also spracht martad

Identifying one’s requirements can greatly help in choosing the right solution. Before moving on, I believe it’s worth for you to compare your requirements and expectations with mine. The next steps will obviously make more sense, the more similar our situations are.

Requirement #1

I maintain a number of personal and business Websites. Some of our clients and ourselves wanted a way to make topical or time-sensitive information available on the Web, without having to meet any of the following conditions:

1. having to depend on myself (as the Webmaster) to create a new or update an existing Website, or
2. having to learn HTML, FTP, nor any other basic Web publishing skills.

Requirement No. 1 is therefore that final users do not need to have any knowledge of Web design, HTML, file transfer procedures, server access etc.

Requirement #2

Being proficient with HTML, CSS, Web standards, FTP and some basic Telnet/SSH commands, I can design, implement and maintain your average commercial strength Websites. However, I am not a programmer and I have no intention of becoming one.
Requirement No. 2 is that I can manage myself installation, maintenance and (at least to some extent) layout customisation, without having to rely on specialised programming skills, which I do not have.

Requirement #3

Most of our Websites are hosted on pair.com, and we are perfectly happy with their services, prices, security and reliability.
Requirement No. 3 is that installation, deployment and maintenance can take place on our virtual Web server on pair.com.

Requirement #4

Because, as I said before, I was looking for a Web publishing tool that can be used by several people (contemporarily, although not necessarily in conflict with each other), the final requirement is that multiple installations are possible, without unduly blowing the threshold of the maximum number of databases, allowed by pair.com for our account type (Advanced).

Conclusions

WordPress promises to fulfill all of our requirements so far. There is in fact a much larger number of personal publishing platforms, blogging applications, Content Management Systems (CMS) and other tools that appear to fit the bill, most of them available as Free Software or Open Source projects.
So one of the preliminary steps I took, when I first embarked on this venture, was to try and establish whether there was an obvious “better” choice among the many available.
The short answer, I found, is no. And I haven’t been able to find, as yet, the ultimate good reason for choosing WordPress rather than some other blog or Web publishing tool.

So our final choice fell on WordPress mainly because of its popularity and alleged ease of use. And also, of course, because pair.com offers an ideal environment for WordPress installations.