In the convivial range. Of the six balances: 2 tipping, 4 not assessed. Position somewhere between 57 and 95 of 100. The balances not assessed could put it past the second watershed.
- Biological degradation Not assessed Does this tool damage the living world, or the body, faster than either can recover? Not assessed: nobody has looked at this yet, so it is not counted as holding.
- Radical monopoly Tipping Can people still meet the need another way, without this tool? Tipping: the tool has begun to cause this problem, without going past the limit.
- Overprogramming Not assessed Does using this tool require training or certification that people cannot give each other? Not assessed: nobody has looked at this yet, so it is not counted as holding.
- Polarization Tipping Does this tool move power or advantage to a few, at others’ cost? Tipping: the tool has begun to cause this problem, without going past the limit.
- Obsolescence Not assessed Does this tool force people to replace what still works? Not assessed: nobody has looked at this yet, so it is not counted as holding.
- Frustration Not assessed Does this tool give back less than it takes, counting everything it takes? Not assessed: nobody has looked at this yet, so it is not counted as holding.
What it does
Web publishing for anyone, from small-scale blogs to massive network applications.
Where it stops
The licence keeps the software’s freedoms with everyone who receives it, so the code cannot be closed. Nothing yet stops one person controlling the WordPress.org services most sites rely on.
How easily you can stop using it
Export your content from Tools → Export and move it to another host or another system. The code is free to change, fork, and repair. Leaving the WordPress.org services is harder: a site that does so must find its plugins, themes, and updates elsewhere.
What is scored
- The unit: The WordPress software together with the WordPress.org services a standard installation depends on: the plugin and theme directories and the update servers. These are two things with different owners. The licence governs the first; one person controls the second. Left out: WordPress.com, hosting companies, and individual plugins.
- The job it is tested against: Publishing on the web for anyone. It does this reliably.
- Where and when: 2024 to 2026. Two of the six balances are assessed.
A disclosure first: this site runs on WordPress, and the person who writes it builds WordPress plugins (see the Workshop). Read this record with that in mind.
WordPress is free software for publishing on the web, released under the GNU General Public License, which lets anyone run, study, change, and share it. Anyone can install it on their own server or use one of the many hosts that offer it. Everything a site holds can be exported from the admin screens in an open format and moved to another host.
Scale
W3Techs reports that WordPress runs 40.1% of all websites, and 58.6% of the sites whose content management system it can identify (October 5, 2026). Few tools come close to that share of anything. But the licence means no one can own the software outright: if the project went somewhere its users did not want, they could take the code and go.
Governance
The software is free; the project’s infrastructure is not as distributed. WordPress.org, where most themes, plugins, and updates come from, is controlled by Matt Mullenweg. In September 2024, during a dispute with the host WP Engine, he blocked WP Engine from WordPress.org, which broke plugin and theme updates for that company’s customers. In October WordPress.org took over WP Engine’s Advanced Custom Fields plugin. A federal court granted WP Engine a preliminary injunction in December 2024 that restored its access (TechCrunch). In September 2026 the court ruled that Automattic and Mullenweg are neither owners nor registrants of the WordPress trademarks, which belong to the WordPress Foundation, and the case is headed for a jury trial (webhosting.today). For what Elinor Ostrom’s research on how communities govern shared resources suggests for WordPress, see Elinor Ostrom and the open source commons.
The six balances
Scored as set out in How to evaluate tools. It reliably does its job, so it starts in the convivial range.
- Biological degradation: Not assessed.
- Radical monopoly: 1. It runs two in five websites, but the licence and the export tools keep the way out open, and alternatives remain.
- Overprogramming: Not assessed. See the open questions.
- Polarization: 1. Control over the shared infrastructure that nearly every site depends on rests with one person, and in 2024 it was used against a competitor’s customers.
- Obsolescence: Not assessed.
- Frustration: Not assessed.
Where the threshold falls
In the convivial range, at 57: two of the six balances are tipping, so its position is 50 + 7. The software itself sits comfortably inside the range. The pressure comes from scale and from how the project is governed, not from the code.
Open questions
- Has running a WordPress site well become work only professionals can do? If so, overprogramming should score 1.
- Would a WordPress.org governed by its contributors change the polarization score? Several groups have proposed alternatives since 2024.
- How should the plugin ecosystem be scored: as part of WordPress, or as many separate tools?
- How should biological degradation be measured for software — efficiency, hosting energy, carbon?
- How should frustration be scored for WordPress? Illich means the balance “between personal cost and return.” For a site owner the costs include keeping core, themes, and plugins updated, fixing what updates break, and learning the editor; the return is a site they own. Which side wins probably depends on who runs the site.
Which WordPress plugins pass these tests, and which fail them? Nominate one.
Sources
- “Automattic Is Not an Owner of the WordPress Marks It Asserted in Court, a Judge Rules.” webhosting.today, September 29, 2026. https://webhosting.today/2026/09/29/automattic-is-not-an-owner-of-the-wordpress-marks-it-asserted-in-court-a-judge-rules.
- WordPress.org. “GNU General Public License.” Accessed October 5, 2026. https://wordpress.org/about/license/.
- WordPress.org Documentation. “Tools Export Screen.” Accessed October 5, 2026. https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/tools-export-screen/.
- W3Techs. “Usage Statistics and Market Share of WordPress.” October 5, 2026. https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-wordpress.
- “The WordPress vs. WP Engine Drama, Explained.” TechCrunch, January 12, 2025. https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/12/wordpress-vs-wp-engine-drama-explained/.