WordPress is the most popular content management system on the planet, with over 42% of websites running on it.
What is WordPress?
WordPress is a content management system, or CMS for short, that helps bloggers and webmasters edit content on a regular basis without the need to use a traditional HTML editor software, for example, Dreamweaver or Frontpage. If you don’t even know what these are those, consider yourself lucky.
WordPress itself is an open source software licensed under GPLv2 which means it’s free to use and free to modify. WordPress.org is the self-hosted version, that you can run on your own servers or purchase a hosting package from one of the numerous web hosting companies.
The benefit of a self-hosted blog is that webmasters have access to the code behind their site, as well as the roughly 56,000 free plugins and 2,500 themes that are listed on the official repository (WordPress.org) – and even more from commercial sources.
Matt Mullenweg
Technology is best when it brings people together.
How to use WordPress
More about WordPress
WordPress started in 2003 when Mike Little and Matt Mullenweg created a fork of b2/cafelog. The need for an elegant, well-architected personal publishing system was clear even then. Today, WordPress is built on PHP and MariaDB, and licensed under the GPLv2. It is also the platform of choice for over 43% of all sites across the web.
The WordPress open source project has evolved in progressive ways over time—supported by skilled, enthusiastic developers, designers, scientists, bloggers, and more. WordPress provides the opportunity for anyone to create and share, from handcrafted personal anecdotes to world-changing movements.
People with a limited tech experience can use it “out of the box”, and more tech-savvy folks can customize it in remarkable ways.
WordPress is designed for everyone. We believe great software should work with minimum set up, emphasizing accessibility, performance, security, and ease of use. The basic WordPress software is simple and predictable, offering powerful features for growth and success.
WordPress is open source software. Supporting the idea of democratizing publishing and the freedoms that come with open source, is a large community of people collaborating on and contributing to this project.
WordPress is welcoming and inclusive. Our contributors’ passion drives the success of WordPress which, in turn, helps you reach your goals. WordPress contributors work around the globe, and have dedicated countless hours to build a tool that offers anyone a voice.
WordPress is licensed under the General Public License (GPLv2 or later) which provides four core freedoms:
- The freedom to run the program for any purpose.
- The freedom to study how the program works and change it to make it do what you wish.
- The freedom to redistribute.
- The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others.