How Relevant Will WordPress Be In 5 Years From Now?

WordPress would still be a leading force in the web field 5 years from know. Despite its contradictory codebase (which is quite intriguing once you spend the time to study it), there are objective factors adding up to its success.

  • ~30% of the web is now powered by WordPress.
  • Numerous markets see WordPress as a go-to solution. Bloggers and online magazines being the obvious choice. eCommerce is often implemented through WooCommerce. LMS is becoming more mature daily.
  • It’s easier to extend as compared to other CMS and programming framework.
  • It’s easier to find manpower for simple projects (and usually cheaper).
  • Also, it’s easy to start as a DIY project and hire help once you get some traction.
  • Then, scaling to tens of millions of page views or hundreds of millions of entries is quite feasible.
  • Being self-hosted is a major benefit for data ownership, privacy, integrations – a trade-off when using Wix or Squarespace.
  • There are over 50,000 free plugins available for the platform.
  • Being the leading CMS, almost all product startups and SaaS providers aim for a formal integration with WordPress.
  • Backward compatibility is a major priority with WordPress. This assurance is important for most business owners, bloggers, creators, entrepreneurs.
  • WordPress is built on top of PHP which powers nearly 83% of the web.
  • Virtually every hosting vendor out there supports PHP (including $1/mo hosts).
  • WordPress is actively supported by Automattic – the company that owns WordPress.com ran by the co-founder of WordPress.

As an old-school software developer, I had a hard time getting used to the WordPress codebase. That was strengthened by the influence of MVC (and its flavors) being the “de facto” standard in almost all frameworks and other CMS.

That said, these paradigms have to deal with other design and architecture problems that have been solved in WordPress for particular use cases.