CERN — yes, that CERN, the birthplace of the World Wide Web — is migrating from Drupal to WordPress to power its web infrastructure.

As someone who works with WordPress regularly, this is a pretty major signal. And as a developer, it’s fascinating to see how large institutions manage content at scale.

Why the change?

Maintaining hundreds of Drupal sites across CERN had become complex, costly, and tough to scale — especially with accessibility and governance requirements in play.

The solution? Shift to WordPress. The internal Web Governance Board greenlit the change to streamline publishing workflows, boost accessibility, and reduce tech overhead.

The core idea:

Let scientists and comms teams focus on content, not code.

The rollout plan

The migration is being rolled out in phases:

• Oct 2024 – WordPress Lite
  A sandbox-style instance for low-risk testing via the CERN App Catalogue.

• Jan–Mar 2025 – MVP → Pilot phase
  Internal use and infrastructure testing. Limited access, feedback loop open.

• May 2025 – Public launch
  Anyone with a CERN account can launch a WordPress site.

• July 2025 onward – Migrations
  Automated migration for “standard” Drupal sites. Custom sites will need manual work. Drupal support winds down into 2026.

What WordPress means for CERN

From a tech perspective, CERN’s WordPress environment:

• Lives on CERN’s App Catalogue infrastructure
• Uses a locked-down stack: no random plugins or themes (for now)
• Provides a Gutenberg block editor experience out of the box
• Includes default CERN themes that handle accessibility + responsiveness
• Supports CERN’s SSO (for auth), internal metrics, and other org-level integrations

For content creators, the goal is to make publishing as frictionless as possible—without needing to know HTML or befriend the web team.

How they’re managing it

CERN is taking a centralized approach to WordPress. Updates to the core CMS, the CERN WordPress theme, and all approved plugins are handled by the web team—no action needed by site owners. There’s no option to lock a site to a specific WordPress version; everyone moves forward together.

They're almost certainly running WordPress Multisite, which makes sense given the scale and governance model. All sites follow strict rules:

• Only centrally-approved plugins are available
• Only the official CERN WordPress Theme is allowed
• “Must-use” plugins (like SSO auth) are always active
• User roles and permissions are managed via CERN’s Application Portal

Why it matters (to me)

This isn’t just about a CMS swap. It’s a big vote of confidence in WordPress as enterprise infrastructure.

We’ve known for a while that WordPress powers 40%+ of the web, but when CERN—the most technically sophisticated research org on the planet—goes all in on it, it reinforces that WordPress isn’t just for blogs and marketing pages anymore.

It also shows how far Gutenberg (the block editor) has come. Five years ago, something like this would have been unthinkable.

If you're into infrastructure, publishing workflows, or just love a solid open-source success story — this is one worth following.