The world’s most beloved CMS turns 20 this week, celebrating 20 years of content creation, innovation and community service.
What started as a small open source project now rules the web. 43% or more WordPress is used as the underlying framework of all websites (and 63% of sites built with a CMS).
Since 2010, WP Engine has continued to contribute to the WordPress community, optimizing the platform and providing robust solutions to help builders and marketers, agencies and individual entrepreneurs, global brands and small businesses, and everyone in between. has maintained an open source tool suite.
To celebrate this important milestone for WordPress and the community, our team has been working on a fun project looking back at some of the changes that have happened to both WordPress and the world over the last 20 years.
A Brief History of WordPress and the World
WordPress has come a long way since version 1.0. New versions of CMS include improvements to help users create better, more personalized, and better performing digital experiences.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of WordPress and to remind you of how far we’ve come as a community, we’ve built a site that reflects the look and feel of version 1.0.
Scroll through to see a quick timeline of major WordPress version updates, the changes they brought, and what’s happening in the world at the moment. From sports, memes and celebrities to breaking news and new technology, we visit some of the cultural touchstones that happened with each major version of WordPress released.
I hope you can laugh at the design elements from decades ago and appreciate how much WordPress and the world have changed in a relatively short period of time.
WP Engine Celebrates 13 Great Years
Along with WordPress’ 20th anniversary, WP Engine is also celebrating its 13th anniversary. Since 2010, WP Engine has evolved with WordPress every step of the way, improving our platform and products to best serve the needs of our community.
Our WordPress anniversary site also includes some behind-the-scenes images of what it was like working with WP Engine in the early days. Things have changed a lot since 2010 for both WordPress and WP Engine. We are honored to have earned the WordPress community’s trust as we look to the future of the platform.
We can’t wait to see what the next 13 years will bring to WP Engine, our customers, and WordPress at large.
Thank you WordPress community
Without the community, the thriving digital framework of WordPress as we know and love it today would not exist. Thanks to all the community members who have contributed versions of WordPress over the years. We hope you enjoy our modest homage to WordPress history.