What is a WordPress Site?

| 21 November 2025

21 November 2025

Lyn Wildwood

To put it simply: a WordPress site is a website that’s built using an open-source content management system called WordPress.

WordPress is the most popular content management system available on the web even with so many other solutions available these days.

In this post, I cover what a WordPress site is and what WordPress is in general.

Table of Contents

What is a WordPress Site?

A WordPress site is a website that was built using the WordPress content management system.

A content management system (CMS) is software you install on a web server. It gives you a starting point when building a website, allowing you to create and manage content without needing to create it with code yourself. A CMS installs the code on your server for you.

In WordPress’ case, it allows you to create and manage web pages and blog posts through a centralized dashboard you can interact with.

This is all a CMS is intended to do by default, but because WordPress is extensible, you can use it to create any kind of website you want and have it look and function the way you want.

WordPress.org vs WordPress.com

The homepage of the WordPress.org website

There are two different versions of WordPress: WordPress.org and WordPress.com. The term “WordPress site” could refer to either version.

WordPress.org is the self-hosted version of the CMS. This means you’ll need to purchase space on a server from a web hosting company (or build your own server), then install WordPress on it.

WordPress.com is the all-in-one version of WordPress. It offers the CMS and hosts the site for you.

WordPress.org is a lot more flexible than WordPress.com. It’s extendable, giving you the opportunity to choose your own web host while also allowing you to choose themes and plugins from a much larger collection.

The homepage of the WordPress.com website

WordPress.com does have themes and plugins, but the collection is much smaller and a lot less flexible.

A lot of people try to claim that you can’t install plugins on a WordPress.com site, but this hasn’t been the case for years now. It’s just that WordPress.com offers far fewer plugins than WordPress.org, and each plugin available for the CMS needs to be approved by WordPress.

Still, more and more plugins that were made by third-party developers for WordPress.org are becoming available for WordPress.com.

You can install any plugin on a WordPress.org site, even one you find on a random website.

It’s more dangerous, for sure, but it’s what makes WordPress.org so much more versatile.

Hosting services for a WordPress.com site are covered by WordPress themselves. This simplifies the process of setting up a WordPress site but it also restricts you to a single host that you can’t walk away from.

So, if you find WordPress.com’s built-in hosting to be less than stellar, you’re stuck with them until you migrate your site over to a self-hosted WordPress.org site.

Here’s a full comparison between the two:

	WordPress.org	WordPress.com
Infrastructure	Self-hosted	Hosted by WordPress
Themes	Thousands	Limited, but growing
Plugins	Tens of thousands	Limited, but growing
Domain	Custom domain required	Free subdomain*
Maintenance	Self-maintenance**	Maintained by WordPress
Customization	Fully customizable	Limited customization
Price	Free***	Starts free****
Suitable for	All sites, especially business websites	Blogs, simple websites and small ecommerce shops

*WordPress.com offers free subdomains (such as example.wordpress.com) for all sites, but you can also set up custom domains.

**You can outsource maintenance to a dedicated service.

***The WordPress application itself is free, but a self-hosted WordPress site is oftentimes more expensive than a WordPress.com site due to the cost of premium WordPress themes, plugins and hosting.

****WordPress.com has a free forever plan. Premium plans start at $9/month.

Why Use WordPress?

These are the primary benefits WordPress offers:

Free and open source – The WordPress application itself is free, and it’s open source, so it’s supported by developers all over the world
Flexible – You can use WordPress.org to build any type of website
Extensible – There are tens of thousands of third-party themes and plugins available for the WordPress ecosystem
Easy to install – Most hosts include an “install” button for WordPress. Some even offer to install it automatically
Well supported – As is the case with most open-source applications, WordPress is well supported by a global user base full of developers. designers, bloggers and fellow website owners. There are also numerous tutorials out there on how to use it and the large collection of themes and plugins available for it

Let’s talk a little more about each of these benefits.

It’s Free and Open Source

The WordPress application itself is free no matter if you get it on WordPress.org or WordPress.com. It’s just hosting that you need to pay for.

This makes WordPress one of the most affordable CMS’s available since you have numerous options when it comes to hosting, themes and plugins.

A lot of themes and plugins are even available free of charge, making a WordPress site even cheaper.

It Can Build Any Type of Website

WordPress.com might be restricted to whatever plugins WordPress makes available for the platform, but WordPress.org is very flexible.

Most folks use WordPress to build simple websites, business websites, ecommerce stores, and blogs, but the CMS is capable of building many additional types of websites.

These include membership websites, online course websites, forums, wiki and knowledge base websites, social networks, directories, portfolio websites, streaming platforms, real estate websites, crowdfunding websites, and more.

It’s Extensible

WordPress has a lot of functionality built in (its base form is known as “WordPress core”), and it also has its own themes and plugins that are designed to work seamlessly with the software.

Some plugins even get added to WordPress core if their functionality is meaningful enough.

However, what truly makes WordPress special is the sheer number of themes and plugins third-party developers have built for the CMS.

Some can be installed right in WordPress from repositories called the “theme directory” and “plugin directory.”

There are over 14,000 themes available in the theme directory and over 60,000 plugins available in the WordPress plugin directory.

Screenshot from the plugin directory on WordPress.org

There are more available on individual developer websites and third-party marketplaces, such as Envato.

The main point I’m trying to make is that no matter how you want your site to look or function, there’s probably a theme or plugin that does exactly what you need.

If not, you can build one yourself (if you know PHP and JavaScript).

It’s Easy to Install

These are common ways website owners install WordPress on their servers:

Click an installation button in your web hosting panel to install WordPress on your server automatically
Choose a web host that installs WordPress on your server automatically as you sign up for hosting (managed WordPress hosts offer this)

Having these options available means you won’t need to download a copy of the CMS and upload it to your server’s files, though you certainly can if you want to install it this way.

It’s Well Supported

I’ve already told you about the tens of thousands of third-party themes and plugins that are available for WordPress, but WordPress is well supported in many additional ways as well.

First, there’s WordPress core. Thousands of developers, working as individuals or as organizations, contribute to WordPress core.

They help track down and squash bugs, detect security flaws, translate WordPress in new languages, test new features, and more.

Second, there’s the community.

The WordPress forums are active with thread after thread of WordPress users helping others. There are an endless number of blogs and YouTube channels dedicated to teaching WordPress.

There are also worldwide events known as WordCamps where developers, contributors, WordPress users and WordPress-based companies get together to discuss and celebrate everything related to WordPress.