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Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: not determined

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by Aut O'Mattic A8C Ireland Ltd. · wordpress.com

An AI-assisted analysis of public evidence — not a hands-on test.

Every score, rationale and verdict on this page is AI-generated. Every claim cites the source it was read from. Nothing here is a human star review — and no score can be bought. How scores are made →

Method and versions

The Small-Business Owner v1.0 · The Freelance Web Designer v1.0 · The Marketing Lead v1.0 · The Practice Owner v1.0 · The Data Protection Officer v1.0 · The Skeptic v1.0 · rubric v1 · evaluated 29 Oct 2026

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Add ?theme=dark to the image address for dark backgrounds. The badge shows the category and the month of the latest evaluation, and EU-Made where that is the product’s provenance. It never shows a score.

WordPress.com at a glance

Vendor: Aut O'Mattic A8C Ireland Ltd.
Headquarters: Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 28 Oct 2026
Data hosting: Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 28 Oct 2026
Free plan: Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 28 Oct 2026
Starting price: “From €9 €2.75/month on a 3-year Personal plan.” (vendor’s words) source, captured 28 Oct 2026
Panel verdict: The AI panel rates WordPress.com 3.5/5, the mean of 6 judges. WordPress.com's bench scores are strongest on hosting and portability, clustering at 8 on a CDN across 28+ data centres, 99.99% uptime since 2005, free Let's Encrypt SSL, unmetered bandwidth and a documented export path, though the standard export leaves theme design and plugins behind. how scores are made
As of: Vendor pages captured 28 Oct 2026; evaluated by the panel 29 Oct 2026. all sources

WordPress.com alternatives, European ones first →

Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The Practice Owner

Weighted verdict

Runs a physiotherapy practice with four therapists and a waiting list. Wants patients to book and cancel appointments online, a contact form that does not send health details around in plain email, a site an older patient can read and use, a cookie banner that holds up if the regulator asks, and the data kept in Europe.

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The Practice Owner

Panel median The Practice Owner This judge’s scores over the panel median. Each label opens its reasoning below.

Scores per criterion, in stars out of 5
Criterion	Panel median	The Practice Owner
Editor, templates & design control	4 of 5	3.5 of 5
Hosting, domains & portability	4 of 5	4 of 5
SEO, analytics & visibility	3 of 5	3 of 5
Forms, bookings & business features	3.5 of 5	3.5 of 5
Imprint, privacy & cookie compliance	3 of 5	2.5 of 5
European sovereignty	2.5 of 5	2.5 of 5
Pricing transparency	3.5 of 5	3 of 5

Editor, templates & design control

How this is scored

How a site gets built and how far the owner can shape it: the editor (drag and drop, sections, AI drafts), the template range, responsive and mobile editing, fonts and brand styles, multilingual pages, custom code, and roles for collaborators or clients.

0 — Not a website editor; the product hosts files or code that are built elsewhere.

3 — An editor with a small set of templates and fixed layouts, where colours and texts change but structure, mobile view and languages are not described.

5 — A visual editor with a template gallery for several industries, layouts that adapt to mobile, brand colours and fonts, a blog, and the option to add pages in a second language or custom code snippets.

8 — Fine design control documented: free layout or section editing, separate mobile and breakpoint editing, reusable components or global styles, built-in multilingual sites with translated URLs, user roles for collaborators or clients, and site versions or history that can be restored.

10 — Design work at a professional level without leaving the tool: a design system with variables and components, interactions and animations, a CMS with custom collections, staging or branching before publishing, client handover with restricted editing, and the editor documented in depth.

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The Practice Owner

The block editor with drag-and-drop, two editing surfaces for whole-site versus per-page work, reusable patterns, global styles, restorable template revisions, desktop/tablet/mobile viewports and staging on Business plans give me real design control over a practice site. We found no public information on built-in multilingual pages or on user roles so a colleague or an agency could edit alongside me. 2 7 8 9

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Hosting, domains & portability

How this is scored

What runs the site once it is built: included hosting, custom domains and domain registration, SSL, email mailboxes, speed (CDN, image optimisation), backups and restore, availability commitments — and whether pages, content and media can be exported when the owner moves on.

0 — No hosting; the product produces a design or files and the owner finds a host.

3 — Hosting on a subdomain with a custom domain on paid plans, but SSL, backups, storage limits and export are not described.

5 — Hosting included with a custom domain (or one included for a first year), free SSL, stated storage or bandwidth, a CDN or speed optimisation, automatic backups or a restore function, and an export of at least blog posts or content.

8 — Hosting described in depth: data-centre locations named, a stated uptime commitment, versioned backups with self-service restore, email mailboxes on the own domain, performance figures or Core Web Vitals addressed, and a documented export of pages, content and media.

10 — Hosting the owner can rely on and leave: an uptime SLA with credits, the hosting region selectable, DDoS and security measures named, a complete site export (code or standard formats) documented step by step, and domains transferable without fees or lock-in.

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The Practice Owner

Hosting sits on every plan with free HTTPS, a global CDN across 28+ data centers, a stated 99.99% uptime figure since 2005, automatic backups with restore from a specific moment, and a step-by-step export of content and media plus a full backup download on Business and Commerce. The pages also state that site data is stored on servers in the US and the EU and cannot be restricted to a single location, and we found no uptime commitment with credits. 3 5 9 10 15

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SEO, analytics & visibility

How this is scored

How the site is found and measured: page titles and descriptions, clean URLs and redirects, sitemaps and indexing, structured data, local SEO, page speed for search, built-in or connectable analytics, newsletter or social sharing, and guidance for the owner who is not an SEO.

0 — No search settings at all; pages cannot be given titles or descriptions.

3 — Page titles and descriptions can be edited, but sitemaps, redirects, analytics and indexing control are not described.

5 — Editable titles, descriptions and URLs, an automatic sitemap, 301 redirects, social sharing previews, built-in visitor statistics or a documented connection to an analytics tool, and SEO guidance or a checklist inside the product.

8 — SEO documented in depth: structured data, canonical and noindex control, robots.txt editing, image alt texts and compression, local business listings or a Google Business connection, multilingual SEO with hreflang, and privacy-friendly analytics without third-party cookies.

10 — Visibility as a strength: full technical SEO control including server-side rendering and speed figures, AI search or answer-engine readiness addressed, search data shown inside the editor, marketing tools (newsletter, campaigns, A/B tests) built in, and every setting explained in the help centre.

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The Practice Owner

Default search optimisation, an indexing switch, meta description control, smart redirects plus manual redirects through a plugin, Open Graph social previews, built-in Jetpack stats, Google Analytics and Search Console verification are all documented, with an SEO guide behind them. We found no public information on sitemaps, robots.txt editing, structured data or local business listings — the local visibility a practice like mine lives on. 2 11 12

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Forms, bookings & business features

How this is scored

What the site does for the business beyond showing pages: contact and custom forms with spam protection and notifications, where form entries are stored, appointment bookings, member areas, events, integrations with CRM or calendar, payments and a small shop as an add-on — judged as features of a website, not as a shop system.

0 — No forms and no interactive features; the site shows pages only.

3 — A contact form that sends an email, with spam protection, storage of entries and further business features not described.

5 — Custom forms with several field types, spam protection and email notifications, entries stored or exportable, and at least one further business feature (bookings, member area, events or a small shop) described.

8 — Business features documented in depth: forms with conditional fields, file uploads and confirmation emails, appointment booking with calendar sync, member areas or gated pages, payments, integrations with named CRM, newsletter or automation tools, and an app or extension marketplace.

10 — The site runs a small business: forms, bookings, payments, invoices or memberships work together with consent and data retention settings per form, an API or webhooks for form data, and a documented integration ecosystem — while the shop stays one feature among several.

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The Practice Owner

Forms come with file uploads, multistep layouts, Akismet spam protection, a dashboard where responses are stored and exported, Google Sheets and named CRM integrations such as Salesforce, Mailchimp and Jetpack CRM, alongside payments, memberships, a newsletter and a 60,000-plugin marketplace. We found no public information on appointment booking or calendar sync, and the pages state that forms send submissions via email and are not a secure method for private data — for patient details that is disqualifying as it stands. 2 3 13 14

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Imprint, privacy & cookie compliance

How this is scored

What the product does so that the owner's site is legal in Germany and the EU: an imprint page, privacy-policy and legal-text generators or partners, a cookie consent banner that blocks scripts until consent, GDPR-compliant forms, a data processing agreement for visitor data, fonts and media served without third-country transfers, and accessibility under the European Accessibility Act.

0 — Nothing for the site's legal obligations; the owner is left to add every legal page and banner from outside.

3 — Pages for an imprint and privacy policy can be added by hand, and a simple cookie notice exists, but consent blocking, a data processing agreement and form data handling are not described.

5 — A cookie consent banner, a data processing agreement offered to customers, documented GDPR handling of form entries, and help for imprint and privacy pages (templates, a generator, a named legal-text partner or a help article).

8 — Compliance worked out for EU sites: a consent banner that blocks scripts and embeds until consent and logs it, legal texts kept current by a named provider or a warranty against cease-and-desist letters, fonts and maps served without US transfer, and accessibility features or an accessibility statement.

10 — Compliance as part of the product: consent management with granular categories and records, legal texts maintained for several EU countries, every embed and script assessed for consent, accessibility to WCAG 2.1 AA documented with tooling, and the vendor's share of liability stated in its terms.

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The Practice Owner

A cookie consent block and a banner widget exist, automatically enabled on free plans and toggleable on paid ones, a data processing agreement can be requested from the account and satisfies the standard model clauses requirement, and the vendor's privacy policy is licensed for reuse as a template. The captured pages do not describe the banner blocking or logging consent, and we found no public information on imprint help, a legal-text partner, accessibility features, or how form entries are handled under the GDPR. 15 16

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European sovereignty

How this is scored

Who the contracting entity and the parent company are, where the sites, the form entries and the visitor data are hosted, and who the subprocessors are (hosting, CDN, email delivery, analytics, payments, AI features). Independently sourced by the sovereignty pipeline; the data subjects here are the owner's own visitors and customers, so the whole chain counts, not only the editor.

0 — Non-EU vendor and contracting entity, hosting unstated, subprocessors unnamed, and no data processing agreement offered.

3 — A privacy policy and a data processing agreement exist, but hosting location is unstated or non-EU and the subprocessors are not listed.

5 — EU hosting available or an EU contracting entity, a data processing agreement offered, but parts of the chain (CDN, email, analytics, AI features, support) run through non-EU providers or the subprocessors are listed without locations.

8 — EU hosting on named infrastructure, EU contracting entity, subprocessors listed with their locations, a data processing agreement published, and security certifications (ISO 27001, SOC 2) stated.

10 — Sovereign end to end and evidenced: European ownership, entity, hosting and every subprocessor, data export and deletion documented, and certifications published with their scope rather than implied.

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The Practice Owner

European customers contract with the Dublin entity, Aut O'Mattic A8C Ireland Ltd., and a data processing agreement with model clauses is offered — but the same pages state that site data sits on servers in the US and the EU and cannot be restricted to one location, the US parent remains controller for some processing worldwide, and subprocessors appear only as unnamed categories except Stripe for payments and Titan for email. For keeping my patients' data in Europe, that mixture is not something I can rely on. 4 5 15 16

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Pricing transparency

How this is scored

Whether a buyer can compute the real cost over two or three years from public pages alone: the monthly price per plan, the introductory price and how long it lasts, the renewal price after it, setup fees, minimum term and notice, domain and mailbox renewals, transaction fees on sales, and which features (ad removal, extra languages, bookings, more storage) cost extra.

0 — No public prices at all; every customer is a sales call.

3 — A starting price or a free plan is shown, but what the plans include, what they cost after the first term or how the cost scales is unclear.

5 — Plans are public with prices and their main inclusions, but at least one commonly needed piece (the price after an introductory offer, domain renewal, a mailbox, transaction fees, an add-on) is unpriced or hard to find.

8 — Every plan priced publicly with the introductory price, its duration and the regular price after it, setup fee, minimum term and notice period, domain and add-on prices listed, and VAT treatment stated.

10 — Complete price computability: the cost of a given site over several years derivable from public pages, with every add-on, renewal, transaction and support fee, the cancellation terms and what happens to the site and domain after cancellation published.

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The Practice Owner

All four plans are public in euros with struck-through regular and promotional monthly figures ("€40 €25 per month, billed every 12 months, excl. taxes"), stated storage per plan, a free plan, domains starting at €13 per year, a 14-day money-back guarantee and one month's cancellation notice for annual subscriptions. What the promotional prices renew at after the first term, the Payments feature's percentage fee and the mailbox price are not stated on the captured pages, and the terms say prices vary by billing country with the final price confirmed only at checkout. 1 3 5 9

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European sovereignty — proven facts

0 of 6 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Legal entity	Not determined	—	uncited Report an error
Hosting location	Not determined ⚠ unverified	—	uncited Report an error
Hosting options	Not determined ⚠ unverified	—	uncited Report an error
Open source	Not determined ⚠ unverified	—	uncited Report an error
Data processing agreement	Not determined ⚠ unverified	—	uncited Report an error
Transfer impact assessment	Not determined	—	uncited Report an error

Questions about WordPress.com

Is WordPress.com European?

No. whats-best.ai classifies WordPress.com as Rest of world.

Where does WordPress.com store data?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 28 Oct 2026.

Does WordPress.com have a free plan?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 28 Oct 2026.

What are the best alternatives to WordPress.com?

As of 4 Nov 2026, the panel rates Duda (3.5/5), Wix (3.5/5) and Framer (3.5/5) highest among the other 17 Website Builders products evaluated. Ratings that look equal are rounded to half stars; the order uses the unrounded rating, then the name. The highest-rated European alternative is Framer (EU-Made). Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made. The full list, with European products first: WordPress.com alternatives.

Where this could be wrong

Evidence ages. The oldest capture behind this page is from 28 Oct 2026. Vendors change pricing and policies without notice; every fact reflects its source as of the capture date shown in the registry.
Weak sourcing — Data processing agreement, Open source, Hosting location, Hosting options. Not confirmed on the vendor’s own pages as captured.
AI can misread a source. Extraction and judgement are automated; a citation guarantees traceability, not infallibility. If something here is wrong, say so — no account needed, every report is decided within 5 business days, and accepted corrections are published.

What we left out

A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.

25 product facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
6 pricing facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
5 compliance facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
1 data fact could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and was left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
1 support fact could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and was left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
4 sovereignty dimensions could not be confirmed on the vendor’s own pages and are shown as unknown. Know more? Tell us
6 of the readings below were written against an earlier fact sheet — a fact has been corrected, added or pulled since. Until the panel next runs on this product you are reading the older judgement. Know more? Tell us

Do you know more about WordPress.com? Tell us Report an error on this page

Sources (16)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

1 Vendor homepage wordpress.com Checked 28 Oct 2026 Details →
2 Features page wordpress.com Checked 28 Oct 2026 Details →
3 Pricing page wordpress.com Checked 28 Oct 2026 Details →
4 Privacy policy automattic.com Checked 28 Oct 2026 Details →
5 Terms naming the legal entity wordpress.com Checked 28 Oct 2026 Details →
6 Security page automattic.com Checked 28 Oct 2026 Details →
7 Editor, templates & design control — found from sitemap wordpress.com Checked 28 Oct 2026 Details →
8 Editor, templates & design control — found from sitemap wordpress.com Checked 28 Oct 2026 Details →
9 Hosting, domains & portability — found from sitemap wordpress.com Checked 28 Oct 2026 Details →
10 Hosting, domains & portability — found from sitemap wordpress.com Checked 28 Oct 2026 Details →
11 SEO, analytics & visibility — found from sitemap wordpress.com Checked 28 Oct 2026 Details →
12 SEO, analytics & visibility — found from sitemap wordpress.com Checked 28 Oct 2026 Details →
13 Forms, bookings & business features — found from sitemap wordpress.com Checked 28 Oct 2026 Details →
14 Forms, bookings & business features — found from sitemap wordpress.com Checked 28 Oct 2026 Details →
15 Imprint, privacy & cookie compliance — found from sitemap wordpress.com Checked 28 Oct 2026 Details →
16 Imprint, privacy & cookie compliance — found from sitemap wordpress.com Checked 28 Oct 2026 Details →