WordPress vs WordPress VIP
WordPress and WordPress VIP are both CMS software. WordPress is open source under a license set out in its repository, with 22k GitHub stars. WordPress VIP is a commercial product from Automattic.
Which to pick
- Pick WordPress when
- You need a website that non-technical staff can edit and want the widest choice of hosts, themes, plugins and freelancers.
- Pick WordPress VIP when
- A large publisher or enterprise wants to run WordPress at high traffic with strict security and support guarantees.
Side by side
The PHP and MySQL content management system for websites and blogs, with the Gutenberg block editor and a very large ecosystem of themes and plugins; this repository is a read-only Git mirror of its Subversion repository.
Managed enterprise WordPress hosting with code review, security, high availability and compliance certifications.
Most security problems come from third-party plugins and themes, so keep them few and updated; contributions go to wordpress-develop, not this mirror.
Very expensive compared with regular WordPress hosting, and code must follow VIP's platform rules.
Production-ready (both)
Self-hosted server and cloud service
Cloud service
PHP, JavaScript, MySQL and React
PHP and WordPress
Open source, license unclear on GitHub
Closed source, sold by Automattic
GitHub could not read the license. Check it in the repository before reusing any code.
Closed source: you use it under the maker's terms and cannot change or resell the code.
22k GitHub stars
No Wikipedia article of its own
Established: started 15 years ago, no tagged release yet.
Not known
Other comparisons
More content management systems
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-06 from makers' descriptions, Wikipedia, READMEs and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.