WordPress
22. October 2018
3 benefits of WordPress being open source
When you are about to have a new website developed, many choose to have it built in a content management system (CMS) to make day-to-day maintenance easy. One of the first and most important decisions at this stage is whether you want your new site developed in an open or closed source CMS.
In our view, there are many good reasons to choose WordPress as your CMS—here are three quick ones:
- It is free
- It is constantly evolving
- It is easy for a new developer to take over
Below, we explain exactly what we mean.
Do you know how your choice of an open or closed source CMS affects you?
Your choice will affect your future workflow and budget, which is why it is important to consider what you want and expect from your CMS before making a decision.
WordPress – the CMS equivalent of a Swiss Army knife
WordPress is an open source CMS that is widely recognised for its user-friendliness. It is easy to install, easy to edit, and easy to make look great. If your WordPress site needs a bespoke design or additional functionality beyond the basics, a skilled provider can deliver this for you.
As we are a professional WordPress agency, it will probably not surprise you that we strongly recommend having your website developed on the platform. If you do not want to take our word for it—and the many successful WordPress cases—you can instead look to the approximately 75,000,000 active websites that, at the time of writing, are supported by the platform.
However, WordPress’ status as open source software is often overlooked when listing benefits, which is a shame, because some of the platform’s most important advantages stem from it. That is why the focus of this blog post is precisely these open source benefits.
But first: What are open and closed source systems?
Open source vs. closed source
When a system is open source, it means that the application’s source code is freely available—the system is open, as the name suggests. Anyone can use the system as they see fit, because no one owns it. In other words, you are free to do as you please, whether you want to develop the code further or simply see how the platform is built.
By contrast, a closed source system is a closed piece of software. If you want access to the system, you must pay for a licence. The reason is that closed source systems are protected by copyright.
It is much like if you want to use a copyrighted song for any purpose—you need to obtain a licensing agreement with KODA to avoid fines and/or legal action. For the same reason, modifying and further developing closed systems is also strictly prohibited.
With that in place, we can now share our three reasons why WordPress as an open source CMS outperforms closed CMSs.
1. WordPress is free
Most open source systems are free, and WordPress falls into this category. This means you do not pay anything to access the core system, and you do not pay an ongoing fee to use it. It is completely free of charge.
What costs money with WordPress is hosting, and if you want your site tailored to your business in terms of visual identity and functionality. If you are highly skilled in web development, you can handle this yourself. If not, you can get help from a digital agency (like us ?) to achieve a bespoke solution that can ease administrative work.
In addition, you should factor in that your site will, at some point, need further development to keep up with changes in the market, user behaviour and/or your own business. However, this is not unique to WordPress—every system requires further development at some point to adapt to external conditions. And in that case, you will need help from an external provider unless you are a developer yourself.
With closed source systems, however, it is a completely different story. They are never free, and in addition to paying an initial amount to get a website, you must also pay an ongoing licence fee to retain access to your site. A closed source CMS is therefore often a more expensive solution.
2. WordPress is constantly evolving
Because WordPress is open source, it has attracted a large number of developers. This group has formed the foundation of the large developer community around the software—a community that is constantly working to improve the core system and the plugins.
Ongoing development means that updates are frequently released to improve WordPress’ performance. And since the WordPress core is free, you also receive all these essential updates completely free of charge.
Another advantage of the large community is that when so many people are working on a system, it becomes easier to find and close security vulnerabilities.
With closed source CMSs, however, it is entirely different. The copyright to a closed CMS is held by a single company, and therefore only the developers at that company are permitted to work on the application. The limited number of developers means that closed CMSs do not evolve as quickly as their open source counterparts.
Having fewer users also means there is a greater risk that security vulnerabilities and threats go unnoticed, with the consequence that it takes longer to fix them—if they are fixed at all.
3. WordPress is easy to hand over to new developers
Open source is not only a term that describes a piece of software’s accessibility status; it can also describe a philosophy whose ideals are freedom, knowledge sharing and collaboration. To foster these ideals, the WordPress community has a dedicated team that ensures documentation exists for all code.
The purpose of the freely available documentation is to create a reference that beginners and experienced developers alike can turn to if they need help understanding a piece of code.
For you as a business owner, this means you are not dependent on your developers. If a disagreement arises that means you can no longer work with your current WordPress providers, it does not mean the end of your project—because if there is code they do not understand, they can simply consult the documentation available online.
Please note that the above is only possible if your previous developers have handed over all design rights and all developed code to you. Some agencies do not provide this, which is why we recommend looking into this before entering into a collaboration.
If you have previously used a closed CMS, you can forget about being given rights to the design and code, and you will also be unable to find new developers due to the aforementioned copyright.
Major companies also use WordPress
Although smaller companies in particular can benefit from WordPress’ open source advantages, that does not stop large companies from using the platform as well. Examples include BBC America, a pay-TV network available to approximately 78 million US households, and The Washington Post, a major American newspaper.
The fact that huge industry giants are not hesitant to use WordPress serves as a seal of quality for the platform, as their choice says a great deal about the platform’s strength and robustness.
We hope this post has made you more aware of the benefits WordPress brings as an open source system. If you would like to learn more about why WordPress is an optimal platform for websites, you can, for example, read our post about the endless design possibilities in WordPress.
You are also welcome to contact us if you have any questions or would simply like to know more about how we work with WordPress.
You can also read this post, where we compare WordPress with other CMS platforms.
