I've used Wordpress for more than a decade at various organizations and in my own personal life. I've used it largely for blogging, sharing our news and content with my organizations' audiences. Due to its nature as a blog, it allows for a more casual tone and a more direct way to speak directly with our users.
Pros
Ease of use
Robust features
Variety of attractive themes
Cons
Has been slower to keep up with competitors in overall look and design
Limited options for use other than a traditional blog
Likelihood to Recommend
I think Wordpress works great at a blog platform or as a very limited website. It would not be a great option for those interested in trying to use it as a traditional website.
I have used WordPress across a couple different organizations for marketing sites. It was able to be utilized by less technical people, which is a win. It allows a business to spin up a site quickly.
Pros
Spin up a site quickly
Less technical people can use
Has plugins that you can utilize
Cons
It is more difficult to build custom functionality
We have found when we built out custom sites, we got better load times
I think it could have better documentation for its plugins
Likelihood to Recommend
I would recommend WordPress if you want to spin up a site quickly and it is being utilized by less technical people, however if you want to scale over time, you may want to consider other options.
VU
Verified User
Employee in Product Management (Computer Software company, 1001-5000 employees)
Our organization uses the WordPress network to structure and organize over 500 websites built with WordPress. We are able to manage pre-approved plugins, themes, users, etc. This greatly ensures our websites are safe, organized, and manageable. It also makes it easier for our users to get started creating their website because we give them templates and plugins that meet most if not all of their needs.
Pros
Easy to use and setup
Plugins make it easy to quickly add capabilities
One click installs with hosting companies make it easy to get WP up and running
Cons
Built in spam filtering rather than depend on plugins(s)
Likelihood to Recommend
I think WordPress works well for almost all scenarios and company sizes. Unless your business or need is to have very strict publishing guidelines, workflows, and governance WordPress should be a great fit. It's easy to use and you'll find resources with past experience using it. There are endless opportunities to change or improve your website because of the vast library of plugins and templates.
VU
Verified User
Manager in Marketing (Non-profit Organization Management company, 10,001+ employees)
WordPress is one of the two main content management systems used across our organization. It is used not only by our department but also by many teams at a local level (we have teams that serve on various college campuses across the U.S., in addition to a centralized IT department that focuses on large-scale projects). It solves the business need of having an easily scalable, usable CMS that can be broadly distributed, easily picked up, and easily managed by leaders and contributors across the country for managing their individual websites.
Pros
Flexibility - WordPress is open source software that can be used and shared by anyone. It is easy to distribute to many different teams or contributors.
Cost - the basic version of WordPress is free (you just have to pay for a domain and web hosting).
Plugins - because WordPress is so popular, there are tons of customizable plugins available that make managing your website very easy.
Support - again, because of the popularity and usage, there is a wealth of info, tutorials, and a dedicated community available to help with needs.
Easy drag and drop functionality - WordPress has different types of website build editors that allow for very easy drag and drop functionality, and easy customization in a user-friendly interface.
Cons
Dashboard structure - though it's overall pretty easy to use, the dashboard for WordPress may take some time to get used to, especially if you are coming from another CMS that does it differently. For instance, the difference between "Posts" and "Pages" can be confusing. Some of the organization of the dashboard menus seem incoherent as well (some sub-menus appear in places I wouldn't expect them to).
Bulk actions - WordPress allows for doing bulk actions on many pages at once, but the choices of actions is pretty limited by default. I've encountered some situations where I had to get a developer to help me with what should have been a simple bulk action.
Lack of a hierarchical content repository view for authors - WordPress lists all of your website pages together in a paginated interface. You aren't able to easily see your site's information architecture by drilling down in a folder-like structure (Note - it's possible there are customizations or plugins that do this - I'm speaking just on the default options that I have experience with).
Likelihood to Recommend
WordPress is particularly well suited for individuals or teams looking for a cost-effective, easy-to-maintain content management system for their website. This is especially true if you have folks who may be a little less tech-savvy and just want a place to update posts and pages. A lot of the more robust features of more complex CMS are stripped out for basic author viewership, which should help make onboarding easier. WordPress is less appropriate for large, enterprise-level companies and systems that need a very robust CMS to manage all of their content and technical needs. Also, a strong consideration would be what other marketing and technology stack tools your company/department is using - if there is an integration with a CMS that would seamlessly fit into your existing tools, that is probably worth exploring instead of using WordPress.
VU
Verified User
Team Lead in Marketing (Non-Profit Organization Management company, 10,001+ employees)
It is used by [some of our] departments. Sometimes there are needs for a small department to showcase their activities and collaborate with each other. The easiest and the most accessible is using a website. The challenges are: (1) how to enable non-IT users able to update the content all the time by themselves to keep the website relevant, without any assistance from IT and (2) how to deploy a sophisticated website as quickly as possible without consuming too many IT resources for setup and also for future maintenance. WordPress solves those challenges.
Pros
Quick and easy setup. You only need few minutes to get it up and running with minimal technical knowledge required.
Customizable. WordPress has lots of themes and lots of plugins. You can almost build any type of website you can imagine.
Requires only minimal technical skill level for maintenance. Update of the core program, themes, and plugins can be performed by trained users without much difficulty.
Any user can post new content to a WordPress website with minimal technical skill.
Cons
Few official themes. Of course, there are lots of themes out there you can use, but they depend on the availability of external vendors to maintain them.
Few official plugins. It will be best if WordPress has a collection of lots of plugins to be used with their official theme as well.
If possible, it would be best if there [was only one] official theme, but that theme could be customized by installing many plugins to create totally different looks. Currently, if we want to really change the look, we need to try and test lots of themes. Each theme has its own rules we need to follow to make the look appealing as intended.
Likelihood to Recommend
The look and features of the website should be supported by available themes and plugins and supported by trusted vendors. There is a huge selection of themes and plugins you can use which will create distinct look, therefore for most cases, WordPress should be well-suited. However, there are some cases WordPress will be less appropriate: (1) When you want the look which not available in any theme out there. You can build your own theme yourself of course, but it requires higher technical skill. (2) When you want to use a website as an application, e.g. it has data entry, report, interactive analysis, etc.
VU
Verified User
Manager in Information Technology (Farming company, 1001-5000 employees)
Our company uses Wordpress for our main web site, where we house program information, news, faculty profiles, forms and handbooks. I use it specifically for a school at the university, and nearly all of the web sites on our university's server are built on WordPress. The shortcode and frameworks of WordPress are relatively easy to learn and use, and, despite exploring other options periodically, we've stuck with WP.
Pros
WordPress' shortcode for things like tables and columns allow for simple copy and paste to format pages.
Though shortcode can look identical across pages, there are sometimes anomalies that occur and result in incorrect formatting. This can result in time spent/wasted in digging through code to find the one character/line/command that's causing the error. For a programmer, this might not be an issue/for a content creator or manager, this is a headache.
Wordpress' site dashboard is really easy to navigate and customize.
Cons
Wordpress could make shortcode easier to organize and retrieve within the dashboard itself. Currently, I peruse message boards and existing pages to find the codes I need.
Sometimes, edits I make that are saved don't stick. This happens rarely, but it's frustrating.
Better troubleshooting from WordPress itself. Oftentimes, my Wordpress functions and layout set by our developers are vastly different from what I find on message board threads. It often results in dead ends, confusion, and me having to call our developer for a fix.
Likelihood to Recommend
I only have minor complaints. I create and curate content for our site, and it's been easy to learn and get the functionality I need. I work in the site daily, and for the daily needs we have -- embedding video, photo galleries, stories, etc. -- [WordPress] handles the content and load well. The media component is well-designed and easy to navigate.
VU
Verified User
Manager in Marketing (Higher Education company, 1001-5000 employees)
We use Wordpress internally at a couple of departments for internal use. It started out as a hobby project but has since been picked up professionally and is now running a nice-looking intranet for the departments. Most people know how to use a WordPress site as a normal user so adoption was quick. We have been looking at other products but people are happy with it.
Pros
Very well known so many people know how to use it.
Very configurable and expandable.
Cons
You really need to keep it up to data as vulnerabilities keep popping up.
So many themes and options available it is hard to choose one.
Likelihood to Recommend
Using it as a departmental blog/intranet means it isn't directly accessible from the internet. Of course, we do keep it up to date but the risk of having Wordpress running is manageable this way. If you are internet accessible, please do keep it up-to-date, as there are too many issues if you don't.
VU
Verified User
Professional in Information Technology (Fund-Raising company, 1001-5000 employees)
WordPress is being used by various clients for website capabilities. We specifically recommend WordPress for those teams who lack advanced technical proficiency when it comes to content publishing platforms. For the more advanced user, other platforms like Drupal are better.
Pros
Easy-to-use
Customizable with plugins
Cons
Very buggy, especially with more plugins
Small updates can break the entire site
Likelihood to Recommend
WordPress is best for teams wishing to get off the ground ASAP. It is ready to go and very easy to set up. However, for more advanced capabilities and customization, WordPress may have some weaknesses. Plugins can also get complex, especially when constant updating is required.
VU
Verified User
Consultant in Marketing (Marketing and Advertising company, 10,001+ employees)
WordPress is a flexible manager that allows for quick development of websites and blogs. The dashboard is didactic and allows people with little knowledge to manage content.
