WordPress powers over 35% of the web – a figure that's growing every day. Everything from simple websites and blogs to complex portals and corporate websites, and even apps, are built with WordPress.
WordPress combines simplicity for users and editors with underlying complexity for developers. This makes it flexible while being easy to use. The following is a list of some of the features that come standard with WordPress; However, there are literally thousands of plugins that extend what WordPress does, so the actual functionality is nearly limitless. You are also free to do whatever you want with the WordPress code, extend or modify it in any way, or use it for commercial projects without license fees. Such is the beauty of free software, free refers not only to price but also to the freedom to have full control over it.
Here are some of the features we think you'll love.
Simplicity
Simplicity lets you get online and publish quickly. Nothing should stop you from getting your website and your content. WordPress is designed to make this happen.
Flexibility
With WordPress , you can create any type of website you want: a personal blog or website, a photoblog, a business website, a professional portfolio, a government website, a magazine or a news website , an online community, even a network of websites. You can make your website beautiful with themes and extend it with plugins. You can even create your own app.
Publish with ease
If you've ever created a document, you're already an expert at creating content with WordPress. You can create posts and pages, easily format them, insert media, and with the click of a button, your content is live and on the web.
Publishing Tools
WordPress makes it easy to manage your content. Create drafts, schedule publication, and review revisions to your articles. Make your content public or private and secure posts and pages with a password.
Management users
Not everyone needs the same access to your website. Administrators manage the site, editors work with content, authors and contributors write that content, and subscribers have a profile they can manage. This allows you to have a variety of contributors to your website and let others just be part of your community.
media management
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, which is why it's important for you to be able to upload images and media to WordPress quickly and easily. Drag and drop your media files into the uploader to add them to your website. Add alt text and captions, and insert images and galleries into your content. We even added some image editing tools that you can have fun with.
Full standards compliance
Every piece of code generated by WordPress is in full compliance with the standards set by the W3C. This means that your website will work in today's browser, while maintaining backward compatibility with the next generation of browsers. Your website is a beautiful thing, now and in the future.
Easy theme system
WordPress comes with three default themes, but if these aren't your thing, there's a theme directory with thousands of themes for you to create a beautiful website. None of those to your liking? Download your own theme with the click of a button. It only takes you a few seconds to give your website a complete overhaul.
Extend with plugins
WordPress comes with many features for every user. For every feature that is not in the core WordPress, there is a plugin directory with thousands of plugins. Add complex galleries, social networks, forums, social media widgets, spam protection, calendars, fine tuning controls for search engine optimization and forms.
Embedded comments
Your blog is your home, and comments provide space for your friends and followers to interact with your content. WordPress commenting tools give you everything you need to be a discussion board and moderate that discussion.
Search engine optimized
WordPress is optimized for search engines right out of the box. For finer SEO control, there are plenty of SEO plugins to take care of that.
Use WordPress in your language
WordPress is available in over 70 languages. If you or the person you're creating the website for prefers to use WordPress in a language other than English, that's easy to do.
Easy installation and upgrades
WordPress has always been easy to install and upgrade. Many web hosts offer one-click WordPress installers that allow you to install WordPress with just one click! Or, if you're happy with using an FTP program, you can create a database, upload WordPress via FTP, and run the installer.
Importers
Are you using a blog or website software that you are unhappy with? Are you running your blog on a hosted service that is about to shut down? WordPress comes with importers for Blogger, LiveJournal, Movable Type, TypePad, Tumblr and WordPress. If you're ready to move, we've made it easy for you.
Own your data
Hosted services come and go. If you've ever used a service that disappeared, you know how traumatic it can be. If you've ever seen ads popping up on your website, you've probably been quite annoyed. Using WordPress means no one has access to your content. Owner of all your data - your website, your content, your data.
Freedom
WordPress is licensed under the GPL which was created to protect your freedoms. You are free to use WordPress as you wish: install it, use it, modify it, distribute it. Software freedom is the foundation on which WordPress is built.
Community
As the most popular open source CMS on the web, WordPress has a vibrant and supportive community. Ask a question on the support forums and get help from a volunteer, attend a WordCamp or Meetup to learn more about WordPress, read WordPress blog posts and tutorials. Community is at the heart of WordPress , making it what it is today.
To contribute
You can be WordPress too! Help build WordPress, answer questions on support forums, write documentation, translate WordPress to your language, speak in a WordCamp, write about WordPress on your blog. Whatever your skill, we'd love to have you!
Features for Developers
For developers, we have plenty of goodies wrapped under the hood that you can use to extend WordPress in a direction that suits you.
Plug-in system
The WordPress APIs allow you to create plugins to extend WordPress. The extensibility of WordPress lies in the thousands of hooks at your disposal. Once you've created your plugin, we even have a plugin repository you can host it on.
Theme system
Create WordPress themes for clients, other WordPress users, or yourself. WordPress offers the extensibility to create themes as simple or as complex as you want. If you want to give away your theme for free, you can give it to users in the theme repository.
Application framework
If you want to create an application, WordPress can also help you. WordPress provides many under the hood features that your application will need: translations, user management, HTTP requests, databases, URL routing and much more. You can also use our REST API to interact with it.
Custom content types
WordPress comes with default post types, but for more flexibility you can add a few lines of code to create your own custom post types, taxonomies, and metadata. Take WordPress in any direction you want.
The WordPress Core Leadership Team
The WordPress project is a meritocracy, led by a core management team and led by its co-creator and lead developer, Matt Mullenweg. The team governs all aspects of the project, including core development, WordPress.org, and community initiatives.
The core management team consists of Matt Mullenweg, five core developers and more than a dozen core developers with ongoing commit access. These developers have final authority over technical decisions and lead architecture discussions and implementation efforts.
WordPress has a number of contributing developers. Some of them are past or current committers, and some are likely future committers. These contributing developers are trusted WordPress contributors and veterans who have earned a lot of respect among their peers. When needed, WordPress also has guest committers, people who are granted commit access, sometimes for a specific component, on a temporary or trial basis.
Core and Contributing Developers primarily guide the development of WordPress. Each release, hundreds of developers contribute code to WordPress. These core contributors are volunteers who contribute in some way to the core codebase.
The WordPress release cycle
Each WordPress release cycle is led by one or more of the core WordPress developers. A release cycle typically lasts around 4 months from the initial scoping meeting to the release launch.
A launch cycle follows the following pattern:
Phase 1: Planning and securing team leaders. This is done in the #core chat room on Slack. The release manager discusses the features of the next WordPress release. WordPress contributors engage in this discussion. The release manager will identify team leads for each of the features.
Phase 2: Start of development work. Team leaders assemble teams and work on their assigned duties. Regular discussions are planned to ensure that development continues to move forward.
Phase 3: Beta. Beta versions are released and beta testers are encouraged to start reporting bugs. No further validation for new enhancements or feature requests is made from this phase. Authors of third-party plugins and themes are encouraged to test their code against upcoming changes.
Phase 4: Release of the candidate. There is a string freeze for translatable strings from this point on. The work is focused only on regressions and blockers.
Phase 5: launch. The WordPress version is launched and made available in the WordPress admin for updates.
Version numbering and security releases
A major WordPress release is dictated by the first two sequences. For example, 3.5 is a major release, as is 3.6, 3.7, or 4.0. There is no 'WordPress 3' or 'WordPress 4' and each major version is referenced by its numbering, for example, 'WordPress 3.9'.
Major releases may add new user features and developer APIs. Although generally in the software world a “major” release means you can break backward compatibility, WordPress strives to never break backward compatibility. Backwards compatibility is one of the most important philosophies of the project, with the aim of making updates much easier for users and developers.
A minor version of WordPress is dictated by the third sequence. Version 3.5.1 is a minor release, just like 3.4.23. A minor release is reserved to fix security vulnerabilities and only address critical bugs. Since new versions of WordPress are released so frequently - the goal is every 4-5 months for a major release and minor releases occur as needed - there is only a need for major releases and minors.
Backwards compatible version
The WordPress project is heavily committed to backwards compatibility. This commitment means that themes, plugins, and custom code continue to work when the core WordPress software is updated, encouraging site owners to keep their WordPress version up to date with the latest secure version.
WordPress and security
The WordPress Security Team
The WordPress security team is made up of around 50 experts, including core developers and security researchers - around half are employees of Automattic (the makers of WordPress.com, the world's first and largest hosting platform WordPress on the web), and a number work on the web. field of security. The team consults with well-known and trusted security researchers and hosts3.
The WordPress security team often works with other security teams to resolve issues in common dependencies, such as fixing the vulnerability in the PHP XML parser, used by the XML-RPC API provided with WordPress, in WordPress 3.9.24. This vulnerability fix is the result of a joint effort between the WordPress and Drupal security teams.
WordPress Security Risks, Processes, and History
The WordPress security team believes in responsible disclosure by immediately alerting the security team to any potential vulnerabilities. Potential security vulnerabilities can be reported to the security team via WordPress HackerOne5. The security team communicates with each other through a private Slack channel and works on a closed OFF private Trac for tracking, testing, and fixing bugs and security issues.
Each security report is acknowledged, and the team works to verify the vulnerability and determine its severity. If confirmed, the security team then plans a patch to resolve the issue which can be committed in a future WordPress software release or it can be pushed as an immediate security release, depending on the severity of the issue.
For an immediate security update, a notice is posted by the Security Team on the WordPress.org News6 site announcing the release and detailing the changes. Responsible vulnerability disclosure is referenced in the advisory to encourage and strengthen responsible reporting in the future.
WordPress software administrators see a notification on their site's dashboard to upgrade when a new version is available, and after the manual upgrade users are redirected to the About WordPress screen which details modifications. If administrators have enabled automatic background updates, they will receive an email when the upgrade is complete.
Automatic background updates for security releases
Starting with version 3.7, WordPress introduced automatic background updates for all minor versions7, such as 3.7.1 and 3.7.2. The team of WordPress security can identify, patch, and release automated security enhancements for WordPress without the site owner having to do anything on their end, and the security update will install automatically.
When a security update is pushed out for the current stable version of WordPress, the core team also pushes out security updates for all versions that are capable of background updates (since WordPress 3.7) , so these older but still recent versions of WordPress will receive security improvements.
Individual site owners can opt out of automatic background updates by simply editing their configuration file, but maintaining functionality is highly recommended by the core team, as well as running the latest version WordPress stable.