The Pods Framework is an open-source, GPLv2+ licensed PHP project released on October 8th, 2008 by Matt Gibbs. Within weeks, Scott Kingsley Clark joined the project and took over as lead developer mid-2011. The goal was to create an interface and PHP codebase to easily create, extend, and manage content types within WordPress. While the normal WordPress content architecture is limited to the built-in tables, a primary feature of Pods allows you to base content types off of their own custom tables designed around each content types’ needs.
What exactly is the Pods Framework?
The Pods Framework, as of 2.0, allows an ordinary user or developer to easily create and extend custom post types, content types, taxonomies, users, media, or comments — helping you keep your content organized and speed up the development of your project.
Pods starts as a blank slate, as most frameworks do. The control is put into the hands of the developer to mould it into what is needed, without the fluff. Much of Pods’ functionality is coupled with a UI for easy administration, however, there are large portions of the codebase that can be optionally used for advanced implementations or specific project needs. You control everything while Pods Framework does the behind-the-scenes heavy lifting.
The Community
The Pods Framework community extends the already great community built around WordPress. Community members contribute to the framework, donate towards future development, and create valuable resources for everyone via the forums, packages, and compatible themes and plugins. An active and thriving community of supporters helps to drive the framework forward.
History
Matt Gibbs had previously worked with Drupal on his previous web projects and felt a need to contribute a solution modeled after the workflow he needed for the new WordPress projects he began to work on.
Within weeks, Scott Kingsley Clark had found the project and was immediately enamored with it. Scott shortly after decided to stop development on his own content management system and put all of his extra time into helping fix bugs, add features, and provide support to other users. After flooding Matt with patches for Pods, Matt made Scott an official core developer.
After many brainstorming sessions and developer meetings with the Pods community, the features for Pods 2.0 were nailed down in late 2010. Development began and continued throughout 2011. In Mid-2011, Matt made Scott the lead developer of the project due to personal scheduling limitations. The first public alpha version of Pods 2.0 was released to the public on January 2nd, 2012.
