WordPress has gone through a lot since its initial arrival to the market. The platform remains hugely popular and can be found deployed on countless websites around the world, and it doesn’t look like the trend is going to slow down anytime soon. With more and more tutorials and guides about it coming out on a regular basis, it’s the default choice for many people at this point. And yet, on the other hand, we’ve also seen the rise of some rather suspicious voices around the Internet lately, with some people questioning whether WordPress is still actually a good choice in 2018.
After all, there are various other platforms to choose from nowadays, while WordPress itself has suffered somewhat in the reputation department after people started calling it bloated. However, looking beneath the surface and digging deep into the platform, one can see that it’s still in a top condition and definitely a great contender for your CMS of choice for this year. Let’s have a look at the current condition of WordPress and what makes it a good solution at the moment.
Ease of Use
Regardless of your skill level, WordPress remains a solution you can count on to get things up and running quickly and without any extra hassle. The developers have streamlined the process down to a list of points that you just have to follow, and nowadays it’s really easy to get a simple WordPress site running, and even a more complicated one with just a few steps.
At the same time, the guides provided within WordPress itself have been refined more and more over time, in order to make sure that they perfectly match the needs of users. Currently, it’s very rare to run into a problem with WordPress that’s not directly addressed in their help, and the company makes it very easy to get additional support when you need it as well. All in all, it’s the perfect platform for beginners who’re not too sure how to start but still want something that will work nicely.
Community Support
Another important point to make about WordPress is that it’s still the top choice for many users, and the default solution proposed by tutorials and guidelines. This means that many people are using it on a regular basis, which in turn means that you can rely on great support from the community in case you run into a problem or want to discuss something about the platform.
In fact, discussions about WordPress are very active on the Internet right now, with entire communities of developers, designers and webmasters talking about every aspect of the platform on a regular basis. As soon as you run into any problem, you can probably bet that there is already a discussion about it somewhere out there. And if not, starting one is guaranteed to draw a lot of attention if it’s a hot topic, so you won’t have to wait too long to get a reply.
Highly Customizable
Building on the last point, WordPress also enjoys a lot of popularity among developers and theme designers, and there is a huge selection of freely available customization materials to choose from if you don’t want to make your own. The Internet is full of great options, and you just have to join one of the many related communities to get full access to countless themes, plugins and anything else you can think of.
And on that note, if you’re thinking about joining the developer community yourself, just remember what we said above – there are lots of people out there who’re willing to help you and will go far in trying to lend you a hand. So if you ever run into a problem developing your new plugin or theme, you will probably get a solution in a matter of hours, or even almost immediately if you’re in an IM community.
Of course, you should remember to give back to that community if you end up receiving a lot of help from its members. That’s the way WordPress has moved forward so fast in the last few years, and everyone should do their part in supporting the community and helping everyone find their way around WordPress.
Conclusion
WordPress is still as good as ever, and it’s gotten better in many ways. The problem is that anything that reaches a similar state of popularity is inevitably subjected to a lot of scrutiny and controversy, and WordPress is no exception. There is no shortage of negative voices on the Internet, but remember – you don’t have to look long to find great opinions about the platform, with plenty of people who’re happy with how it works and ready to help out any newcomer to the community. If you need something that just works out of the box, look no further.