filter it only to override whether stylesheets should be separated.

What will you build with WordPress 6.8?

WordPress 6.8 continues to move the WordPress software forward with cleaner APIs, improved performance, and better tools for site building. Whether you’re shipping themes, maintaining a plugin, or just exploring what’s possible with the block editor, this release will make your workflows more efficient and your code easier to maintain.

If you’re building on WordPress.com, all of this is available to you automatically—no version management required. You get the latest features, developer tools like SSH and GitHub deployments, and a fully managed environment that stays out of your way so you can focus on shipping.

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WordPress version 6.8 launched on April 15, 2025, bringing new features and improvements to enhance your WordPress site-building experience. This update focuses on streamlining workflows, improving design capabilities, and making content creation more intuitive. 

All WordPress.com sites are already running on WordPress 6.8 or will be shortly—we automatically update your WordPress version for you, so you don’t need to worry about doing it yourself to get access to these new features.

Let’s dive into the most noteworthy enhancements you can expect in this major release.

Priority features in WordPress 6.8

WordPress 6.8 is all about refinement: improving existing tools rather than introducing new ones, with a strong emphasis on enhancing site design workflows.

Style Book improvements

The Style Book is a powerful feature in the Site Editor. It provides a comprehensive overview of your site’s colors, typography, and block styles in a single organized location.

In WordPress 6.8, the Style Book has a new, structured layout and clearer labels, making it even easier to edit colors, typography, and almost all your site styles in one place.

This release also adds a new way to access the Style Book directly from the Styles menu item in the Editor sidebar.

Expanded design tools

WordPress 6.8 continues to evolve the design experience with improved tools that give you more control over your site’s appearance without requiring coding knowledge. These enhancements make creating polished, professional designs more accessible for everyone, regardless of technical expertise.

Updated core blocks

With the focus on refinement, many core blocks have been updated to include small but powerful features. 

Query Loop block: more control over your content lists

The Query Loop block will get several new features in WordPress 6.8, including the ability to:

• Include or exclude sticky posts from your dynamic content lists
• Sort in different ways
• Retrieve pages from all hierarchical levels

These features provide much finer control over your content’s appearance on archive pages or in content overviews.

Introducing the Query Total block

Content creators will appreciate the new Query Total block, which displays the number of posts found in a specific query loop. This is particularly useful for archive or search results pages, where showing “12 posts found” or similar messaging provides helpful context for your visitors. 

This addition makes your site more user-friendly by setting clear expectations about displayed content.

Cover block enhancements

WordPress 6.8 also brings some changes to the Cover block—one of WordPress’s most versatile content containers. It now includes resolution controls for images and backgrounds. 

This adds finer control over these images and allows you to create eye-catching headers and section introductions.

Details block improvements

The Details block, which creates expandable sections within your post or page content, has been enhanced to include a name attribute field. This allows groups of Details blocks to be connected and styled, making it easier to create effective FAQ sections or content that progressively reveals information to readers.

File block updates

This update also brought some changes to the File block, enabling users to update the filename and download button text. This allows for better customization of how files appear to your visitors.

Gallery block refinements

The Gallery block now features a new option called “Expand to click.” When enabled, users can open all images in a lightbox gallery with a single click.

Set Image blocks as featured images

A particularly useful addition to the WordPress software is the ability to set any Image block as your post’s featured image with just a few clicks. This will streamline your workflow by eliminating the need to set the same image in two places when you want to feature an image that’s already in your content.

Navigation block upgrades

The Navigation block continues to evolve with WordPress 6.8, offering better management of complex menus. Menu names are now displayed in the List View for easier orientation, and a Clear option was added to the color picker for faster design implementation. Under the hood, improvements to the Navigation block’s code structure make it more efficient when rendering menus.

Social Icons block upgrades

The Social Icons block now supports Discord, provides an easier method to clear color options, and streamlines adding social links. These refinements make it easier to connect your visitors to your social media presence while maintaining your site’s design aesthetic.

Editor improvements

The Site Editor also includes new features that give you more control over your content.

Reset button: start fresh with one click

WordPress 6.8 introduces a convenient reset button across various design controls. Thanks to the inline reset button added to all color controls, you can now reset colors for blocks and global styles with a single click. This same reset functionality extends to the Shadow panel and Duotone settings.

Instead of manually removing settings one at a time, you can now quickly reset elements with a single action. This small but significant improvement will save designers considerable time when experimenting with different looks for their sites.

Cut function in block options

The block options menu now includes a Cut action alongside the existing Copy option in the dropdown menu. This addition completes the standard set of content manipulation tools, making it easier to move blocks and sections from one location to another within your content.

New commands in the Command Palette

WordPress 6.8 enhances the Command Palette with two powerful new commands that streamline your workflow:

• The Add New Page command lets you create a new page from anywhere in the Site Editor, significantly speeding up the content creation process. You won’t have to navigate through multiple screens to start working on new content anymore.
• The Open Site Editor command offers one-click navigation to the Site Editor from Page or Post Editor screens accessed via the WP Admin menu. This makes switching between editing contexts much faster and more intuitive.

These commands can be accessed by pressing cmd+K on Mac or ctrl+K on Windows; this shortcut will open the Command Palette from any editor screen that supports the palette.

Starter content: jumpstart your pages

With WordPress 6.8, a new pattern category called Starter Content makes it easier than ever to begin creating with professional layouts. This category lists page layouts that are otherwise available via the New Page modal.

If you’ve disabled the starter content pop-up when creating new pages, this category ensures those layouts remain accessible when needed. The Inserter now always shows all available patterns in a list view, making it easier to browse through your options.

What will you create with WordPress 6.8?

WordPress 6.8 represents another significant step forward in making website creation and management more accessible and efficient. With its focus on improved design tools, enhanced block functionality, and streamlined editing processes, this update offers something valuable for content creators at every skill level.

And if you’re looking for rock-solid WordPress hosting to try out some of these new 6.8 features, check out WordPress.com. We run the same WordPress software trusted by over 40% of the web—we just manage the hosting, security, performance, and maintenance so you don’t have to.

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As you start building a website, you’ll encounter the words “web hosting” frequently. Web hosting is a necessary building block for every website—it’s where your website “lives”—but there are many different providers and hosting options to choose from. 

In this post, we’ll address two critical elements you should consider when choosing your web hosting service: hosting infrastructure and hosting management.

How to evaluate hosting solutions

When evaluating hosting plans, there are several important factors to consider. We’ll address these elements for every hosting type.  

• Price: Personal blogs and small projects generally receive less traffic and need less customization, which can impact your hosting costs.
• Technical expertise: Some hosting solutions require you to configure your hosting environment, while others are configured automatically by your provider. 
• Speed: If your site loads slowly, visitors are more likely to leave. Your content’s performance in search may also be impacted, as Google uses page speed and other performance signals to help determine where your site appears in search results.
• Reliability: When your server goes down (“downtime”), your site will become inaccessible to visitors, so reliability (“uptime”) is a key consideration when choosing a host.
• Security: Internet security protects your data and blocks attacks from hackers or bots. Security tools can be purchased individually or bundled through your hosting provider.

Four types of hosting infrastructure: your website’s home on the web

All websites live on servers, which can be physical machines or virtual machines within larger servers. Your hosting infrastructure (or how and where your website is stored) impacts your site’s speed, reliability, and storage capacity.

Shared hosting: the apartment experience

Typically for: Small websites, portfolios, personal blogs, and other projects with lower traffic and average security needs.

A shared host has many websites on a single server, and those websites must share resources like data storage, security features, and bandwidth. Shared hosting services usually impose hard limits on these to ensure everyone’s website has what they need.

• Price: Since you’re splitting resources with other sites, shared hosting is often the most affordable server setup.
• Technical expertise: Shared servers are pre-configured and don’t require any technical know-how. 
• Speed: Because you share hosting resources with other websites, your site can slow down if one of the sites on your server experiences heavy traffic. How the host configured your server can also impact your site speed.
• Reliability: Larger websites may run up against limits, causing slowdowns or server downtime for everyone on the server.
• Security: The host is responsible for adding security features to the server. You could be at risk if another website is not well secured.

VPS hosting: the condo

Typically for: Technical experts who want more control and mid-sized websites that are outgrowing shared hosting.

A VPS, or virtual private server, is the middle-ground between shared and dedicated servers (more on the latter next). With a VPS, your website lives on a private “virtual server” partitioned from other websites on a shared server. Virtual servers can typically be fully customized.

• Price: VPS systems are generally more expensive than shared hosting.
• Technical expertise: Technical expertise is required to manage a VPS. That said, some managed hosts offer pre-configured VPS hosting.
• Speed: You can customize your virtual server to be optimized for your website. The virtual partition keeps other websites from using your allocated bandwidth. 
• Reliability: VPS hosting offers more stability than shared hosting thanks to isolated resources. That said, since your virtual server still depends on physical hardware behind the scenes, issues with that hardware can cause downtime unless your host has strong redundancy or failover systems in place.
• Security: Since virtual servers offer greater isolation than shared hosting, they can be configured to behave like dedicated servers. However, security features aren’t applied automatically—you’ll need to configure and maintain them on your VPS.

Dedicated hosting: the single-family home

Typically for: Large websites with high traffic, lots of data, or advanced security needs, including healthcare, finance, banking, and ecommerce sites.

Dedicated hosting means your website has a dedicated physical server, giving you complete control over every aspect of your setup and full access to your server’s resources.

• Price: Since you’re renting an entire server for your website, this is generally the most expensive hosting option.
• Technical expertise: Dedicated hosting requires the most technical expertise to maintain the server. Some managed hosting providers offer dedicated hosting.
• Speed: Dedicated servers are fully customizable and don’t have to compete with other traffic. That means they are generally fast and reliable. 
• Reliability: Dedicated servers can be configured for optimal reliability, but if the physical hardware experiences an issue, your site may still go down if the host doesn’t have strong redundancy or failover precautions.
• Security: Because yours is the only one on the server, dedicated servers can be the most secure (when properly configured).

Cloud hosting: global vacation rentals

Typically for: Websites with variable spikes in traffic or websites that will grow quickly over time. WordPress.com’s Business plan and above are powered by WP Cloud, Automattic’s high-performance cloud infrastructure built specifically for WordPress. 

Cloud hosting relies on a distributed network of servers in different locations. Cloud hosting can be a great option for sites that need high reliability because multiple server locations ensure redundancy and speed. 

• Price: Cloud hosting is, on average, cheaper than a dedicated server, but the prices can vary depending on your hosting provider and traffic. 
• Technical expertise: Most cloud hosting is fully managed by the provider, meaning server maintenance, scaling, and infrastructure updates are handled for you. However, some cloud platforms offer more control and may require technical knowledge to configure or optimize your environment.
• Speed: Cloud hosting is typically fast thanks to a network of servers that can respond to geographically close requests. These solutions usually also include autoscaling, which automatically adjusts your site’s resources based on traffic. This keeps your site fast and stable during traffic spikes.
• Reliability: Because websites are hosted on a distributed server network, cloud hosting is extremely reliable; if one server goes down, another can jump in to meet the request.
• Security: Cloud servers use shared physical infrastructure, but virtualization keeps environments isolated. While generally secure, sites with sensitive data or regulatory requirements should evaluate the provider’s security protocols and certifications to ensure they align with the organization’s specific requirements.

Hosting management: who manages your website?

When evaluating web hosting options, consider how hands-on you want to be with your website’s setup and maintenance. Websites generally require regular updates for optimal performance and may require occasional reconfigurations to meet evolving marketing and optimization strategies. 

For that reason, managed hosting, like what we offer at WordPress.com, is a popular choice for most websites, as managed hosts take care of much of the maintenance for you. If you use managed hosting, your provider determines your hosting infrastructure, so not all managed hosting services offer the same speed or reliability.

Managed hosting: Renting your digital home

Typically for: Website owners who want their hosting managed by the pros. 

Managed hosting is the most comprehensive solution, including host configuration, security, and infrastructure management. Managed hosting providers also take on your site maintenance, including automatic updates, security patches, and downtime response. WordPress.com is a managed hosting provider.

• Price: Managed plans are typically more expensive because they handle your website configuration and maintain your website on your behalf. That said, prices do depend on your provider. 
• Technical expertise: Server maintenance expertise is not required, as your managed host is responsible for optimizing and enhancing your server setup. You will still need to build your site yourself or with the help of a developer or an agency.
• Speed and reliability: Your managed provider’s server setup and site optimization strategies will impact your site speed and uptime. Be sure to look at these details carefully when choosing a provider.
• Security: Security features depend on your hosting provider but might include features like SSL certificates, backups, malware prevention, and protection from brute-force attacks.

Unmanaged hosting: Owning your digital home

Typically for: Web developers and technically savvy teams who want full ownership and control over their hosting services.

Unmanaged hosting requires you to configure your own website on your server and manage the security and maintenance needs in-house. 

• Price: Unmanaged hosting tends to be less expensive because managing your site’s infrastructure isn’t included in your monthly or annual hosting costs. That said, because your host isn’t taking care of them for you, you may need to purchase add-on services for security and optimization.
• Technical expertise: You or someone on your team will need the skills to configure your website on a server and manage any issues that arise, including security threats or server problems that could take your site offline.
• Speed and reliability: Unmanaged hosting is extremely customizable, and your site’s performance depends on how your hosting is configured and your server type. 
• Security: You are directly responsible for adding core security features and updating them as needed to ensure your site isn’t vulnerable to brute-force attacks, spam, or data breaches.

What about reseller hosting? 

In your search, you may come across the term “reseller hosting.” This is not an infrastructure in and of itself, but rather a type of business where developers or small companies buy bulk server resources to resell to their clients. Resellers are responsible for configuring, maintaining, and protecting their clients’ websites. 

Typically for: Companies or freelance website developers who want to create their own branded, managed hosting service for resale. 

• Price: You’re typically buying multiple hosting licenses at a discounted price so that you can resell them to your clients.
• Technical expertise: You are responsible for the technical configuration and maintenance of every site that purchases hosting services through your brand.
• Speed and reliability: As with unmanaged hosting, you are responsible for customizing and optimizing your servers to ensure good uptime and speed.
• Security: Like other unmanaged hosting types, you are directly responsible for the security features on the sites you manage.

WordPress.com offers reseller hosting through WP Cloud.

Why choose WordPress.com for managed hosting?

If you’ve decided that managed WordPress hosting is the best solution for your needs, consider WordPress.com. From your first post to your millionth visitor, we ensure your site stays fast, secure, and online. We manage infrastructure, updates, backups, and security so users can focus on producing content and growing your business, not upkeep.

Flexible hosting for every stage

Only pay for what you need—no surprise costs, no upsells. From personal blogs to enterprise sites, our plans offer the performance, security, and features to match your site’s size and complexity.

Because WordPress.com websites use open source WordPress software, you own your website and data, and you can switch hosts and take your site with you at any time.

Use the most popular website builder

WordPress remains the most popular website builder, powering over 43% of the internet. That’s because WordPress is open source, easy to use, and incredibly flexible.

WordPress.com’s hosting is specifically optimized for WordPress websites, meaning that we’ve done the work under the hood to ensure your WordPress.com-hosted site runs quickly and reliably. 

Be techy (or not)

Code or no code—we’ve got you. Developers get staging sites, custom code support, GitHub deployments, and bulk plugin management. Non-technical users get powerful traffic and social features with no configuration required.

Day-to-day website management done right

We keep your site safe with automatic updates of your core WordPress software and all WordPress repository plugins and themes for performance and security. We also run daily scans to check every aspect of your site for malware, and automatic site backups are available on the Business plan and above.

Plus, if your site is ever hacked, we’ll fix it for free. We hope this never happens, but if it does, reach out to our support team.

Lightning-fast and reliable websites at every level

WordPress.com consistently has top-tier scores on third-party speed benchmark tests, outperforming many other hosting providers. Our model offers unmetered traffic and bandwidth on all plans, so you won’t need to worry about slower site speeds or extra fees once your site grows.

To give you incredible speed and uptime, we optimize your content and add performance-boosting tools like high-burst capacity, a content delivery network (CDN), and lazy-loaded images, which are included on all plans.

Top-notch security features

All WordPress.com websites come with comprehensive security features. SSL certificates with free domain privacy, brute-force protection, spam protection, DDoS protection and mitigation, malware detection and removal, web application firewall (WAF), and site activity logs protect your site from every angle. 

Ready for managed WordPress hosting?

Choosing the right hosting can feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. WordPress.com takes care of the heavy lifting from performance to security so you can focus on building your site, not maintaining it.

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