WordPress arguably powers nearly a quarter of the Web. Here's our honest (and rather abstract) review of the world's most influential website platform.

Website Builder or CMS?

Since its inception, there has been a debate as to whether WordPress is (and should be considered) a website builder or CMS. In fact, it’s both because, technically, it’s a website builder with a CMS at its core. What this means is that, while a database of structural collections of information exists — page layouts, design choices/language, content format, and site element behavior can be manipulated without code. Whether this is easily accomplished is subject to another debate. That being said, WordPress’ relatively recent launch of Gutenberg (i.e., their new editor) did render the platform considerably more user-friendly.

Website and Privacy Security

WordPress remains an open-source/open-sourced platform. This inevitably makes websites (and their interfaces) running on the platform more susceptible to hacker and spam attacks. While the code base is accessible to all, there are plugins that rather effectively limit malware, spyware, and other malicious scripts from disrupting the user/visitor experience. Simply remaining up-to-date on the latest iteration of WordPress helps in this regard, too. Still, many large enterprises (and their site administrators) would agree with us in saying that website and privacy security remain an issue with WordPress. It’s an excellent solution for virtually any blogger or small business owner, however, entrusting the platform with, for example, millions of page views and thousands of product purchases on a company’s seasonal sale could pose a problem when employee salaries, customer reputation, and more depend on the safe and consistent interaction between a publisher and its brand followers. The flexibility that WordPress offers can’t justify its use in critical situations, in our opinion.

Plugins over Proprietary

With WordPress being, once again, an open-source platform, there is another challenge (some would argue benefit) presented; plugins. WordPress does include several native (i.e., built-in) blocks spanning various types of content and page layouting that could be integrated into your site. But there are instances where features and functionality beyond standard media and the look & feel of your site are required. For this, WordPress has an entire host of community-led plugins.

These third-party applications assist in quite seamlessly adding whatever is needed to complete any website project. The downside is that they’re primarily vetted through user reviews. In other words, the validity of the plugins in question is at the peril of the user (keeping in mind that the end-user [i.e., site visitor] also reaps the results of each plugin, good or bad. The polarization of quality is offset by the sheer number of plugins at a person’s disposal when using WordPress. You can do anything with it, but there is a significant amount of time (and patience) required in managing the countless plugins potentially utilized.

For reference and contrast purposes, proprietary platforms (meaning those with native features/functionality only) aren’t necessarily better than WordPress, which brings with it several key advantages. They’re different, and so a project’s requirements (and concept level) should be the determining factor in deciding which type to ultimately go with.

WordPress.org versus WordPress.com

It’s important for us to mention that WordPress is delivered through two separate entities; WordPress.org and WordPress.com. We’ve already covered WordPress.org in this article. But there’s a second (significantly less popular) associated platform offering all of the above minus some areas of customization. WordPress.com is, essentially, the proprietary (and fully hosted) version of WordPress.org, both of which are founded & managed by Matt Mullenweg’s Automattic.

The former is nearly as powerful as the latter with its carefully-filtered 3rd-party plugins (to complement every native plugin offered by Automattic). It’s only secured by I.T. (i.e., information technology) professionals at no additional cost outside of their pricing plans. If we had to suggest which one to go with, it would be WordPress.com for any individual, business, or non-profit organization requiring turn-key sales and/or marketing features not to mention a choice of beautiful templates either developed or endorsed by Automattic.

WordPress.org remains the best option where flexibility is the preference. Since there are almost no limitations to this version of the platform, both front-facing and back-office plugins can be implemented via API. In other words, developers can create custom plugins for the client-side experience (i.e, what website visitors see and/or interact with), but WordPress’ interface (commonly referred to as WP Admin) also allows for personalization… not only in its design & elements, but as far as accepting accounts & inputs from other Web professionals or prosumers as well (so that they can create their own self-signup website builder or a single site independently on the platform).

Conclusion

To conclude this WordPress Review, we’d like to highlight that WP is an incredible solution in virtually every respect. Automattic has covered its bases by allowing anyone to build off of their success. If monitored correctly, it can be (and is) used very effectively by the biggest of companies. And because it has it all, so to speak, WordPress is a learning platform second to none; more specifically, a beginner to online marketing, e-business, or even Web design can get the hands-on experience needed to understand & launch a pro website initiative including themes (with either minor or major customizations), unique content layouts, image/video galleries, lead-generation forms, SEO best practices (something, aside from general blogging, that WP shines in), and more.