WordPress

WordPress calls itself a semantic personal publishing platform, and this repository is the software rather than a hosted service. It suits anyone who wants a site on hosting they control, and the README still opens with a note from Matt Mullenweg about the thousands of hours contributors have put into it.

Setting it up is the famous five-minute install. Unzip the package into an empty directory, upload everything, and open the installer in a browser, which walks through writing a configuration file with your database details and then creates the tables. Where that route fails on a particular host, the sample configuration can be edited by hand and uploaded instead.

A handful of practical facts decide whether a given host will do.

• Minimum versions: PHP 7.4 or greater with MySQL 5.5.5 or greater.
• Recommended versions: PHP 8.3 or greater with MySQL 8.0, or MariaDB 10.11.
• Web server: The Apache mod_rewrite module and HTTPS support are both recommended.
• Updating: An automatic updater runs from the admin, or files can be replaced by hand after backing up changes.
• Migrating: Import tools bring content across from a number of other systems once the install works.

Extending WordPress is meant to happen through its plugin API rather than by editing core code, and a plugin developer handbook covers that path. Documentation, active support forums, a chat channel and the project blog carry the rest.