WordPress and WordPress.com

WordPress is the open-source publishing platform powering millions of websites worldwide. WordPress gives you the power to design and build websites for small businesses, bloggers, creators, and enterprises. With a vast library of plugins and themes, you can extend the capabilities of WordPress to include a store, analytics, newsletter, memberships, and any other feature you can imagine.

WordPress CMS Introduction

WordPress is a powerful and flexible content management system (CMS) that enables users to create, manage, and publish a wide variety of content online. Launched in 2003 as a blogging platform, WordPress has evolved into one of the most popular CMSs in the world, powering over 43% of all websites.

Key benefits of WordPress include:

• Open Source: The WordPress software code is available for anyone to view, modify, and enhance.
• User-Friendly Interface: WordPress offers an intuitive dashboard that makes it easy for users of all skill levels to create and edit content without needing extensive technical knowledge.
• Extensive Customization: With thousands of themes and plugins available, users can customize their sites’ appearance and functionality to suit their needs, from simple blogs to complex e-commerce sites.
• SEO-Friendly: WordPress is designed with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind, providing features and plugins that help improve site visibility on search engines.
• Community Support: A large community of developers, designers, and users contribute to the WordPress software, offering support, resources, and continuous improvements.
• Security: Regular updates and a focus on security make WordPress a robust choice for managing sensitive information and protecting against online threats.
• Responsive Design: Most themes are mobile-friendly, ensuring that your website looks great on any device.

Host Websites with WordPress.com

WordPress software can be downloaded for free from WordPress.org and then installed with the hosting provider of your choice. 

WordPress.com is the all-in-one platform to host your WordPress websites. With one account, you can build and maintain multiple sites with native support for essential features (including staging sites and real-time backups) and full-stack performance (unmetered bandwidth, unmatched speed, and rock-solid security). 

Because we’re a managed host, we install and update WordPress software for you automatically and ensure all the necessary settings and features are ready for use, leaving you to focus on launching and maintaining your website.

We support essential developer tools, including WP-CLI, GitHub deployments, and SFTP/SSH, and you can count on 99.999% uptime and entirely unmetered bandwidth and site visitors on every plan, with an intuitive multi-site management interface to streamline your development process.

WordPress.com also includes 24/7 expert support to help you along the way. Our Happiness Engineers are here to help you get the most out of the platform and troubleshoot any issues along the way.

MySQL and phpMyAdmin

The MySQL database management system plays a crucial role in the functioning of WordPress. It stores all the data for your WordPress site, including posts, pages, comments, user information, and settings, using a predefined set of tables (like wp_posts, wp_users, and wp_options). MySQL is known for its speed and reliability, making it suitable for handling all WordPress sites, from small blogs to large-scale enterprise websites.

phpMyAdmin is a popular web-based interface that simplifies managing MySQL databases without needing to use command-line tools. WordPress.com websites are pre-configured with phpMyAdmin so that you can easily create, modify, and delete databases, tables, and records as needed. Visit our Database Access support page for step-by-step instructions.

PHP Versioning

PHP is the programming language that primarily powers WordPress. Each PHP version has a support timeline, with a specific end-of-life date when it will no longer receive updates or security patches. While a website developer would normally have to plan upgrades accordingly to maintain the security and performance of their sites, WordPress.com ensures sites have access to the latest compatible versions of PHP. The versions we currently support can be found by visiting the PHP environment support page.