WordPress is the most popular free and open source Content Management System to create websites and blogs. In simple words, WordPress is web software to create websites quickly and easily.

Further Read: 35+ Type Of Websites You Can Create With WordPress

In this article, I will discuss What is WordPress how does it work and who use it and how many people are using this most popular web software to create websites and blogs.

You can also read this 6000+ Words Ultimate Guide: How to use WordPress? at ToCreateaBlog.com to learn all the basics of WordPress.
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Everything from simple websites to blogs, to complex portals and enterprise websites, and even applications are built with WordPress. WordPress is used by 58.6% of all the websites whose content management system is known. This is 24.9% of all websites.

WordPress started in 2003, It was first released on May 27, 2003, by founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little as a fork of b2/cafelog.

Since then it has grown to be the largest self-hosted blogging and publishing tool in the world, used on millions of websites/blogs and seen by tens of millions of people every day.

WordPress started as just a simple blogging system but has evolved to be used as a powerful content management system, which helps you to create different types of websites very easily.

WordPress is the most popular online publishing platform, currently powering more than 25% of the web.

Further Read: 37 proven tactics: how to launch blog successfully & increase traffic 37 proven tactics

What is CMS (Content management systems) : Content management systems are web-based applications for creating and managing the content of a website.

We include all such systems in this category, also systems that are often classified as wikis, blog engines or discussion boards.

WordPress.org and WordPress.com

There are two versions of WordPress. WordPress.org (self-hosted version) and WordPress.com (hosted version of WordPress).

WordPress.org : If you want full control over your website/blog that you can download and install a software script called WordPress from https://wordpress.org/download/.

To do this you need to buy a Reliable Hosting Plan from a web host who meets the minimum requirements and a little time.

WordPress is completely customizable and can be used for almost any type of website or blog.

To get started with the self-hosted version you will have to buy Domain and web hosting (starting from $2.67 per month) and no technical knowledge is required.

WordPress.com : is hosted version of the open source software WordPress.

At wordpress.com you can start a blog or build a website in seconds without any technical knowledge. wordpress.com was created in 2005.

At wordpress.com you can start a free blog or website, but there are some limitations. You will have to pay them to unlock different features.

How you can use WordPress how does WordPress works?

If you are a designer or developer, or you work for a company that designs/develops websites, you can use WordPress to build websites and/or blogs for clients.

WordPress is not difficult to use at all. You can learn basics of WordPress with in an hour or two.

WordPress is a free and open source blogging tool and a content management system (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL, but you don’t need to know HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript & other languages to use WordPress.

How to get started with WordPress self hosted version?

1. Get A Free Domain Name + 40% off hosting – just $2.67/month with WestHost
2. Install and set up WordPress
3. start publishing content

WordPress is famous for its five minutes installation process. It means your WordPress based website will be online with in 5 minutes.

Most powerful WordPress features

One of the main reason of WordPress is its flexibility and list of very powerful features, that allows you to build the different type of blogs and websites very easily.

For example, With WordPress Themes you can change the design of your websites very easily.

Here is a list of WordPress features.

Built-in Comments

Your blog is your home, and comments provide a space for your friends and followers to engage with your content.

WordPress’s comment tools give you everything you need to be a forum for discussion and to moderate that discussion.

Change design easily with WordPress Themes

WordPress Themes allow you to change the look and functionality of a WordPress website or installation without altering the information content or structure.

Thousands of free themes are available at https://wordpress.org/themes.

There are many marketplaces and developers selling premium themes. You can find a list of Premium Theme Developers in our other article.

Further Read: How To Choose A Perfect Free Or Premium WordPress Theme

Add additional functionality with thousands of free Plugins

One very popular feature of WordPress is its rich plugins. which allows users and developers to extend its abilities beyond the features that are part of the base install.

Further Read: 30 Free Most Popular WordPress plugins

As of 2016 WordPress has a database of over 41000+ plugins with purposes ranging from Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to adding widgets, building social networking, online store, forums websites and much more.

These free plugins can be found at WordPress plugins directory

Widgets

Widgets are small modules that offer users drag-and-drop sidebar content placement and implementation of many plugins’ extended abilities.

Widgets allow WordPress developers to add functionality to their sites. These small modules can be used to add functionality such as a slideshow, Facebook-like box, small news slider, and more.

Multi-User And Multi-Blogging

You can have multiple users on a WordPress site with different user roles and Capabilities. A user with the Administrative rights have full authority to manage WordPress site while a User with subscriber role has minimum capabilities.

Multi Site Network

As of WordPress 3.0, you have the ability to create a network of sites by using the multi-site feature.

With WordPress Multi-Site feature you can create a network of WordPress base websites just like WordPress.com where any one can register and create a free website/blog.

Visit WordPress features page to learn about all the features.

How many people are using WordPress

As of December 2011, version 3.0 had been downloaded over 65 million times.  WordPress 4.3 has been downloaded more than  25,158,482+ times.  Version 4.3 of WordPress was named “Billie” in honor of jazz singer Billie Holiday.

As of 2015 WordPress is fastest growing content management system and most widely used CMS to build highly customized websites and blogs.

WordPress is used by 58.6% of all the websites whose content management system is known. This is 24.9% of all websites. WordPress Version 4 is used by 83.1% of all the websites who use WordPress. source

WordPress.com activity page shows that over 409 million people view more than 20.4 billion pages each month and users produce about 56.6 million new posts and 52.2 million new comments each month. WordPress.com host blogs written in over 120 languages. English is most popular language.

Most Popular websites using WordPress

according to w3techs.com here are 10 most popular websites using WordPress

1. WordPress.com
2. WordPress.org
3. Conservativetribune.com
4. Time.com
5. Webtretho.com
6. Xda-developers.com
7. Techcrunch.com
8. Exoclick.com
9. Vcommission.com
10. Wired.com

Notable WordPress users

WordPress is not only used by individuals and hobby bloggers, some of the world’s most popular and biggest websites in the world rely on WordPress.

Here’s a sampler of well-known sites that are powered by WordPress.

1. The New York Times’ blogs
2. CNN blogs
3. Forbes
4. Reuters
5. eBay
6. Sony
7. BestBuy
8. MP3.com
9. TechCrunch
10. Samsung
11. IBMJobs
12. Boing Boing
13. Mashable

and a lot of others. You can view complete list at WordPress Notable Users page.

Next Steps

Now you know all the basics things about WordPress, it’s time to start learning WordPress, so you can create powerful websites with WordPress your self.

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