CopyleftGPL-2.0-or-laterTested by Geekflare

WordPress review

PHP CMS for blogs, marketing sites and online stores

Data refreshedMethodologyHow we tested
Founder of Geekflare

Chandan Kumar is a founder of Geekflare. He is a technology enthusiast and entrepreneur who loves to help businesses and people around the world. Chandan has worked at BNP Paribas, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, Motorola, and HP. He’s got an in-depth understanding of business software and IT infrastructure.

Verdict

The default choice for marketing sites, blogs and content-heavy websites. No other open source CMS matches its ecosystem or the number of people who can work with it. The trade-off is maintenance like every plugin is code you have to keep updated, and WordPress is built around pages and posts.

Best for

Marketing sites, blogs and content sites run by non-technical editors

Not for

Headless or multi-channel content for apps, where a typed content model matters

Pros

  • Themes and plugins for almost any feature
  • Editors pick up the block editor quickly
  • Runs on almost any PHP host
  • REST API in core for headless use

Cons

  • Security depends on keeping plugins updated
  • SSO, audit logs and workflows need third-party plugins
  • Built around pages and posts, not structured content
What people say
Ask Sparkian

Is WordPress right for your project?

Describe what you're building and AI will check the fit against this review.

Or try:

At a glance

Type
Traditional
Stack
PHP 8.3+ / MySQL or MariaDB
Databases
MySQL, MariaDB
Licence terms
Copyleft obligations apply only when you distribute modified code. Running WordPress for your own site carries none.
SSO
Via plugin
Roles and permissions
Free edition
Audit logs
Via plugin

Free vs paid editions

What you get when you self-host, and what needs a paid plan.

There is no paid edition. WordPress is free under the GPL. Costs come from hosting and from premium themes and plugins. SSO, audit logs and approval workflows all need plugins, so their quality and security depend on the plugin you choose. WordPress.com is a separate commercial service run by Automattic, from $4 a month billed annually; WordPress VIP is its enterprise tier, with no public price.

Self-hosting WordPress

WordPress recommends PHP 8.3+ and MySQL 8.0+ or MariaDB 10.11+, behind Apache or Nginx with HTTPS.

New cloud server to first screen

33 s

Memory in use at idle

495 MB of 4 GB

Version tested

7.1.3 · Oct 16, 2026

  • Ready in 33 seconds on a cloud Ubuntu 24.04 server (2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM), with Docker's community WordPress image and MySQL 8.4, image downloads included.
  • At idle, WordPress used about 70 MB of RAM and MySQL about 425 MB.
  • The installer asks for a site title and an admin account. We completed it with WP-CLI and screenshotted the site with its default theme.
docker-compose.yml (what we ran, with passwords changed)
services:
  db:
    image: mysql:8.4
    environment:
      MYSQL_DATABASE: wordpress
      MYSQL_USER: wordpress
      MYSQL_PASSWORD: change-me
      MYSQL_RANDOM_ROOT_PASSWORD: "1"
    volumes: [db:/var/lib/mysql]
  wordpress:
    image: wordpress:latest
    depends_on: [db]
    ports: ["8080:80"]
    environment:
      WORDPRESS_DB_HOST: db
      WORDPRESS_DB_USER: wordpress
      WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD: change-me
      WORDPRESS_DB_NAME: wordpress
    volumes: [wp:/var/www/html]
volumes: { db: {}, wp: {} }
WordPress 7.1.3 installer on our test server

WordPress 7.1.3 installer on our test server

WordPress 7.1.3 installer on our test server
A fresh WordPress 7.1.3 site with the default theme

A fresh WordPress 7.1.3 site with the default theme

A fresh WordPress 7.1.3 site with the default theme

What you can build with WordPress

Business blog

Publish articles with categories, tags and scheduled posts. SEO plugins such as Yoast and Rank Math add meta tags, sitemaps and schema.

Company website

Build pages with the block editor and a theme, so marketing can change copy and layouts without waiting for a developer.

News and magazine site

Built-in roles for contributors, authors and editors, post revisions and scheduled publishing fit how a newsroom works.

Online store

WooCommerce, a free plugin from Automattic, adds products, a cart, checkout and payments to the same site.

Press releases

Keep releases in their own category, with an archive page and an RSS feed journalists can follow.

Membership or course site

Paid plugins such as MemberPress and LearnDash add member-only content and online courses.