What Is GitHub? What Is It Used for in WordPress? (In-Depth Explanation)

As someone who‘s been working with WordPress for over 15 years, I can‘t emphasize enough how important GitHub has become for developing and distributing WordPress plugins, themes, and other code projects.

In this in-depth guide, we‘ll cover everything you need to know about GitHub and its growing role in the WordPress ecosystem.

What Exactly Is GitHub?

GitHub is a development platform built around the Git version control system. It provides developers tools to manage, store, and collaborate on software projects.

With GitHub, developers can:

• Track changes to code over time with full history and versioning
• Work on independent branches to make changes without disrupting others
• Contribute to projects by forking repos and submitting pull requests
• Review code changes and merges with pull requests and approvals
• Discuss projects through issues and PR commenting
• Follow other developers and projects to stay updated

GitHub has become massively popular with over 100 million repositories now hosted on the platform. It‘s home to some of the most influential open source projects from WordPress and beyond.

Why GitHub Is Essential for WordPress Projects

For WordPress developers, GitHub provides some major benefits:

• Easy collaboration. Teams can work seamlessly on complex plugins and themes. Changes can be tracked, reviewed, and merged smoothly.

• Contributions. Plugins and themes can accept code contributions from the community. This helps projects grow sustainably.

• Version control. The full history of code changes is tracked, enabling rollback as needed.

• Project management. Issues, milestones, wikis, and other tools support development workflows.

• Documentation. Plugin readme files, wikis, and GitHub pages allow robust docs.

• Distribution. Plugins and themes can be shared and installed from GitHub repositories.

• Feedback. Followers and contributors can provide bug reports and feature requests.

GitHub has become massively important infrastructure for the WP ecosystem. Over 50,000 WordPress plugins and themes are now hosted on GitHub.

Top WordPress Projects on GitHub

Some of the most popular and important WordPress plugins and themes are hosted on GitHub. This includes projects like:

• Yoast SEO – Over 5 million active installs. The top SEO plugin for WordPress.
• WooCommerce – The leading eCommerce platform. Powers over 30% of online stores.
• Contact Form 7 – The most popular contact form plugin with 5+ million sites using it.
• Advanced Custom Fields – Custom fields and site building toolkit with 300,000+ active sites.
• GeneratePress – A fast, lightweight theme with over 700,000 installs.

These major projects use GitHub for collaboration, contributions, documentation, and distribution.

How to Install WordPress Plugins and Themes from GitHub

One of the great things about GitHub is that it allows WordPress users to easily discover and install plugins and themes that are actively under development.

Here is the process for installing a WordPress plugin or theme from GitHub:

1. Find the repository on GitHub and navigate to the home page.
2. Click on the green "Code" button then select "Download ZIP". This will download the latest files.
3. Unzip the downloaded file onto your local computer.
4. Use FTP to upload the extracted plugin folder to your /wp-content/plugins/ folder.
5. Go to Plugins in your WordPress admin. You should see the new plugin listed. Click Activate to use it.

This same process works seamlessly for installing GitHub hosted themes as well.

The benefits of installing from GitHub include:

• Early access to cutting edge features
• Ability to use development branches
• Plugins and themes that aren‘t in the WordPress directories
• Reporting issues directly to the developers

There are some risks to keep in mind though:

• Lack of review and compatibility checking
• Less tested code that may have bugs
• Need to manually update vs WordPress automatic updates

Overall though, for developers and tech savvy WordPress users, installing from GitHub opens up many exciting possibilities.

Contributing to GitHub Projects as a Non-Developer

You don‘t have to be a developer to contribute back to GitHub projects. Here are a few ways to help as a non-coder:

• Reporting bugs and issues – Thoroughly detail any bugs you encounter. Provide steps to reproduce the issues.
• Testing beta releases – Try out early releases and experiments branches and provide feedback.
• Improving documentation – Create pull requests to update and expand readme files and wikis.
• Triaging issues – Help label and respond to existing issues on the project.
• Providing non-code assets – Create logos, design assets, or language translations.

Even just starring repositories and following developers helps show your appreciation for their efforts.

WordPress is an open source project, so user involvement is what makes the community so strong. GitHub makes it easy to contribute, even in small ways.

Should You Use GitHub to Manage Your WordPress Site Code?

While it‘s mainly used by developers, GitHub can also be leveraged by non-developers to maintain WordPress sites.

Benefits of using GitHub for your WordPress site include:

• Maintain version history of any changes
• Preserve custom plugins/themes if a site is lost
• Allow contributors to suggest code changes
• Host documentation for editors or clients
• Follow development blogs and release notes

For large or business websites, using GitHub provides:

• Deployment workflows to push code changes live
• Automated testing for changes before merging
• Advanced collaboration and user permission management

GitHub won‘t be necessary for all WordPress sites, but it can certainly provide some useful version control and collaboration benefits.

Key Takeaways on GitHub for WordPress

A few closing thoughts on GitHub‘s role in the WordPress ecosystem:

• It has become the de facto standard for plugin, theme, and core development.
• Most popular commercial plugins and themes are hosted on GitHub.
• Over 50,000 WordPress repositories and growing rapidly.
• GitHub streamlines collaboration at scale.
• The social coding features create engaged communities.
• It‘s easy for users to install GitHub hosted plugins and themes.
• Non-developers can still contribute by reporting issues, testing new releases, improving docs, and more.

GitHub lowers the barriers for WordPress to grow through collaboration. It enables some of the top plugins and themes supporting millions of sites.

I hope this guide gave you a comprehensive overview of GitHub‘s increasingly important role in WordPress. Let me know if you have any other questions!