What is WordPress?
WordPress is a web content management system. It was originally created as a tool to publish blogs but has evolved to support publishing other web content, including more traditional websites, mailing lists and Internet forum, media galleries, membership sites, learning management systems and online stores. Available as free and open-source software, WordPress is among the most popular content management systems – it was used by 43.1% of the top 10 million websites as of December 2023.
WordPress is written in the PHP language and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database. Features include a plugin architecture and a template system, referred to within WordPress as “Themes”.
To function, WordPress has to be installed on a web server, either as part of an Internet hosting service or on a computer running the WordPress software package.
What is WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is an open-source e-commerce plugin for WordPress. It is designed for small to large-sized online merchants using WordPress.
Launched on September 27, 2011, the plugin quickly became popular for its simplicity to install and customize and for the market position of the base product as freeware (even though many of its optional extensions are paid and proprietary). WooCommerce is developed and supported by Woo and includes contributions from a global community of developers.
