website
WordPress
Open CMS with the largest plugin ecosystem
The open-source software behind a large share of the web. Free itself — you pay for hosting, a theme and any plugins — and it can be made to do almost anything, which is both the appeal and the risk.
Ongoing cost
$20/mo
Setup cost
$0
Tech comfort needed
6/10
What the plans cost
Software
Free
open source
Typical hosting
$12/mo
shared hosting
Premium theme
Free
$50-$80 once
Typical plugin stack
$20/mo
varies widely
Public list prices checked on 2026-09-15. Always confirm on the provider's own pricing page before you buy.
What you get
- Complete ownership of your site and data
- Tens of thousands of themes and plugins
- WooCommerce for selling
- Strong SEO tooling
- Multi-author publishing
Works with
- WooCommerce
- Stripe
- Mailchimp
- Google Analytics
- Zapier
- Elementor
How it rates
- Ease of use
- 4/10
- Speed to launch
- 5/10
- Design control
- 7/10
- Room to grow
- 8/10
- Add-ons and extensions
- 10/10
- Selling products
- 7/10
- Courses
- 7/10
- Memberships
- 7/10
- Search visibility
- 9/10
- Support
- 5/10
Best suited to
- Content / publishing
- Business website
- Online store
- Courses / training
- Membership
What to watch out for
- Updates, backups and security are your job
- Plugin conflicts are the usual cause of a broken site
- Real cost is the stack around it, not the software
Partner programme
WordPress.org
WordPress.org has no affiliate programme. The separate commercial WordPress.com and Automattic programme does not apply to WordPress.org.
none · checked 2026-09-17 · confidence: high · official details
Questions about WordPress
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