WordPress is a powerful free and open source content management system based in PHP and compatible with a MySQL or MariaDB server. It has a user-friendly graphical interface, a variety of add-ons, and a multitude of helpful features. Its minimal resource usage enables you to host it on a budget. Features include a template system and a huge plugin architecture, also known as themes, which can be defined by adding codes to the configuration file called WordPress. There are literally thousands of plugins available for WordPress and most of them are free.
The major advantages of using WordPress are its versatility and ease of installation. This flexibility allows a webmaster to use WordPress without any PHP skills or knowledge, and the best part about it is that you can install different plugins and themes according to your requirements. If you think you need more plugins, then there are plenty of them over at the WordPress official website. Apart from that, installing WordPress involves very few steps and only requires an internet connection. Moreover, there is no need to edit or configure anything manually because everything is predesigned and built into WordPress.
Another great advantage of using WordPress is that it provides open source software under an GNU license, therefore many developers have contributed code to improve and add new features to it. One major drawback is that not all wordpress developers make their code open source. This can limit the functionality of some plugins. However, there are many dedicated and talented wordpress developers who spend many hours maintaining and developing their plugins so they can meet everyone’s expectations.
Another cool thing about using WordPress is that there are various different options available to create your online store such as a shopping cart option, a newsletter subscription box and an administration interface. You can also add various other features such as a discount box, a contact management option, a blog option and an online catalog option. There is no doubt that WordPress offers all these features and much more. Using a pre-built site with a standard layout is enough for an individual. However, if you want something more, you can always build your own customized wordpress site that suits your purpose perfectly.
The downside of using WordPress lies with the fact that it uses a per-user installation. Each user gets access to their own copy of the WordPress system along with all the plug-ins, themes settings which mean that each user will have different set of installable settings. This means that different people have different settings and that most people won’t be able to configure most of the available features on the default site. One of the main drawbacks of using WordPress as your blogging platform is the fact that it can be quite slow due to the huge number of theme engines that you need to choose from. Another drawback of WordPress is that it doesn’t support the latest web standards which is why websites designed in this platform needs to be adapted to the latest standards, which makes it more difficult to browse.
Now that WordPress 3.0 is out, there is one less thing that you need to worry about and that is the use of a pre-built site. WordPress 3.0 introduced a plethora of new features and improvements to the WordPress platform and even though there are plenty of great plugins available for WordPress users, many people still prefer to build their own websites from scratch using themes. The new default theme in WordPress 3.0 which was introduced back in December 2021 is called the Newgrounds Theme and it gives any user a great starting point from where they can customize the website. With a little bit of work and experimentation, it is possible to design a website that looks like a professional site but which is built using open source programming and has none of the problems that beset so many WordPress users. If you are looking for a blogging platform that is easy to use, has lots of customization options and is very fast, then you should definitely take a look at the new default theme which is currently offered free with every new WordPress installation.
