WordPress

Create a beautiful website, blog, or app

As of 30 August 2026, WordPress is free to use. WordPress is a free and open-source content management system written in PHP. Softwr lists it under Content Creation. WordPress is made by WordPress Foundation, launched in 2003, available on Self-hosted, Web.

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Overview

What WordPress does

WordPress is a free and open-source content management system written in PHP. It's the most popular CMS globally, powering over 40% of all websites on the internet.

What people use it for

Content management and blog publishing
Website building with themes and plugins
E-commerce with WooCommerce
Community sites and forums

Where it falls short

Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about WordPress.

Self-hosted installation requires PHP 8.3 and MySQL 8.0 or MariaDB 10.11 minimum; older versions expose security vulnerabilities
Requires web server (Apache or Nginx) setup and ongoing maintenance; not suitable for serverless deployment
HTTPS mandatory for all installations; HTTP-only setups are not supported
Self-hosting requires responsibility for security patches, backups, and server administration

Cross-shopped

What people choose instead of WordPress

Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.

WordPressvs
Hashnode
Hashnode: The blogging platform for developers and engineers
WordPressvs
Micro.blog
Micro.blog: Easy blogging at your own domain name
WordPressvs
Weebly
Weebly: Build websites and online stores

Capabilities

Features

Content management
Theme system
Plugin architecture
User management
SEO optimization
Media management
Comment system
Multilingual support
WooCommerce
Integration with WooCommerce
Yoast SEO
Integration with Yoast SEO
Elementor
Integration with Elementor
Gutenberg
Integration with Gutenberg

Answered, with sources

Questions people ask

Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.

Does WordPress charge licensing fees for using the software?

WordPress is free and open source software, meaning there are no licensing costs to download or use the platform itself.

Source

What costs should I expect when running a WordPress site?

While WordPress software is free, you will typically need to pay separately for web hosting, domain registration, and optional premium themes or plugins. These costs are not part of WordPress itself but are provided by third-party services.

Source

Behind it