How WordPress Began in 2003: From a Fork to Powering Much of the Web
WordPress started in 2003 as a fork of an abandoned blogging tool. Learn how Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little built it and why it became so widely used.
WordPress is the most widely used content management system in the world, running a significant fraction of all websites. It was not planned that way. It started in 2003 as a small piece of blogging software that two people continued after its original developer stopped working on it.
The blogging boom
In the early 2000s, weblogs were a new way to publish. Instead of editing HTML files, a writer used a form, and the software built the pages in date order. Several systems existed, including Movable Type, a popular Perl-based product, and b2/cafelog, a free PHP and MySQL program written by the French developer Michel Valdrighi.
A fork is born
Matt Mullenweg, then a student in the United States, was a user of b2/cafelog. When Valdrighi's work slowed and the project appeared to be abandoned, Mullenweg wrote on his blog in January 2003 that he wanted to continue it. A developer in England, Mike Little, contacted him and offered to help. Together they created a fork of the code. Christine Selleck Tremoulet, a friend of Mullenweg, suggested the name WordPress. The first release was announced on 27 May 2003.
Because b2 was licensed under the GNU General Public License, the fork was fully permitted and the new project used the same licence. That choice set the character of the project: anybody can use, change and share WordPress, and the project's position is that themes and plugins written for it should be distributed under the same licence.
Early milestones
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 2003 | First release (0.7) |
| 2004 | Version 1.0; plugin system grows |
| 2005 | Automattic founded; WordPress.com launched; themes and pages added |
| 2010 | Custom post types and multisite arrive |
| 2018 | The block editor (Gutenberg) arrives in WordPress 5.0 |
Why WordPress won
- Easy installation. The "famous five-minute install" became a trademark.
- Themes and plugins. Anyone could change the look or add features without rewriting the core. A large market of free and paid extensions grew up around it.
- The licence. Open-source terms let agencies and freelancers build businesses on it without asking permission.
- Community. Local meetups and conferences called WordCamps began in 2006 and spread worldwide.
- Hosting support. It ran on the standard LAMP stack that every shared host already offered.
WordPress grew from a blogging tool to a general site builder as pages, menus, custom post types and later e-commerce plugins arrived. Shops, newsletters, portfolios and company sites are built on it today.
The downsides of popularity
Popularity attracts attackers. Most WordPress compromises do not exploit the core software itself but outdated plugins and themes, or weak passwords. Because the extensions are written by thousands of independent developers, their quality varies. A list of good habits goes a long way:
- Update WordPress, themes and plugins promptly.
- Delete plugins and themes you do not use.
- Use strong, unique passwords and limit login attempts.
- Keep regular backups stored away from the server.
- Install extensions from sources you trust.
WordPress.com versus WordPress.org
People often confuse the two. WordPress.org distributes the free software that you install on your own hosting. WordPress.com is a hosted service run by Automattic, a company Mullenweg founded. Self-hosting means more control and more responsibility, since you manage updates and backups yourself or choose a host that helps.
How WordPress changed what a website is
Before systems like WordPress, a company website was usually a developer's project: you asked someone to change a page, and waited. Content management put control in the hands of the people who wrote the content. A shop owner could add a product, a journalist could publish a story, and a school could post a notice, without touching code. That shift moved the web from something built by specialists to something run by ordinary organisations, and created a large industry of designers, agencies and freelancers who build and support WordPress sites.
It also changed hosting. Providers began to tune servers for it, with caching layers, object caches, PHP settings suited to its needs, and staging tools for testing updates. Nowadays most hosts, including Zebra Hosting, treat WordPress as a first-class workload rather than just another PHP application.
The project's approach to backward compatibility is another reason for its longevity. Sites built many years ago can often be updated to current versions without being rebuilt, as long as their themes and plugins are maintained. That is both a strength and a trap: a site can keep running for years on neglected code, which is why regular maintenance matters.
Choosing themes and plugins wisely
The ecosystem is WordPress's greatest strength and its main risk. Before you install an extension, check when it was last updated, whether it is compatible with your WordPress and PHP versions, and whether its developer responds to reports. A smaller number of well-maintained plugins is nearly always better than a long list of overlapping ones, both for speed and for security.
The lesson for site owners
WordPress shows how a small community project can become infrastructure. If you use it, treat maintenance as part of owning the site. Hosting built around the platform makes that easier. Our WordPress hosting plans are set up automatically within minutes of payment, with Plesk and free SSL included. If your WordPress site is already live somewhere else, the team can move it for you, and you can read how this works on the WordPress migration page.
