Why WordPress still runs much of the web — and when we still use it

WordPress was released in 2003 by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little as a fork of an older blogging tool, b2/cafelog. More than twenty years later it is still, by a wide margin, the most-used content management system on the web — used by roughly 43% of all websites according to W3Techs surveys. In a field that loves new frameworks, that staying power deserves an honest look.

Why it endures

WordPress runs on PHP and MySQL — a stack available on almost any cheap host. It's open source and free, with a vast ecosystem of themes and plugins that cover most needs without writing code. Non-technical people can publish, and a huge community means answers, developers and tutorials are everywhere. That combination — low cost, low barrier, enormous ecosystem — is hard to beat.

It didn't stand still

Modern WordPress is more than a blog engine. The Gutenberg block editor reshaped how content is built, and a REST API plus headless setups let teams use WordPress purely as a content backend behind an Angular or React front end. That flexibility keeps it relevant for everything from a small brochure site to a large editorial platform.

When we reach for it — and when we don't

We use WordPress when content ownership by non-developers matters, the budget is tight, or a rich plugin already solves the problem (e.g. WooCommerce for a shop). We reach for a custom Angular + Spring build instead when an app has complex domain logic, strict performance or security requirements, or needs to scale in ways a plugin stack can't. The trick is matching the tool to the job — not fashion.