35+ WordPress Statistics for the Budding Webmaster [Infographic]

Very few things have disrupted the digital marketing scene as greatly as WordPress has in the last decade. Thanks to the platform’s free and simple content management system anyone, regardless of levels of technical knowledge, can create impressive websites.

This possibility is bolstered further by the seemingly endless library of themes and plugins.

If you want an online presence today, the WordPress statistics that follow can only help. As you can imagine, we at Hosting Tribunal are huge fans of this CMS. To help you out to get up to speed with its immense possibilities, we put together all the important 2021 WordPress statistics you need.

Some of these showcase the extent of worldwide WordPress domination and also help explain the key reasons behind this popularity, while others give insight toward understanding the WordPress CMS usage better.

The Latest WordPress Statistics For 2022 (Editors Choice):

• WordPress powers 39.6% of the internet in 2021, a growth of nearly 5% from 35% in 2020, and a 4% rise from the year before.
• If you count only the CMS-built sites, then 64.1% of them are WordPress - 4% growth from 2020.
• Over 400 million people visit WordPress sites each month.
• In 2016, nearly 118 billion words were published on WordPress
• But WordPress is not only for blogging – nearly 28% of all e-commerce goes through WooCommerce
• 281 new WooCommerce shops appear on average every day
• 661 WordPress sites also pop up daily
• WordPress.org offers over 50,000 plugins and over 4,100 GPL-licensed themes
• In 2018, the non-English WordPress downloads were more than the English ones

These facts and numbers are important because WordPress plays a crucial role in the online business environment.

The platform’s capabilities have encouraged companies of all sizes to move to it, leveling the playing field. The prime determiner of how effective your WordPress site is is your creativity, not the cash in your bank. This makes it possible even for small businesses to compete with large, global companies that enjoy massive marketing budgets.

So here we curated an Infographic on how WP is powering the internet

Infographic

WordPress Usage Statistics 2022

Brace yourselves for some truly stunning numbers.

WordPress is massive!

1. WordPress powers 39.6% of the web.

(Source: W3Techs)

It is quite remarkable that something that was an obscure content management system until a few years back now powers 39.6% (and growing) of the web. The platform’s versatility, which allows it to be used everywhere from a small personal blog to a major corporation’s website, is the main reason behind this widespread adoption.

2. 64.1% of all websites using a known content management system are using WordPress.

(Source: W3Techs)

The WordPress market share is by far the largest worldwide. There are about 46.2% of sites worldwide that do not utilize a CMS; among the rest, almost two-thirds on WordPress.

3. How many active websites use WordPress in absolute terms? Close to 64 million, according to conservative estimates.

(Source: Internet Live Stats)

There is no definitive number for the total websites using WordPress, partly because there is none for the total number of websites. We are basing this figure on the number of active websites in the world (approximately 200 million) according to Netcraft.

4. WordPress is responsible for an additional 1.1 million domain registrations every 6 months.

(Source: Built With)

This is a data point from 2015. The actual figure today is likely to be higher since the number of domain registrations, as well as the market penetration of WordPress, have increased.

5. 34% of the world’s 10,000 most popular websites use WordPress.

(Source: WinningWP)

Figures on how much of the internet is WordPress-based get even more striking when only the most successful websites are considered. These popular sites include TED, Etsy, Whitehouse.gov, Reuters, Yelp, The New Yorker, TechCrunch, and People. Globally admired celebrities like Justin Bieber, Snoop Dogg, Katy Perry, Stephen Fry, and Jay Z also use WordPress for their sites.

6. Joomla, the third most widely used CMS, has a market share of 3.5%.

(Source: W3Techs)

It’s rare to see such a heavily skewed market where there are many competitors, but one of them has taken such a massive lead. There’s no definite answer to the query “What is the best CMS?”, but the figures do tell a story. Joomla is followed by Drupal and Squarespace with market shares of 2.5%, and 2.4%, respectively. Shopify enjoys a 5.2% market share.

7. WordPress 4.9 has been downloaded over 159M times.

(Source: WordPress)

WordPress 4.9 is one of the most downloaded pieces of software in the world. By the time you read this, the count might have surpassed 160 million. The counter tracks downloads in real-time, so you can see for yourself how fast the number moves.

8. WordPress gets almost as many unique monthly visitors as Twitter does.

(Source: Automattic)

Twitter statistics show that this platform gets 152 million unique monthly visits in the US while WordPress gets 149 million. In fact, until recently, both Twitter and Amazon (currently at 199 million) had lower numbers than WordPress. You realize how impressive this data is when you compare the nature of business for these three entities.

9. WordPress users produce about 70.5 million new posts and 52.1 million new comments each month.

(Source: WordPress)

WordPress.com‘s stats on blogging are quite impressive too. The blogging platform continues to encourage a large number of people worldwide to add new content and to spark discussions about it.

10. Over 409 million people view more than 21.1 billion pages each month on WordPress sites.

(Source: WordPress)

An even higher number use WordPress blogs for regular content consumption. These blogging stats come from the integrated stats system included in every WordPress.com blog.

11. WooCommerce has a 27.7% market share among ecommerce platforms.

(Source: Datanyze)

This is important information for online businesses. eCommerce platforms allow merchants to build digital storefronts to facilitate transactions over the web. WooCommerce, a WordPress-based ecommerce platform, is also growing much faster than its main competitors like Squarespace and Shopify.

12. WooCommerce is used by 13.2% of all websites that use WordPress.

(Source: W3Techs)

WordPress has evolved from being mainly a blogging tool into the lifeline of global ecommerce. Of all the site-building elements like photo galleries, chat forums, and social networking platforms, WordPress website stats reveal that WooCommerce is the most widely used.

13. Akismet blocks 7.5M spam comments every hour.

(Source: Akismet)

Akismet is one of the more popular WordPress plugins, which saves users the time spent dealing with spam, one of the major nuisances on the internet today. As the site tells us, Akismet stops twice as much spam every single hour as there are people in Los Angeles!

14. The top 3 WordPress plugins in 2017 were All in One SEO Pack, WordPress Importer, and WooCommerce.

(Source: Word Camp)

According to the 2017 edition of the annual State of the Word address by Mike Mullenweg, the creator of WordPress, the most popular WordPress plugin is the one that boosts the platform’s SEO capabilities. These WordPress statistics point to how seriously people take the search engine placement of their content now, and why WordPress is the CMS of choice for many.

WordPress Usability Statistics 2022

Let's see if you can get this right:

15. There’s a difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com.

(Source: Theme Isle)

For people new to WordPress, the two versions can be confusing. WordPress.org is meant for the WordPress software, which is a free, open-source CMS. You install it and host it on your own server. WordPress.com, on the other hand, is a blogging platform based on the WordPress.org software. You can sign up for an account on it and have a working blog/website right away. Both are owned by Automattic.

16. It takes as little as $60 a year to host a good WordPress site.

(Source: WinningWP)

There are many great hosting plans that get you going with sufficient storage and unmetered bandwidth. If you are running a high-traffic site, you might need options that are slightly more expensive like managed WordPress hosting. Typically, the quality managed WordPress solutions add a bit to the bill but bring in optimal performance, excellent support, and greater security.

17. A typical domain name costs around $10.

(Source: WinningWP)

That’s the average price for a .com domain. The exact price depends on the domain extension you choose and the company selling the registration. The bottom line is that between hosting and buying a domain name, your WordPress site runs for a full year for about $70.

18. WordPress is platform-agnostic.

(Source: Wikipedia)

One of the factors that aid wide WordPress usage is that it has native applications for all common platforms, including iOS, Android, WebOS, Windows Phone, and Blackberry. You can make use of its many functions irrespective of what system you are used to.

19. WordPress is available in 57 languages.

(Source: WordPress)

Similarly, WordPress has consistently worked towards making its software accessible to people across the world. A quick look at the translation website of WordPress shows that out of a total of 180 locales identified by the WordPress team, it is available with 100% functionality in 57 languages. It may not be very long before WordPress is available in virtually every language in existence.

20. WordPress currently offers 47,350 active plugins.

(Source: WPEngine)

The Plugin Directory currently lists 56,311 plugins for WordPress, of which 47,350 are active according to the latest WordPress site stats. These have been downloaded 633,274,305 times. Over 2,000 of these plugins are now offered with a language pack, allowing people around the world to use them in the language they are most comfortable with.

Keep in mind that some specialized hosts like WP Engine don't allow the usage of certain plugins. Such hosts rely on advanced server setup to boost WordPress speed, which is crucial for the seamless user experience.

21. There are 4,119 free GPL-licensed themes for WordPress.

(Source: WordPress)

These General Public License themes can be found at the WordPress theme directory. Of these, 1,402 themes are available with language packs. It’s nearly a 25% increase from a few years ago, so the number of relevant themes are growing.

There are also many themes available for purchase from third-party vendors. One of the largest commercial theme repositories is Themeforest, which has a whopping 11,000+ themes for sale.

22. WordPress takes care of 80-90% of the mechanics of SEO.

(Source: WordPress)

This statement was made in 2009 by Matt Cutts, the then head of Google’s webspam team. Since then, the folks at WordPress have tried to make WordPress even more SEO-friendly. Plus, you have a bunch of plugins that can assist you in getting your site’s SEO right.

23. Over 36% of all WordPress sites are served over HTTPS.

(Source: WPEngine)

HTTPS is the encrypted version of HTTP, with the S signifying that all communication between your browser and the website is secure. One of the aims of the developer team is to bring the number of WordPress sites fulfilling this criterion to 100%. The current figure of 36% is a 2.5x increase from 2016.

24. WordPress is the fastest-growing web publishing software.

(Source: Google)

Data on keyword searches for popular CMSs from 2004 to the present day indicates that WordPress-related keywords rank higher among search engine queries than those of its competitors. According to Torque Magazine, the searches for WordPress were up by a whopping 52% since May 1, 2020. So if you want to draw traffic, write about WordPress.

25. WordPress needs less than 5 minutes for installation.

(Source: WordPress)

Another important factor in WordPress’s immense popularity is that it automates many of the time-consuming tasks involved in web publishing. The Famous 5 Minute Install lets you launch a WordPress site with just a few clicks. Who needs an expensive developer now?

26. Jetpack is the most popular WordPress plugin for marketers.

(Source: HubSpot)

There’s a lot that WordPress has to offer to marketers. The most popular of its plugins geared mainly towards marketers is Jetpack, a free tool that facilitates important tasks like traffic insight, social media integration, backups, and security.

27. There are three officially recommended WordPress hosting providers.

(Source: WordPress)

While WordPress can be hosted on pretty much any server, the official site of the CMS endorses three providers: Dreamhost, Bluehost, and SiteGround.

General WordPress Statistics 2022

28. WordPress has 1,273 employees worldwide.

(Source: Automattic)

The exact number of people working for Automattic is 1,273. While the majority of them are based in the US, there is substantial representation from all continents (except Antarctica, of course). These employees collaborate from their home bases, ensuring that the needs of all geographies are met.

29. WordPress has been around since 2003.

(Source: WinningWP)

“How long has WordPress been around?” is a widely searched query online. The first version came out on May 27, 2003, making WordPress one of the oldest CMSs. It has evolved a fair bit since its early days as a simple blogging tool.

30. WordPress has had 44,224 code commits by 100+ contributors by 2021.

(Source: Github)

WordPress is one of the largest open-source projects in the world, with contributors spread across the globe. Its developer team has had over 100 developers contribute to the WordPress core, which contains over 1.2 million lines of code. For reference, extremely complex projects tend to have around 100,000 lines.

31. WordPress held 128 WordCamps in 48 countries in 2017.

(Source: WPEngine)

WordPress is a truly global company. According to the State of the Word 2017, these WordCamps involved 2,310 speakers and 1,091 sponsors.

32. WordPress also had 4,379 meetups in 73 countries in 2017.

(Source: WordCamp)

This was an increase of 43% from the previous year. 99,301 people attended these meetups, a whooping uptick of 65% from 2016. Part of the reason for this increase is credited to the Events widget introduced in WordPress 4.8.

33. Some of the most amazing WordPress sites are showcased at the WordPress.org site.

(Source: WordPress)

If you want to see everything that is possible with WordPress, you can do so easily on the software’s own website. It showcases the sites that make the best use of the platform, with the list including names such as the City University of New York, the Houston Zoo, and the Obama Foundation.

34. The average WordPress developer in the US earns $54,119 in 2022.

(Source: PayScale)

While WordPress has minimized the necessity to hire developers to put up and maintain your site, there are still many ways in which a specialist can help you derive much more from the platform. Based on statistics from Payscale.com, WordPress developers in the US earn over $54,000 per year—a 4k increase in the past three years. And, according to the stats, senior developers can earn well over $100,000 with WordPress alone.

35. WordPress stats show it has denied 61% of DMCA takedown notices till June 2018.

(Source: WordPress)

Add transparency to versatility, functionality, and security. DMCA notices are issued by individuals and companies if they believe any posts on WordPress.com are infringing on their intellectual property rights.

36. WordPress has also denied 65% of government information requests until June 2018.

(Source: WordPress)

While WordPress cooperates with governments on valid cases, it strongly resists sharing information where it believes the blog owner’s right to freedom of expression is at stake.

Key Takeaways

WordPress is, by far, the most popular content management system in the world and one of the most popular blogging platforms.

These WordPress statistics prove that its popularity is driven not only by its relatively low costs and simplicity but also by factors like the wide choice of plugins and themes, availability of language packs, security, and SEO-friendliness.

WordPress has come a long way from being a basic blogging tool to a global platform endorsed by the biggest brands and the most popular celebrities. Its features are particularly useful for small businesses as it allows them to put up attractive and high-functioning websites without the need for a big budget or an expert developer.