WordPress runs 40.1% of all websites, according to W3Techs on 8 October 2026. In our own client portfolio the share is lower. Of the 103 client sites that loaded when I checked them that same day, 27 run on WordPress, which is roughly one in four.
The difference is worth understanding before you pick a platform. WordPress itself is free, its official directories list 70,612 plugins and 8,755 themes, and the current version is 7.1.3. In India, a WordPress site built on a good theme usually costs ₹20,000 to ₹60,000. It's the right choice for a lot of websites, just not all of them.
I'm Keshav, and I work on the marketing side at GIT Infosys in Jaipur. This guide covers what WordPress is used for, the benefits that matter to a business, the downsides people tend to find out later, and how to tell whether it suits your site.
What Is WordPress?
Short answerWordPress is free, open-source software for building and running websites. You install it on your hosting, choose a theme for the design, add plugins for extra features, and then edit pages and posts from a dashboard without writing any code.
It started as blogging software in 2003. It's written in PHP and keeps your content in a MySQL or MariaDB database, though you never have to touch either to use it.
There are two versions with almost the same name. WordPress.org is the free software you install on any hosting you choose, and it's what most businesses and agencies mean when they say "WordPress". WordPress.com is a hosted service run by a company called Automattic. It works more like a website builder, and its cheaper plans don't let you install your own plugins. Everything below is about WordPress.org.
What Is WordPress Used For?
WordPress is used for almost any website made mostly of pages and posts: business websites, blogs and news sites, online stores, school and coaching sites, portfolios, and even government websites.
Business websites
The most common use by far: service pages, a contact form and maybe a blog. In our portfolio that includes real estate developers, coaching institutes, a logistics company and a charitable trust.
Blogs and news sites
Publishing is what WordPress was built for. Scheduling, categories, tags, comments and saved revisions all come with it.
Online stores
The free WooCommerce plugin turns WordPress into a shop. Four of the 27 WordPress sites in our portfolio sell this way, and one of them takes card payments through Stripe.
Government websites
District websites built on NIC's S3WaaS platform, such as Changlang, South Tripura and Srinagar, run on WordPress. You can see it in their page code, which loads files from a folder called wp-content.
Applications and sign-ups
Member areas, course sign-ups and event applications. LIYSF, a London science programme in our portfolio, takes its on-campus and virtual applications through booking forms on a WordPress site that also runs WooCommerce.
Portfolios and landing pages
Architects, photographers, designers and one-off campaign pages. On a ready theme, a simple landing page can go live in a day or two.
7 Benefits of WordPress for a Business Website
These are the reasons we still recommend it for most business sites built around content.
You own the site
WordPress is released under the GPL, an open-source licence, so the software is free to use and change. You can move your site to any hosting company, and nobody can switch it off or put up a monthly fee. On a hosted builder, the platform sets the rules.
You can edit it yourself
The block editor lets you change text, swap photos, add pages and publish posts without a developer. Changing a phone number takes a couple of minutes instead of an email and a wait.
There's a plugin for nearly everything
Forms, SEO, bookings, backups, payments, WhatsApp buttons and extra languages. The official directory has 70,612 free plugins.
In our portfolio21 of our 27 WordPress sites use the same free plugin, Contact Form 7, for their enquiry forms.
Solid SEO basics
Clean page addresses, editable titles and a built-in XML sitemap (added in version 5.5) give you a good start, and an SEO plugin handles the rest. 14 of our 27 WordPress sites load Yoast, Rank Math or All in One SEO. If the terms are new to you, start with our plain guide to what SEO is.
Help is easy to find
Because so many sites use it, there are WordPress developers in every Indian city. If you fall out with one, another can pick up the site without rebuilding it, which is much harder with custom code that only its author understands. If you're in Rajasthan and want someone local, we have WordPress developers in Jaipur.
It grows with you
Start with five pages, add a blog next year, a shop the year after and a Hindi version when you need one. The dashboard itself can run in Hindi: choose हिन्दी as the site language under Settings, then General.
It's cheaper to build
A WordPress site on a good theme costs ₹20,000 to ₹60,000 in India, and a custom-designed theme ₹50,000 to ₹1,50,000. Hosting and paid plugins add ₹4,000 to ₹25,000 a year. Our guide to website development cost in India breaks this down by platform and city.
Key Features of WordPress
A handful of features do most of the work. It helps to know when each one arrived, because older tutorials still describe WordPress as it used to be.
-
Block editor. Pages are built from blocks such as paragraphs, images, buttons and columns.
Version 5.0, Dec 2018 -
Site editor. On block themes you can edit headers, footers and templates the same way as pages.
5.9, Jan 2022 -
Automatic updates. Minor and security releases install themselves by default.
3.7, Oct 2013 -
XML sitemap. A list of your pages for search engines, with no plugin needed.
5.5, Aug 2020 -
REST API. Apps and scripts can read and update your content directly.
4.7, Dec 2016 -
User roles. Administrator, Editor, Author, Contributor and Subscriber, so staff only see what they need.
Built in
The Downsides of WordPress
Most WordPress problems come from plugins, updates and cheap hosting rather than from WordPress itself. They're all manageable, but it's better to know about them before you start.
Plugins are the main security risk
Patchstack logged 11,334 new security flaws across the WordPress ecosystem in 2025. Of those, 91% were in plugins, 9% were in themes, and only 6 were in WordPress core. Worse, 46% had no fix available when they were made public. Every plugin you add is one more thing that needs updating.
Updates are your job
Small security releases install themselves, but major versions and plugin updates usually need someone to click update and then check nothing broke. Of the 18 WordPress sites in our portfolio that show their version number, 12 were on the latest release, 7.1.3, on 8 October 2026. One was still on 6.9.10.
Heavy themes slow sites down
Multipurpose themes and page builders load code for features you'll never use. If your site already feels sluggish, our notes on speeding up a slow WordPress site and these WordPress optimization tips are a good place to start.
It isn't built for complex software
Booking engines with live availability, dealer portals and anything with unusual logic tend to become a pile of plugins working against each other. Those jobs are better done in custom code, and our guide to the types of web development explains the options.
Honestly, our own website doesn't run on WordPress either. It's a custom Laravel system, and in September 2026 a long post on our blog refused to save because the database field behind it only held 65,535 bytes. WordPress stores posts in a far bigger field, so that particular problem would never have come up there.
From our client work · Portfolio check, 8 October 2026
I checked all 129 sites in our portfolio on 8 October 2026 to see what each one runs on. Of the 103 that loaded normally:
Other or custom
WordPress
Shopify
Laravel
The WordPress sites were leaner than I expected. 23 of the 27 show between one and four plugins in their page code, and the only two showing eight or more are online stores running WooCommerce. A check like this can't see plugins that only work behind the scenes, so the real counts will be a little higher.
From our client work · Dekulture, Jaipur, September 2026
Dekulture runs export stores for several craft brands on WordPress. Four new stores, Feltora, Gardenalia, Jemfyrd and Notera, were set up as copies of an existing one, Lume Loam, so the page layouts and quote forms were ready before we wrote a word of content.
Copying has a catch. Every new store also inherited Lume Loam's page titles, and we had to rewrite them store by store. On Feltora we also added alt text to all 271 images through the WordPress REST API, instead of opening each image one at a time.
WordPress vs Shopify vs Custom Code
WordPress is usually the cheapest to build, Shopify the easiest for selling products, and custom code the most flexible. Here's how the costs compare in India.
| Platform | Build cost | Yearly running cost | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| WordPress | ₹20,000 to ₹1,50,000 | ₹4,000 to ₹25,000 | Business sites, blogs, service companies |
| WordPress + WooCommerce | ₹60,000 to ₹3,00,000 | ₹8,000 to ₹40,000 | Stores that also need strong content |
| Shopify | ₹40,000 to ₹4,00,000 | From ₹17,988 on the Basic plan, plus apps | Product brands that want hosting and checkout handled |
| Custom code | ₹1,50,000 to ₹15,00,000+ | ₹10,000 to ₹1,00,000 | Portals, booking systems, unusual logic |
The yearly cost is where they really split. A small WordPress site can run on about ₹4,000 a year, while Shopify's Basic plan alone is ₹17,988 a year before any apps.
If you mostly sell products and don't plan to write much, read our take on the benefits of Shopify before you decide.
Is WordPress Right for Your Website?
WordPress suits you if your site is mainly pages and posts, you want to edit it yourself, and your budget sits between about ₹20,000 and ₹1,50,000. It's probably not the right fit if:
- You sell lots of products and don't plan to publish content. Shopify will be less work to look after.
- You need logins, bookings or calculations that no plugin does well. That's a job for custom code.
- Nobody will ever update the site and you'd rather not think about plugin updates at all. A simple static site may serve you better.
You can set up a basic WordPress site yourself over a weekend with a ready theme, and plenty of small businesses do. Paying for help makes sense when you need a custom design, an online store, or someone to keep the site updated and backed up. That's the work our WordPress development services cover, and when WordPress isn't the right base we look at other options through our CMS website development work.
How to Build a WordPress Website in 8 Steps
- Register a domain in your own name. Use your own email and card, not your developer's.
- Choose hosting that supports a current PHP version and keeps daily backups.
- Install WordPress. Most hosts in India have a one-click installer.
- Turn on HTTPS with a free SSL certificate, so browsers don't mark your site "Not secure".
- Pick a lightweight theme. Open its demo on your phone before you buy.
- Add only the plugins you need. Forms, SEO, backups and security are enough to start with.
- Add your pages and content, then set the site title, tagline and permalinks.
- Test, then launch. Send yourself a test enquiry and set a monthly reminder to update plugins.
Common WordPress Mistakes
- Installing a plugin for every small thing. Each one adds code to load and something else to update.
- Buying a huge multipurpose theme for a five-page site.
- Using "admin" as the username with a weak password.
- Never testing the contact form. It can stop sending enquiries without anyone noticing for weeks.
- Letting the developer own the hosting or the domain.
- No backups, or backups kept on the same server as the site.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is WordPress used for?
Mostly for websites built from pages and posts: business sites, blogs, news sites, online stores through WooCommerce, and even Indian district government websites. It powers 40.1% of all websites, according to W3Techs.
What is WordPress development?
It's the work of building and customising WordPress sites: setting up or writing themes, building plugins in PHP, connecting payments and keeping everything updated. A custom WordPress theme typically costs ₹50,000 to ₹1,50,000 in India.
Is WordPress free?
The software is free. You pay for the domain, hosting and any premium themes or plugins, which for a small business site comes to roughly ₹4,000 to ₹25,000 a year.
What is WordPress in Hindi?
In Hindi it's written वर्डप्रेस. It's a कंटेंट मैनेजमेंट सिस्टम (CMS), software for making and running websites, used by 40.1% of websites worldwide, and its dashboard can be switched to Hindi from Settings.
Is WordPress good for SEO?
Yes, for most sites. It has clean page addresses and a built-in sitemap since version 5.5, and an SEO plugin covers titles and structured data. 14 of the 27 WordPress sites in our portfolio use one.
Is WordPress safe?
The core software is. Only 6 of the 11,334 WordPress security flaws Patchstack logged in 2025 were in core. The risk sits in plugins and themes, so keep them few and up to date.
What is the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?
WordPress.org is the free software you install on your own hosting, with access to all 70,612 plugins in the directory. WordPress.com is a paid hosted service, and its cheaper plans don't allow your own plugins.
Can I build an online store with WordPress?
Yes, with the free WooCommerce plugin. In India a WooCommerce store typically costs ₹60,000 to ₹3,00,000 to build and ₹8,000 to ₹40,000 a year to run.
Sources: W3Techs, CMS usage statistics; WordPress.org plugin directory; WordPress.org theme directory; WordPress.org download page (version 7.1.3); Patchstack, State of WordPress Security in 2026; Vikaspedia, S3WaaS for government websites; Changlang district website. Usage figures, directory counts and the version number checked 8 October 2026. Prices are from our website development cost guide, 2026. Portfolio figures are from our own check of 129 client websites on 8 October 2026, and Dekulture details from our work in September 2026.
