What is WordPress?
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What is WordPress?

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Introduction

WordPress is a CMS (Content Management System) which is the simplest, popular way to create your blog, business, website, etc. And has become the most popular CMS for everyone looking to build a website and is designed for everyone, emphasizing accessibility, performance, security, and ease of use.

It started in 2003 when Mike Little and Matt Mullenweg created a fork of b2/cafelog and is built on PHP and MySQL, and licensed under the GPLv2. It is also the platform of choice for over 39% of all sites across the web.

Features of WordPress

  1. Simplicity – It is built in a way that makes managing and working with pages a breeze. With Block editor and customizable options for almost everything you want to update in website, in an easy-to-use interface.
  2. Flexibility – You can create any type of website you want. You can customize the theme.
  3. Publish with Comfort – If you’ve created a document, then working with WordPress is no different. It is easy to use for both beginners and advanced users. It’s highly customizable.
  4. User Management – Not everyone requires the same access, so it has all the security features which you can use to assign authorizations, if you’re collaborating.
  5. Plugins – By default it is packed with multiple features, but if you still need more customization, there are thousands of plugins for every feature you desire.

WordPress Developer Features

  1. Plugin System – API’s make it possible for you to extend WordPress in any way you like. Once you’ve created your plugin, we’ve even got a plugin repository for you to host it on.
  2. Theme System – The theme is the skin of WordPress which the end user sees. Free themes are highly customizable, if you so desire you can create you’re own themes. If you want to give it for free, you can upload it to the theme repository.
  3. Application Framework – If you want to build an application, it can help with that too.
  4. Custom Content Types – You can create your custom post types, taxonomies, etc.

What is WordPress built with?

It is written in PHP and paired with database MySQL or MariaDB

  1. PHP
  2. MySQL or MariaDB

The WordPress code is present in GitHub, it has an active community of developers who are contributing to WordPress codebase. But the user doesn’t need to learn PHP or any database stuff for working or creating a website, all they need is a host & WordPress installation.

What is Gutenberg, and what does it mean to WordPress?

“Gutenberg” is the name of the project to create a new editor experience for WordPress. Contributors have been working on it since January 2017, and it’s one of the most significant changes to WordPress in years.

Gutenberg is developed on GitHub under the WordPress organization. The block editor has been available in core WordPress since 5.0 (6 Dec 2018).

What’s on the roadmap for long term?

There are four phases of Gutenberg which you can see on the official WordPress roadmap. As of writing this, we’re currently in phase 2:

  1. Easier Editing — Already available with ongoing improvements, this has been a significant move to help get more new users.
  2. Customization — Full Site editing, Block Patterns, Block Directory, Block-based themes.
  3. Collaboration — A more intuitive seamless way to co-author content
  4. Multi-lingual — Core implementation for Multi-lingual sites

Disadvantages of WordPress

I’ve told you many advantages, but here are few disadvantages to it, consider them before you move ahead with WordPress for your site.

  1. You Need Lots of Plugins For Additional Features – By default comes with many features but if you want to customize something, then you’ll have to install some plugins for that. But plugins come in different flavors some free & others paid. If your customization doesn’t come with available plugins, then you’ll have to build your own, which can be daunting for non-programmers, etc.
  2. Frequent Theme and Plugin Updates – As every website needs to have a theme and some plugins for it to function. If you’re using a theme or plugin built by someone, then you’ll have to keep updating & also see if your website is working as expected
  3. Slow page speed – Website can become slow over time due to many plugins or unoptimized databases etc. So, you’ll always need to be on your toes for keeping it quick.

Conclusion

As you can see that WordPress is the go-to CMS software for building a website. It has noticeable web hosting support and also is easy to use. This is the reason why more than 30% of internet is run using it.