WordPress is undoubtedly the most popular content management system in the world. Since its launch in 2003, it’s taken the world by storm. This beloved platform now powers over 42% of all websites worldwide, but that’s not the only interesting fact about it. That’s why we’ll dig into some of the most crucial WordPress statistics and learn more about the CMS leader.
Automattic, WordPress’s parent company, is worth over $3 billion. The platform, however, is also supported by the WordPress Community Support and WordPress Foundation, both of which heavily rely on donations, sponsorships, and WordCamp ticket sales. In 2019, WordPress Foundation generated only $7,641, all of which came from donations. WordPress Community Support meanwhile generated $5,231,388 in 2019, according to WordPress stats.
(Website Setup, WordPress Foundation)
Nothing speaks about WordPress popularity, like the fact that the market leader powers 29.5% of the top 10k global websites. Additionally, the overall number of WordPress websites in the top one million stands at 293,230.
(BuiltWith)
We already discussed the WordPress popularity among the community in the first few stats. According to WordPress traffic stats, the platform sees a lot of traffic. On average, 77 million new comments are published live every month on WordPress websites around the world.
(WordPress)
WordPress is constantly changing and adapting to its users’ needs. There have been a total of 420 version updates and 37 major releases of WordPress so far. Note that major releases go out every 4-5 months, accounting for developer functionality and new features.
(Website Setup)
WordPress usage statistics show that the latest version of WordPress is 6.0 and has been downloaded over 27.9 times so far. The download numbers are growing by the minute and show no sign of slowing down.
(WordPress)
WordPress usage is at an all-time high, and nothing proves this better than the fact that more than 500 websites globally are built using the popular content management system daily.
(Kinsta)
According to WordPress site statistics, as of 2021, the market leader is available in 205 locales. Additionally, users can sign up for translating their own languages on the open-source WordPress project.
(WordPress)
According to CMS market share stats, WordPress is the most widely used content management system worldwide right now. As of 2021, the WordPress market share stands at 64.2%.
(W3Techs)
According to WordPress blog stats, the vast majority of all blogs on the internet are powered by WordPress. In fact, 97% of 29,078,659 global live blogs are created and run using the CMS powerhouse.
(BuiltWith)
The WordPress percentage of the internet may just shock you. As of 2021, the platform powers 42.6% of the internet. Some other platforms that are somewhat popular among internet users are Shopify (powers 4.2% of websites), Wix (2.3% of websites are on it), and Squarespace (2% of websites are powered by it). Interestingly, the number of websites powered by WordPress has decreased b y 0.2% compared to Jan 2022.
(W3Techs)
According to WordPress statistics, the CMS offers a variety of themes and plugins. Users can choose from over 9,720 easily customizable themes and 59,460 handy, free plugins.
(WordPress)
The WordPress community definitely enjoys what the powerful CMS has to offer, but stats show that many users don’t really care for rating the plugins they use. In fact, 57% of those have never been rated, while 3% have never been updated.
(Kinsta)
The percentage of users using the 5.9 version sits at 13.3%, while 8.3% run WordPress on version 5.8. 44.9% turn to the latest (6.0) version, 4.5% of users chose to run WordPress using the 5.7, while only 1% are using the 5.0.
(WordPress)
WordPress site stats show that, while the CMS enjoys global popularity, it is most commonly used by Americans. According to BuiltWith’s database, out of all websites, 3,743,330 are made in the US. Germany takes second place with 1,650,003 live websites, leaving the UK in third place with 1,419,226 live sites.
(BuiltWith)
The term “WordPress” seems to be very popular with internet users. WordPress stats show that WordPress has more searches than Twitter. According to WordPress visitor stats, everyone’s favorite content management system has 163 million unique visitors per month, while Twitter statistics note mere 156 million users.
(Digital)
The WordPress community is widespread around the globe — so much that the platform’s users have created WordCamps, conferences that gather people from different cities, countries, or continents to discuss anything WordPress-related. Up until 2021, 1,090 WordCamps took place in 373 cities in 65 countries and six continents.
(WordCamp Central)
The popular CMS makes a lot of monthly traffic, as statistics show. On average, 409 million visitors browse through over 20 billion pages each month.
(Kinsta)
There are many ways to earn money from the CMS, which is something that a quarter of WordPress users have realized and put to good use. Over 50% of the platform’s theme developers make at least $1,000 a month, while 5% report earning over $10,000. Additionally, WordPress developers charge between $20 and $100/hour and up to $199/hour.
(Kinsta)
Seeing as how WordPress is the leading CMS globally and powers around 40% of all websites, it’s not surprising that it experiences a lot of security attacks and breaches. However, 90,000 security attacks every 60 seconds still sound like a lot.
(WP Manage Ninja)
WordPress statistics show that 30,823 out of 42,106 WordPress installations tested are in danger of getting hacked. This means that 73.2% of installations for WordPress websites are incredibly vulnerable to hacker attacks. Cybercrime statistics suggest that human error is the primary enabler of hacking activities, and the majority of organizations are not prepared for such situations.
(WP White Security)
A breach study conducted on websites worldwide has shown that out of 8,000 websites tested, 74% were built using WordPress. Additionally, 4,000 were infected by malware coming from fake SEO plugins.
(WP Manage Ninja)
According to WordPress security statistics, there are 28,948 known WordPress vulnerabilities, with 472 coming from WordPress themes and 4,657 from WordPress plugins.
(WPScan)
The biggest data breach to happen to WordPress took place back in 2011. Over 18 million WordPress users and their private information were compromised in this fabled security breach.
(Kinsta)
In 2019, statistics showed that 56% of the overall security attacks on websites running on WordPress and other content management platforms happened solely because they were using outdated versions.
(Sucuri)
WordPress statistics have shown that out of the 74 WordPress versions included in Alexa’s top one million websites, 11 were invalid, leaving those sites vulnerable to security attacks.
(WP White Security)
As we briefly mentioned before, themes can also be a vulnerable spot for security breaches. In fact, 29% of those breaches are reported to have been the cause of major security attacks.
(WP Mayor)
WordPress stats show that 41% of hacking incidents take place because of hosting providers. Hackers track down insecure hosting provider configurations and can take advantage of WordPress websites and blogs, underlining the importance of choosing a reliable WordPress hosting provider.
(WP Mayor)
One of the most commonly known WordPress facts is that it is an easy platform to get started with, offering a lot to beginners and professional developers.
(HubSpot)
Essentially, WordPress sites are free, meaning that anyone can download the software, edit and customize the sites, etc., but users have to pay for their hosting plans.
(Kinsta)
As of 2021, over 455 million websites worldwide use WordPress.
(Envisage Digital)
There are currently 9,720 WordPress themes.
(WordPress)
While WordPress offers a plethora of theme designs that you can choose from and will not have to edit if you don’t want to, all themes can also be easily customized.
(WP Oven)
According to WordPress plugin stats, the platform has over 59,000 plugins.
(WordPress)
WordPress was initially released back in May 2003.
(Kinsta)
WordPress was created by American developer Matt Mullenweg and British developer Mike Little.
(Kinsta)
After digging through some of the essential WordPress statistics, it’s pretty apparent that the content management system is the market leader for a reason. It’s clear that the percentage of websites using WordPress and the popularity it enjoys worldwide are continuing to grow, and one thing is sure — we haven’t seen it all yet.
Sources: Website Setup, WordPress Foundation, BuiltWith, WordPress, WordPress, Kinsta, WordPress, W3Techs, BuiltWith, W3Techs, WordPress, WordPress, WordPress, Digital, WordCamp Central, WP Manage Ninja, WP White Security, WPScan, Sucuri, WP Mayor, HubSpot, Kinsta, Envisage, Digital, WP Oven, Kinsta
