I’ll answer the title question quickly – no, there are many others. A quick look on the search engines for “free blog” and “blog open source” will reveal many sites willing to host your blog, or provide you with free software to do it yourself.

So why WordPress?

In 2004, when I started working with WordPress, my main goal was to understand what all this ‘blogging’ was about. I’m not a big fan of writing online (I prefer getting paid for a printed copy of my words!), but I understood that blogs were poised to transform things.

And one reason was simple – finally, websites could be run and maintained by individuals without tech experience.

Although there were issues at first, comparing the way a WordPress site and a regular site were set up soon convinced me that a blog was a great way to go.

And over the years, WordPress set itself apart by providing a non-blog look if you wanted. For example, it’s easy to create a web page on the front that doesn’t change, and isn’t a list of posts. The result is that the blog software easily creates a regular site, and maintaining it is a simple matter of running the blog program.

And while not exactly ‘simple’, it IS easier than fiddling with FTP, CHMOD, HTML editing, and the other website tools and content many site folks had to do in the past.

So blogs are great, and WordPress has features that make it friendly to use on non-blog sites – is that it?

No. It’s popular – and that popularity works in its favor. While it’s true a more popular program is going to get noticed by hackers (requiring security updates), it also means it gets fixed faster – a plus.

And when there’s a question, someone often has asked – and answered – it before you, so a quick look online solves your problems.

And that also third party products. A variety of plugins and themes to enhance WordPress means that many things you want to do are already available – just download and use.

So yes, WordPress is one of many – but it also stands alone!