Jetpack brings the best of WordPress.com to WordPress.org users – in a plugin

WordPress is shaking things up. Before today, WordPress users had to choose between the dot-com and the dot-org options. The dot-com option is the easy-to-use, web-scale centralized version with automatic access to new upgrades and features. The dot-org option is a way for users to sign up and host their own blog with a hosting company. Users maintain complete control over plugins and code, but have to keep up to date with upgrades and features manually.

So WordPress asks, “What if you could have the best of both worlds?” Jetpack is the perfect storm for WordPress users.

“Today we’re launching the first version of what’s been a dream of mine for several years now: a way to provide feature parity between WordPress.com and WordPress.org for everybody…It’s the best of both worlds, the decentralized and the centralized, the control and the convenience, the peanut butter and the chocolate.”

-WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg

Jetpack is a new plugin for self-hosted WordPress blogs that will deliver features like WordPress stats, Twitter widgets, support for shortcodes and Sharedaddy sharing buttons and wp.me shortlinks in just one click.

The plugin essentially gives users easy access to new WordPress functionalities instantly without giving up any amount of control. It’s a “have your cake and eat it too” plugin. At this time, all of Jetpack’s plugins are free, though Automattic notes that some future features may require payment.

WordPress partnered with a number of popular hosting companies, including Bluehost,DreamHost, Go Daddy, HostGator, Media Temple and Network Solutions, to bring Jetpack to its one-click WordPress installs.

Interested? Download Jetpack here.