TL;DR: WordPress is one of the most popular, flexible, easy-to-use content management systems available with a thriving ecosystem and huge developer pool. We recommend it over any other CMS.

Content management systems are the wheels that are constantly reinvented. While it’s great that new ideas are given shape and content management systems continue to evolve it can be difficult for organizations trying to decide which CMS is a good fit when there are so many to choose from.

Is the CMS easy to use? What features does the CMS have? What costs are associated with the CMS?

Here at Clockwork we’re passionate about WordPress. It’s feature-packed, easy-to-use, flexible, cost-effective, wildly popular and has been around for more than a decade. There’s a lot to love about WordPress and in this post we’re going to cover a few of our top reasons to use WordPress.

WordPress is User-Friendly

Anyone that’s worked with a word processor like Microsoft Word or Google Docs should feel right at home in WordPress. Add blog posts, pages and other types of content through the WordPress administrative dashboard using a rich text editor that supports everything from images and links to automatic, styled content from YouTube, Twitter and other third-parties (using oEmbed). Organize content using categories or tags. Manage media through the media library. Approve or remove comments.

WordPress auto-saves and keeps a copy of every revision making it possible to undo anything should something not quite work out. There’s never a need to worry about adjusting things!

WordPress is Feature-Packed and Flexible

WordPress started as a blogging platform and over the years has grown into a robust CMS with plugins and themes that can mold it to handle just about any task.

Out of the box it’s possible to edit navigation, sidebar and widgets using a drag and drop editor. Posts, pages and other content can be password or user-protected as well as scheduled for automatic publishing or moved to the trash.

Plugins and themes can be used to add features or a new look to a website without any coding required. Ecommerce, newsletter management, social sharing and thousands of other features can be added in minutes using built-in plugin search and management. The entire design of the site can be changed by switching themes without ever having to rework content. Gone are the days of redoing everything just to refresh the look of a website.

WordPress keeps everything up-to-date and prompts you to upgrade when appropriate. These updates are usually features and fixes for WordPress itself and any plugins or themes that may be installed.

WordPress is Popular

WordPress powers nearly 25% of all websites nowadays including Time Magazine, The New Yorker, BBC America, Beyonce, Google, Facebook and eBay.

Having so many people using WordPress means that there is a rich ecosystem full of plugins, themes and other solutions from thousands of designers and developers worldwide. It also means it is very easy to get help or develop a custom solution from the myriad designers and developers available — some of whom work exclusively with WordPress.

Between the WordPress Community and a few top theme and plugin sites there are 7,500+ themes and 43,000+ plugins available right now. (We’ll break these numbers down and compare WordPress to other systems in a future post.)

WordPress is Free and Open

WordPress is free software and can be modified as needed because it’s an open-source PHP application released under the GNU Public License. Free software is the backbone of modern computing and at the core of Apple and Android devices along with most servers and networked systems.

A site built using WordPress has zero licensing fees or restrictions. It can be modified however necessary and easily moved from one hosting provider to another.

WordPress is Awesome

It’s free, flexible and user-friendly. WordPress is one of the best content management systems available and we love working with it. We’re proud of the plugins, themes and custom solutions we’ve developed for our clients with WordPress as the primary platform.

If there are any questions, concerns or comments please don’t hesitate to contact us or leave us a comment below.