WordPress
By WordPress Foundation
WordPress is an open-source content management system (CMS) that powers a large share of websites worldwide, letting users create and manage websites, blogs, and online stores through themes, plugins, and a visual editor.
Definition
WordPress is an open-source content management system (CMS) that powers a large share of websites worldwide, letting users create and manage websites, blogs, and online stores through themes, plugins, and a visual editor.
Overview
WordPress began as blogging software and has since grown into a general-purpose content management system used for everything from personal blogs to large corporate and media websites. It's built in PHP with a MySQL or MariaDB backend, and its block-based editor (Gutenberg) lets users build pages visually without writing HTML. Themes control the site's presentation, while plugins extend its functionality — the most well-known example being WooCommerce, which adds full e-commerce capability. A REST API also supports headless WordPress setups, where a separate front end built in React or Next.js consumes WordPress purely as a content backend. WordPress's plugin and theme marketplace is enormous, letting non-developers add SEO tools, forms, caching, and security features without custom code. Hosting ranges from fully managed WordPress hosts to self-managed Linux servers, and the rise of headless architectures has kept WordPress relevant even as JAMstack and API-first approaches to web development have grown more common.
Key Features
- Block-based visual editor (Gutenberg) for building pages and posts without code
- Vast plugin ecosystem covering SEO, e-commerce, forms, security, and caching
- Thousands of themes for customizing site design without custom development
- Built-in user roles, permissions, and multi-author publishing workflows
- REST API enabling headless WordPress architectures
- Multisite feature for managing multiple sites from one installation
- Strong SEO fundamentals bolstered by a large plugin base