WordPress – the open-source and flexible CMS

WordPress is a free open-source web platform that makes it easy to create and maintain a website - an attractive alternative to expensive proprietary content management systems (CMS) on the market.

It was first released in May 2003 and grew to be one of the most popular CMS in the world, powering 39.5% of all websites in 2021. WooCommerce, an ecommerce plugin for WordPress, is also the most widely used technology for webshops, according to latest Builtwith statistics.

It is very easy to expand and customize WordPress. Because of its fully open source structure, you’re free to modify and customize your website with fewer limits than in proprietary systems. It also offers scalability and flexibility — you can easily export or migrate your data to another system should you want to.

WordPress is available in 72 languages and counting, and has one of the most active user and developer communities with many online forums where you can get help with using the CMS, programming, making adjustments, and many other things.

Since its initial launch, WordPress CMS has been used as a platform for many web-based systems. With WordPress, you can create:

• Websites
• Blogs
• Ecommerce sites (with a plugin like WooCommerce)

Its open source nature, along with the feature-rich standard installation that it comes with and the many plugins available in the market for extending its functionalities, make WordPress highly versatile and fit for almost any website or webshop setup.

Themes determine the look and feel of your site, and usually allow you to change the pages’ layout - to a degree - without altering site code or content.

There are many available themes in online marketplaces that cater to different website types or industries. Many WordPress users opt to purchase these pre-designed themes and customize it slightly by adapting the colors and other elements to their branding.

If you want a completely custom design, you can also collaborate with our web designers to create a theme from scratch that’s specifically fit to your own requirements. However, this option can be a lot more expensive than purchasing a theme. Read more about the difference between using themes and doing custom design.

Here are some theme shops that you can check out to get an idea of what themes are available and how much they cost:

• Theme forest
• Template Monster
• Official WordPress Themes

You can extend your WordPress CMS’ functionalities by using third-party plugins. With WordPress’ popularity, you can almost always find an existing plugin for a feature that you want.

If you have highly specific requirements that can’t be done by commercially available plugins, you can also have one custom-made for you by 1902's WordPress developers.

Most web hosting companies support WordPress, with the CMS often already installed when you order hosting —making it easy to install the theme and plugins that you will need.

Learn more about web hosting here »

There is no exact schedule for WordPress CMS updates, but major upgrades are usually rolled out 3-4 times a year, and smaller releases come more often.

These updates are typically implemented automatically, but you have the option to disable automatic updates if you want to try them in a test environment first. Our team offers WordPress support , including monitoring system updates - large and small.