WordPress – What is the difference between a post type and a taxonomy?

What is a Post Type?

A post type is a group of fields (data). For instance, a blog post type has the fields for a title, a description, and content.

You can create custom post types to fit your needs. An example of a movie review post type might include fields for movie title, review, and star rating.

Post types help structure data.

What is a Taxonomy?

A taxonomy is a way to classify a field. A common taxonomy is category. This helps classify generic information, however, if it is a custom post type, you can make it even more succinct.

Custom Taxonomies are used by a specific post type. For instance, for the movie review post type, the rating field can be further classified. The rating field might have the options for 5 stars, 4stars, 3stars, 2stars, and 1 star.

WordPress Post Types

The default post types in WordPress are Posts, Media, Pages, Appearance, Plugins, Users, Tools, and Settings.

You can add custom post types to WordPress. The easiest way to do this is to use a plugin. The most popular custom post type plugins are Custom Post Type UI, WCK Custom Post Types and Custom Fields Creator, Pods, Toolset Types, and Custom Post Type Maker.