Our Mission

WordPress is software designed for everyone, emphasizing accessibility, performance, security, and ease of use. We believe great software should work with minimum set up, so you can focus on sharing your story, product, or services freely. The basic WordPress software is simple and predictable so you can easily get started. It also offers powerful features for growth and success.

We believe in democratizing publishing and the freedoms that come with open source. Supporting this idea is a large community of people collaborating on and contributing to this project. The WordPress community is welcoming and inclusive. Our contributors’ passion drives the success of WordPress which, in turn, helps you reach your goals.

WordPress contributors work around the globe, and have dedicated countless hours to build a tool that democratizes publishing. WordPress is open source software that is both free and priceless.

Our Story

WordPress started in 2003 when Mike Little and Matt Mullenweg created a fork of b2/cafelog. The need for an elegant, well-architected personal publishing system was clear even then. Today, WordPress is built on PHP and MySQL, and licensed under the GPLv2. It is also the platform of choice for over 33% of all sites across the web.

The WordPress open source project has evolved in progressive ways over time — supported by skilled, enthusiastic developers, designers, scientists, bloggers, and more. WordPress provides the opportunity for anyone to create and share, from handcrafted personal anecdotes to world-changing movements. People with a limited tech experience can use it “out of the box”, and more tech-savvy folks can customize it in remarkable ways.

Bill of Rights

WordPress is licensed under the General Public License (GPLv2 or later) which provides four core freedoms. Consider this the WordPress Bill of Rights: