Automattic Tools I Use for Websites, Publishing and Online Business
Automattic's tools, from 23 years on WordPress
I have run a WordPress site since 2003, built and operated a WooCommerce store for a different business in another industry, and sell through Shopify today. That combination is the useful part of this page: I can tell you where these tools fit and, more usefully, where they do not.
Automattic owns a spread of products that get presented as one ecosystem. Some I have used properly. Others I know by reputation and can describe accurately without pretending to have lived with them, so those are kept separate further down.
First, the thing that confuses everyone
WordPress.com and WordPress.org are not the same thing and the names do a poor job of explaining it. WordPress.org is the free software you install on hosting you choose and control entirely. WordPress.com is Automattic's managed service that runs that software for you, on their infrastructure, on a subscription.
My own site is the self-hosted kind, which is the older and more stubborn path: you own the stack and you also own every update, plugin conflict and backup that comes with it. WordPress.com removes that work in exchange for a subscription and a narrower set of choices.
One consequence worth knowing before you subscribe: installing your own plugins and themes on WordPress.com requires the higher plans. If your plan for the site depends on a specific plugin, check which tier permits it, because that is the detail that most often turns a cheap subscription into a more expensive one.
What I have used
WordPress
Two decades of publishing on it. Nothing else comes close for content depth, editorial control and owning what you have built. It is also the reason I still think about plugin updates in 2026. If articles are the product, this is still the answer, and WordPress.com is the version of it where somebody else runs the machine.
Visit WordPress.comWooCommerce
I built and ran a WooCommerce store for a separate business in a different industry. The plugin is free, which is the headline and also the trap: the extensions that make it a real shop are not, and payments, shipping, subscriptions and bookings each arrive with their own licence. Budget for the finished thing, not the download.
Visit WooCommerce MarketplaceWooCommerce or Shopify
I have built on both, though not as a migration — the WooCommerce store was a different business in a different industry, so this is two separate builds rather than a before and after. WooCommerce wins on control and on not paying a platform a percentage of your revenue. You own the database, you can do anything you are prepared to build, and nobody changes the rules underneath you.
What you pay for that is responsibility. Uptime, security patches, PCI scope, plugin conflicts and the checkout itself are all yours. When a WooCommerce checkout breaks at the wrong moment, there is no support line, there is only you and the error log.
What decided it each time was the shape of the business rather than the software. If the business is publishing, WordPress. If the business is transactions at volume, hosted. My current catalogue runs to several thousand products maintained by one person through an API, and I would not want to carry the infrastructure for that myself.
The long version of the Shopify half of that decision, including the parts that cost me money, is on my Shopify page.
The rest of the family
Also Automattic's, and relevant if you are running WordPress, but not things I run day to day. Described rather than recommended.
Jetpack
Security, backups, performance and stats bundled into one plugin for self-hosted sites. The appeal is having those handled together rather than through four separate plugins that each want updating. The counter-argument is that it is a large plugin doing many jobs, and some of what it offers you may already have from your host.
Visit JetpackPressable
Managed WordPress hosting, owned by Automattic. The case for managed hosting over cheap shared hosting is that performance tuning and WordPress-specific problems become someone else's job. Worth pricing against a general host if page speed matters commercially to you.
Visit PressableAkismet
Spam filtering for comments and forms. Only relevant if you have open comments or public forms, in which case it is close to essential, because unmoderated WordPress comments become unusable quickly. Note that commercial sites need a paid tier.
Visit AkismetSensei
Course delivery inside WordPress: lessons, quizzes and progress tracking on your own site rather than a course platform's. I sell my own courses through Shopify instead, so this is a description rather than a recommendation, but the argument for it is that you keep the customer relationship and the data.
Visit SenseiWP Job Manager
Turns a WordPress site into a job board or listings directory. A narrow tool with a specific use, and genuinely good if that is the site you are building. If it is not, ignore it.
Visit WP Job ManagerWho this is for
- ✓Anyone whose business is publishing rather than selling
- ✓People who want to own the stack and accept the maintenance that comes with it
- ✓Shops selling something unusual enough that a hosted checkout cannot express it
- ✓Established WordPress sites adding a shop rather than starting from nothing
- ✓Agencies and freelancers who build client sites and want one familiar toolkit
Where to start
If you want WordPress without running the infrastructure, WordPress.com is the managed version. Check which plan permits the plugins you need before subscribing, since that is where the real cost sits.
Visit WordPress.comThe links on this page are affiliate links and I may earn a commission if you subscribe through one, at no cost to you. Nobody at Automattic has reviewed or approved this page, and the tools I have marked as not personally used are marked that way deliberately.