WordPress is a free and open-source web publishing system originally designed for bloggers but now used for many different types of websites. Built as a successor of b2/cafelog by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little, WordPress has taken off as a huge name in digital publishing and website creation.
As the most used CMS in the world, WordPress towers above the rest with over 28 million websites using the behemoth system. To give you a better idea of just how big that number is, it’s actually more than the next nine most commonly used content management systems on the list combined.
What’s the story behind WordPress’ dominance? There are a number of factors that make WordPress so widely used, but perhaps none is bigger than the fact that it is free and open source, meaning just about anybody can use it however they please and not have to worry about costs other than those associated with development and website management resources.
How does WordPress work?
Without getting too technical in a beginner’s guide, WordPress essentially provides users with a framework and user-friendly dashboard to manage and control everything on a website. It’s basically the driver’s seat where site owners can upload and maintain content, plugins, design elements, user credentials, and more.
Considering how long WordPress has been around and how commonly used it is, WordPress works extremely well.
What is WordPress used for?
Just about everything.
WordPress is most often associated with blogs — its roots are in blog publishing — but so many other types of websites use WordPress as their CMS. In fact, WordPress works for just about any type of website you can think of, which is another reason why it’s so tremendously popular. You can create a portfolio on WordPress. You can use WordPress for dropshipping. You can also create a WordPress online store by using WordPress with WooCommerce.
These are just some of the countless types of sites you can use WordPress for:
- Blog
- Ecommerce
- Business
- Portfolio
- News
- Job boards
- Podcasts
WordPress’s versatility means that if you can think it up, you can use WordPress to build it.
The widely used CMS seems to do it all, but does WordPress host websites? The simple answer is ‘no’ but stay tuned to learn more on this when we discuss the differences between WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com.