What is WordPress?

WordPress is an online, open-source tool used for creating websites. By open-source, I mean, the tool is free to use, free to modify and free to share. Basically it is a Content Mangement System (CMS) built using PHP and MySQL database. Initially WordPress came out as a tool for creating blogging websites but its extensive use and popularity has evolved it to much more than that. Today it is used for creating  not only blogging websites but information websites, commercial websites, networking websites, etc.

Using WordPress is very easy and fun. All of the contents in a WordPress website is managed through an admin panel, that is called as Dashboard, built into WordPress itself. WordPress has a large support of themes and plugins. Themes in wordpress are design templates that are used to set the overall look of the website. Plugins are mostly used to provide extra functionality and advanced features, as per requirement, in your website that are basically not provided by WordPress. Both Themes and Plugins are managed through the Dashboard in WordPress.

wordpress.org is a website which serves as a repository of themes and plugins for WordPress. The theme repository in wordpress.org is categorised into free and premium section. The free themes are avalaible free of cost but premium themes can only be used after purchase.  It also serves as an online manual for WordPress and has a large supporting community of WordPress developers that can help you if you are stuck with something in WordPress. The users can also create their own themes and plugins, if they have the knowledge to do so, and share those through wordpress.org.