WordPress
World's most widely used open-source CMS and blogging engine
Overview
WordPress is the most widely deployed open-source CMS, powering over 40% of the web. It features a block-based editor (Gutenberg), a massive plugin ecosystem (60,000+), theme customization, and built-in SEO tooling. It runs on PHP with MySQL/MariaDB and can be deployed on virtually any shared or VPS host, via Docker, or through managed WordPress hosting providers. It supports everything from simple blogs to complex e-commerce sites via WooCommerce.
Where it falls short of WordPress.com
- Plugin-heavy setups can become slow without caching layers and optimization expertise
- Security surface area is large; requires regular plugin/core updates and hardening
- The block editor (Gutenberg) has a steeper learning curve than Squarespace's drag-and-drop builder
- Default multisite and headless configurations require significant additional configuration
We list the gaps honestly so you can decide if the trade-off is worth owning your data.
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