A Quick Shout Out for WordPress

I have been giving a lot of WordPress workshops lately, saw my Shout out for Drupal article ... and thought it perhaps unfair that I have not written anything about WordPress. So here we are.

What is this WordPress CMS anyway? Here is the elevator version. Haberdashery, Sporting Goods, Ladies Wear ... going up!

WordPress first appeared in 2003 as a blogging CMS with 1 theme. Today WordPress offers about 10 000 themes, and is used by 58.7% of all the websites whose content management system is known (here is a current WordPress website). This is 27.5% of the top 10 million websites.

I have built somewhere in the range of 150 websites in WordPress, and I know from experience that there are pros and cons to the system. Like any other system.

Some great things about WordPress? 

For me the first thing I can say is that WordPress was the first CMS to offer a standard and Responsive theme (2013). Which was a really big thing back in 2013.

It is a perfect CMS for individuals, small business, education and research.

It is incredibly easy to learn. For most people, compared with other CMS, WordPress is simple to operate and convenient to use. 

It is free to download and, unless you are using a plugin or theme which costs money, the plugins and themes are free to use as well.

Even Google likes WordPress, as I noticed last month on the website of Alberto Medina who works at Google.

Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla! ... the question is really “What do you want your website to do for you?” 

Like anything you do, you should use the tools necessary for the project you are doing. Why use a bulldozer when all you maybe really need is a good shovel?

Wordpress. Create your stunning website. https://en.wordpress.com/create/

** footnote - if you like Drupal and you like Wordpress, I find they dovetail in many ways (content editing, media inclusion, SEO etc) in the CMS Thunder. Find out more about this distribution and try it out for yourself.  https://thunder.org/

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UPDATE 8 MARCH 2018 SMASHING MAGAZINE - WordPress REST API

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/03/react-wordpress-web-app/Wait, What? WordPress REST API?

The WordPress REST API is a game changer for WordPress, which can now safely be called a "web application framework" — not just a CMS. @muhsinlk shows how you can build a skin for your web app with React and WP ...