Plugin Contributor
James Huff
(@macmanx)
Volunteer Moderator
Since Jetpack brings WordPress.com features to your self-hosted WordPress.org site, it requires a WordPress.com account, much like how a plugin which brought Facebook features to your site would require a Facebook account.
Almost all of Jetpack’s features make use of heavy processing power (our image CDN, related posts indexing), heavy database usage (stats), or require connections to third-party systems that can be very complicated to setup by yourself (Publicize’s automated sharing to social networks, email subscriptions, etc). We take care of that all on WordPress.com’s server cluster so your hosting provider doesn’t suspend you for using excessive resources and such.
In order to do any of that, we do need a WordPress.com account.
We are very proud of our premium features, but we do need to charge for something to keep the lights on and pay developers and support staff. 🙂
With that said though, we have many free features that we’re proud of too: https://jetpack.com/pricing/
We do offer a 30-day full refund policy if you’re interested in trying any of the premium features out: https://jetpack.com/support/refunds/
Hi macmanx.
Does the plugin have any feature that doesn’t require connecting to wp.com?
I fully understand the need of the premium, but this feature page is a joke.
Your facebook plugin example is really disingenuous. Many features used to be agnostic from wp.com. tying it to it is just cash grab and data mining.
100 WordPress themes?!
If a developer had tried this, the plugin wouldn’t even be on wp.org.
thanks anyway for your reply.
Plugin Contributor
James Huff
(@macmanx)
Volunteer Moderator
Does the plugin have any feature that doesn’t require connecting to wp.com?
At this time, all of our features do require a connection with WordPress.com to function.
tying it to it is just cash grab and data mining.
I am sorry you feel it is a cash grab, we do need to charge for some features, otherwise we can’t pay developers, support personnel, or provide servers for the remote backups and CDN, etc.
100 WordPress themes?!
We provide some additional in-house-built themes that are not available in WordPress’s theme directory: https://jetpack.com/features/design/themes/
If a developer had tried this, the plugin wouldn’t even be on wp.org.
We are just like any other developer here, and I can assure you that we get no special treatment here.
For another plugin here with a similar business model, see https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo/
so, what you’re saying, since it doesn’t do anything, is that jetpack is just a storefront. It acts only as a front-end for products to be purchased from jetpack.
as for special treatment, let me know when other plugins can be featured.
Plugin Contributor
James Huff
(@macmanx)
Volunteer Moderator
jetpack is just a storefront
That’s definitely not what I’m saying.
Jetpack is software as a service (SaaS), of which there are many such plugins in the plugin directory here.
Half Jetpack’s features are free. We are definitely a storefront for our premium features, many other plugins here are too, but you don’t have to buy anything to use Jetpack.
The free plan, and the features it offers, are free for life.
just because its free as in, no money, doesn’t mean jetpack is not getting nothing in return. It gets, equally as valuable, data. Jetpacks hides all features behind a connection.
thin line, very thin line.
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This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by
pcarvalho.
Plugin Contributor
James Huff
(@macmanx)
Volunteer Moderator
There really isn’t any way for us to provide those features without the connection.
We aren’t hiding the features behind a connection, the connection is what enables the features to function.
In order to provide Jetpack’s features, we need to sync the data outlined at https://jetpack.com/support/what-data-does-jetpack-sync/ to our service, and we’re very upfront about that during the connection process prior to anything being synced.
Further details on that page outline what we sync, and of course we only sync data required for _active_ Jetpack modules, meaning that we only sync what we need to provide the features you want.
All synced data is handled under the terms of our Privacy Policy: https://automattic.com/privacy/
If you don’t want us to sync data to our service, we do recommend that you not use Jetpack, as it is integral to the services we offer.
if anyone is reading this, and HAS to use jetpack, there’s a solution to prevent jetpack from connecting to wp.com.
either:
define( 'JETPACK_DEV_DEBUG', true);
or
add_filter( 'jetpack_development_mode', '__return_true' );
thanks Fernando Tellado:
https://ayudawp.com/usa-jetpack-sin-conexion-a-wordpress-com-gracias-a-una-sola-linea-de-codigo/
ps: instead of coming up with excuses, this would be the ideal reply to my review.
Plugin Contributor
James Huff
(@macmanx)
Volunteer Moderator
Ah, fair point!
We do have this documented at https://jetpack.com/support/development-mode/
Just keep in mind that many features will not work, because they rely on processing and such done on WordPress.com’s end. No sync means that can’t happen.
