As digital is at the heart of several business operations today, the need and popularity of web apps are growing every single day. 

For businesses, after identifying the business process for which they need a web app, the next most important decision is which platform to use for developing the app. It can be more than overwhelming – especially because there are so many tools and technologies available and the web app trends keep evolving. 

For businesses, it is important to choose a platform that is not only efficient but is also apt for growing business needs. If gone wrong, migrating a complete web app to another platform can be costlier than building a new one.

Did you know what is common between Facebook, Wikipedia, Digg, Mailchimp? Well, all of them (and many more such large web apps) use the PHP framework. 

While there are several technologies available in the market to build web apps, over the past few years WordPress has gained tremendous popularity – especially amongst small and mid-size organizations. It is an open-source webs application development platform that uses PHP for front-end coding and a MySQL database. 

WordPress claims to power more than 38% of the web and the figure continues to grow.

So, what makes this platform a great one for web app development? Let’s take a look-   

Open Source (Hence, no license fee)

The cost of developing a web app largely depends on the features, size, and time required to build it. Apart from that, businesses also need to think about purchasing a license for the technology that they choose. WordPress is an open source platform and is available free of cost. One does not need to pay anything to start using the technology. Even if you need advanced features, they are available at low prices, which makes it affordable for small and medium businesses to get a head start to build their business apps.  That apart, businesses don’t need to worry about vendor lock-in. 

High Scalability

For growing businesses, scalability one of the most important factors. WordPress is the most used CMS platform in the world. Built on core web technologies, it offers extremely good scalability. By writing high-quality code, and using advanced caching techniques, database tuning, and server optimizations, application developers can ensure that their web apps developed using WordPress can handle the enterprise scale. 

Easy Maintainability

The coding in WordPress is readable and reusable, saving time to develop and maintain the code. The modular structure allows developers to modify and update a particular functionality easily without disturbing other elements of the app. WordPress makes it hassle-free to code and deploy new features in the application. Thus, businesses can cut down ample time and costs while upgrading or scaling their enterprise apps.

Easy Integrations and Extensibility 

WordPress offers more than 50,000 plugins making it extremely popular amongst developers. There are easy-to-use plugins available for almost all most common application needs. Developers can use these plugins to ensure faster time to market and quickly meet their needs. Of course, enterprises have an option to build their own plugins for specific features. WordPress also offers seamless integration with various other enterprise applications and business platforms like CRM systems or marketing automation platforms making it a perfect fit in the enterprise tech stack. 

Excellent Community-based Support

Commercial tools often boast of 24/7 tech support. However, WordPress takes pride in its community-based support offered by thousands of community members. The WordPress community is extremely active and offers several resources for anybody who needs help. There is also documentation available for WordPress developers. WordPress’s active support forums allow developers to ask and seek answers.

There is a common myth that WordPress is good only for websites and blogs. But over tears, it has evolved into a powerful enterprise application platform. However, to make the most of this powerful technology, it is important to ensure that the WordPress application is hosted on a secure and scalable platform. The hosting platform should be secure, scalable, optimized for WordPress, and ensure optimal performance.  Specialized WordPress development companies can guide you on the best available options. 

Conclusion

Small and mid-size businesses constantly evolve and so do their business needs. Being easy-to-use and highly flexible, WordPress enables SMBs to scale and modify their web apps as per their changing business needs. Also, the upgrade or changes in the web app are possible without spending too much time and effort. This open-source web app platform ensures that budgets are predictable for any forthcoming demands of business, making it suitable for the SMBs.