Authors have much less access than editors. Authors can add and edit their own posts, and manage the posts made by their subordinates. However, they can neither edit posts made by other authors nor manage comments on posts that don't belong to them.
To get an idea of the experience of a user with the author role, let's take a look at the author's menu (on the right) in comparison to the editor's menu (on the left):
As you can see in the preceding screenshot, the Pages section has disappeared. Additionally, if the author looks at the complete list of posts, they will only have the ability to view, but not edit, quick edit, or delete posts that they did not author (highlighted):
As you would imagine, the author role is perfect for, well, authors—users who are actively involved in creating content for your site. Authors can, for example, do the following:
- Submit and publish their posts
- Manage their posts after the publication
- Moderate the comments under their posts