Today marks eighteen years since the very first release of WordPress. I consider myself so lucky to have co-founded the project alongside Mike Little. Who could have imagined that our nights and weekends hacking on blogging software, a fork of b2/cafelog, could turn into something powering over 40% of the web? Or that nearly twenty years in, it would be getting better faster than it ever has been?
I blogged these anniversaries when WordPress was five, ten, fifteen, and last year at seventeen, but as the project reaches an age that, if it were a child, it would be heading off to college, I’m uncharacteristically at a loss for words.
The overwhelming feeling is one of gratitude, so I want to say thank you to every person who has ever been involved with making WordPress as a contributor, a community organizer, or as an end-user of the software. It’s amazing what we can accomplish when we work together.
39 replies on “WordPress 18”
Birthdays are natures way of telling us to eat more cake. Have some cake, Matt – happy birthday!
Here’s to 18 more! Great work, Matt et al!
The growth of WP just seems endless, do you think there will be a glass ceiling it will hit, Matt?
Congrats, Matt & Mike! What a trip. What an awesome community. Matt, I hope to still be contributing to WordPress when it turns our age. 🙂
Congratulations Matt and Team,
WordPress is an enabler for nontechnical persons like me. We the users also have been part of this wonderful journey.
Seen all the developments very closely, today it is a complete package for a ln online project.Be it a website, blog, forum or an e-commerce store.
Thanks Again-
Jitender
Congrats on this fantastic achievement! I have done a case study on WordPress for class and have my own site on WordPress. I am immensely grateful for you guys for making the website creation process incredibly easy!
– Sean B
Happy Birthday to the platform that helped me quit my job 15 years ago and work for myself. Still living the dream!
Happy birthday WordPress. Congratulations Matt.
WP has been an essential part of my business for the past 15 years. Looking forward to an even brighter future.
Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday to the powerful tool that changed my mind to pursue entrepreneurship, Happily leading a life and a company based on WP.
Hope it will be alive and strong for decades to come.
Congrats!
Great words <3 Matt. Congratulations on the road traveled so far.
Thanks for making creativity on the web accessible to everyone. Happy Birthday WordPress.
Happy Birthday to WordPress! It has been powering my personal blog for just over 13 years now. To think that when I first started that blog it was already 5 years old is mind blowing!
Happy Birthday, All of Us 🙂
Happy birthday WordPress. we all love you always
Happy Birthday WordPress :).
Congratulations on a monumental anniversary. WordPress is without doubt the one true platform that has democratised the Web.
Wow, CEO of wordpress using the simplest theme while we pay many premium themes to make our blogs look fancy
Best wishes on your 18th birthday! Thank you for giving us WordPress!
Matt – We, lots and lots and lots of us, owe you. The web would be an entirely different, less open, less democratic, more expensive, less trustworthy place without you/WP.
Congratulations for creating such a innovative platform. WordPress is certainly one of the most used platforms for our business and clients. Thank you for creating. Happy 18th Birthdays
It looks like I’ve been using WP to run my personal site since 2012, when I switched from a hacked-up version of an image gallery script to WP. I’ll probably stick with it for another decade or two as long as the Classic Editor plugin keeps working; my desire to rebuild all my custom styles to work with blocks is nonexistant.
Thanks for keeping my web presence as something I really never have to worry about for all these years.
It’s truly amazing. WordPress changed my life for sure. Cheers and well done!
Congrats and Happy Birthday to you and the WordPress Team. Glad I found you/WP. to many more greater years.
Congratulations and thanks to you and your team for making a great impact around the world.
Congratulations Matt.
PS: Dark Mode for WP Admin to celebrate? That will be nice + a refresh to have a more modern design.
It’s very exciting to see what WordPress has become and how it’s defending it’s place at the top among the hot alternatives. Thanks for making WordPress and sharing it with the world and also for sticking to your principles along the way.
PS: login via Google does not work to comment
Congrats Matt and WordPress! You enabled me to build a new business at 45 and I have never looked back! Thank you!
I’m always amazed to see such inspiring stories. This is the best part of open source technology – enabling everyone to change their lives. Thanks for sharing, Riaan!
It’s more emotional for you! But our beloved WordPress is 18+ now, means adult, so let’s rock on!
Happy birthday to WordPress, does software age like dog years? Congratulations Matt on this milestone, WordPress is truly important and impressive, may you always have continued success.
Happy Birthday!!!! You have grown up to be trully excelent CMS! Thanks for everything!
Congratulations Matt. You and your team has changed life. It’s a long way to go.
Kudos!
Congratulations!
🙂 Chào mừng sinh nhật WordPress 18 tuổi!
Huge congrats on this milestone, Matt!
WordPress have, and still is, a huge part of my life!
Working with it on daily basis, I can’t imagine switching to anything else!
Thank you – and thanks to the amazing WP community!
Thank YOU, Matt. It’s even hard to imagine how the internet would have looked like without WordPress… It’s a truly remarkable thing, this community you’ve created – kudos to all involved, now and in the past. Long live, open source!
Many things come and go and some are hibernating or even abandoned, but WordPress is one of the survivors and have been evolving until now. Congratulations Matt and Happy Birthday WordPress!
Congrats on 18 years Matt from Jonathan Wexler – we met when you were here in Montreal.
Also, hope you know about PressBooks which uses WordPress Multisite to create eBooks.
Thanks.