Open-source CMS

WordPress, from zero to first page

A short, plain-language guide to what WordPress is, how to spin it up in a browser without installing anything, and how to publish your first page. A live public demo is embedded below.

Your private WordPress Playground sandbox

Every visitor gets their own isolated WordPress instance. WordPress Playground runs a real WordPress inside your browser tab — no signup, no server. Save the shareable link below and this page will reopen your sandbox on your next visit.

Launch on WordPress Playground
Preparing your session...

If nothing loads here, the sandbox host does not allow being framed by other sites. That is a common, sensible security setting for live admin interfaces — use the "Open in new tab" button above.

Launch the sandbox

How to put it into the sandbox

A sandbox is a temporary WordPress site hosted for you — you install nothing on your own computer. The walkthrough below uses WordPress Playground, which runs the whole stack in your browser tab.

  1. 1. Open the sandbox provider

    Click playground.wordpress.net. You do not need an account. A full WordPress boots inside your browser tab in a few seconds. If the embedded window above already shows it, use that directly.

  2. 2. Choose the version and preset

    Click the settings icon in Playground to pick a WordPress version (latest is fine), PHP version, and starting theme. Presets let you pre-install popular plugins such as WooCommerce or WordPress themes with sample content.

  3. 3. Wait for it to boot

    Playground compiles PHP + WordPress + SQLite in your browser (about 10–20 seconds the first time). When the site appears, you are logged in as admin. Optionally click Log in and use username admin, password password.

  4. 4. Get a shareable link

    Playground lets you export your session as a URL that recreates the same state. Click the Share icon, copy the link and paste it below so this page reloads your sandbox next time.

  5. 5. Explore the dashboard

    The left sidebar is the admin menu. Click Posts, Add New to write a blog post; Appearance, Themes to swap the look; Plugins, Add New to install an extension. Every change is instant.

  6. 6. Add your first page

    Go to Pages, Add New. Give it a title (About), type or paste some content, click Publish. Copy the permalink from the top of the page — that is the public URL of the page you just created.

  7. 7. Install a plugin

    Go to Plugins, Add New, search for Contact Form 7, click Install now, then Activate. A new Contact menu appears on the left. Playground includes plugin installation without an outside connection.

  8. 8. Save what you want to keep

    Playground sessions live in the browser tab only — closing it deletes the site. To keep your changes, use Tools, Export to download a WordPress export file, or export the whole site as a zip from the Playground toolbar.

Step-by-step guide

  1. 1. What WordPress is

    WordPress is a free, open-source content management system that powers roughly 40% of the public web. It ships with pages, posts, users, media and menus, and everything else — shops, forums, membership, page builders — is added as a plug-in and configured through the browser. It is written in PHP and stores its data in MySQL or MariaDB.

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  2. 2. Try WordPress without installing anything

    The fastest way to see WordPress is WordPress Playground. It runs a real WordPress in your browser using WebAssembly — no server, no signup — and the site is thrown away when you close the tab. For a longer-lived free site, use InstaWP or TasteWP, which give you a private WordPress site for a few days.

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  3. 3. What you need to run it yourself

    To install WordPress on your own machine or server you need PHP (8.2 or newer), a web server (Apache, Nginx or Caddy), and a database (MySQL or MariaDB). Beginners usually skip installing these one by one and use LocalWP, DDEV, or Laragon — free tools that give you the whole stack pre-configured in a couple of clicks.

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  4. 4. Install WordPress locally with LocalWP

    Download Local by WP Engine from localwp.com. Open it, click Create a new site, choose Preferred for defaults, pick a site name, then an admin username and password. Click Add site. In under a minute you get a working WordPress at a URL like my-site.local with a one-click Admin button that logs you in as administrator.

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  5. 5. First run — the dashboard

    After logging in you land on the Dashboard. The left sidebar is the main menu: Posts, Media, Pages, Comments, Appearance, Plugins, Users, Tools, Settings. Posts and Pages is where content lives. Appearance is themes and menus. Plugins is where you add features. Users is accounts and roles. Settings covers site title, permalinks, discussion and privacy.

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  6. 6. Posts, pages and blocks — the core idea

    Posts are dated entries (a blog, news, updates); pages are static (About, Contact). Both are edited in the block editor: each paragraph, image, heading, or button is a "block" you drag into place. Group blocks into reusable "patterns" from the pattern library. Custom Post Types — for example Events or Products — are added by a plugin (ACF, CPT UI) and behave the same way.

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  7. 7. Menus, widgets and the site editor

    Under Appearance, Menus you build the site navigation and assign it to a location the theme exposes (Primary, Footer). Widgets are small blocks — search, latest posts, social links — you drop into sidebar or footer areas. If your theme is a block theme (Twenty Twenty-Four, Twenty Twenty-Five), Appearance, Editor lets you edit every part of the site — header, footer, page templates — in the same block editor.

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  8. 8. Users, roles and permissions

    WordPress ships with five roles: Administrator (full control), Editor (all content), Author (own content), Contributor (draft only), Subscriber (read-only). Add users at Users, Add New. The rule of thumb: never edit the site day-to-day as the first Administrator — create an Editor account for normal writing, keep the admin account for updates only.

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  9. 9. Add features with plugins and themes

    Almost every feature that is not built in — SEO, contact forms, shop (WooCommerce), backups, security, caching — is a plugin you install from Plugins, Add New. Themes work the same way under Appearance, Themes. Stick to plugins with recent updates, thousands of active installs and a 4-star+ rating, and always test on a staging copy before installing on a live site.

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  10. 10. Publishing your site

    When you are ready, deploy to a host that runs PHP + MySQL. Managed hosts — WP Engine, Kinsta, SiteGround, DreamHost — install WordPress and updates for you. Or use any VPS with cPanel or Cloudways. To move a local site up, use the Duplicator or All-in-One WP Migration plugin: it packages files + database into one archive, and you import it on the new host in the same plugin.

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One-page cheat sheet

Local install with LocalWP

# 1. Download Local from https://localwp.com
# 2. Open Local -> Create a new site
# 3. Pick "Preferred", enter site name + admin
# 4. Click "Add site"; open the URL and admin panel

Install with WP-CLI (any host)

wp core download
wp config create --dbname=wp --dbuser=root --dbpass=secret
wp db create
wp core install --url=example.com --title="My site" \
    --admin_user=admin --admin_email=me@example.com

Add a plugin

wp plugin install contact-form-7 --activate
wp plugin update --all
wp plugin list --status=active

Backup and move a site

wp db export backup.sql
wp export --dir=./exports
# or use the "All-in-One WP Migration" plugin
# in Tools -> Export -> download .wpress archive