- WordPress powers 37% of all websites on the internet in 2021. That’s 10% more than in 2016 when they powered only 25% of websites.
- WordPress powers over 13 times the number of CMS websites compared to Joomla, the second most popular CMS host.
- You can use WordPress in 60 languages, though 71% of content published with WordPress is in English.
- The latest version, WordPress 5 has been downloaded over 7.1 million times.
- WordPress registers over 1.1 million new domains every six months.
- People search for WordPress 2,940,000 times each month. Google gives 2.28 billion results when you search for WordPress.
- Of the most visited websites, WordPress powers 38%, making its market share of top 10,000 sites even higher than its overall market share.
- WordPress has over 54,000 plugins available, with a total of 1.5 billion downloads between them.
- WordPress gets 20 billion page views each month, and when combined, all of the blogs it powers get about 400 million views per month.
- WooCommerce, WordPress’s most popular eCommerce plugin, has a 25% market share and generates 7% of all online sales, including those from low-traffic websites.
Key Statistics
- WordPress market share grows approximately 1-4% each year, making it the fastest growing CMS platform in the world. It has maintained this same consistent market share growth rate since 2011.
- WordPress registers 1.1 million new domains every six months, meaning they power over 2 million websites per year.
- WordPress maintains its spot as the most popular open-source content management system available, used by major businesses, small businesses, and bloggers alike.
- As of 2021, 37% of WordPress powered websites use a content management system.
- WooCommerce, the most popular WordPress eCommerce plugin, makes up 7% of all online sales.
WordPress market share growth has remained consistent for the past eight years, making it the most steadily growing CMS host available. WordPress is not only one of the most accessible and easy to use web hosts, but also one of the most reliable.
Because of its availability, it’s easy to think that WordPress is only used by small blogs and businesses, but it also powers popular websites for big names like Sony and Beyoncé. WordPress has an established presence in the market share, and people search for it on Google more than any other CMS hosting platform—a total of 2,940,000 times monthly.
Of these searches, WordPress has been downloaded over 7,000,000 times by people who want to create their own website—or multiple websites. WordPress also reaches more people than any other CMS or web host, with users creating over 70 million new posts each month. That comes down to over 2 million posts per day.
With such a rapidly growing market share, WordPress is in no danger of slowing down. Its platform is the most popular open-source CMS because it offers so many of the same features and customizability that specialized web programming does. Even its plugins, like WooCommerce, dominate the market share for their respective purposes.
The United States leads the list by far, with 9,266,877 websites powered by WordPress. That includes sites like booking.com and carfax.com. WordPress was created by an American developer, Matt Mullenweg, and an English developer, Mike Little, which meant that it was initially available in English.
Over the years, as more languages have become available, more countries have joined the United States in using WordPress for their websites. However, while you might expect the United Kingdom to come in second, Iran takes that spot with 345,878 WordPress sites.
The United Kingdom’s third-place spot isn’t far behind at 317,775 websites, followed by Russia with 310,441, and Canada with 210,885. Considering only 27 million websites powered by WordPress are actually live websites, these top five countries make up a large portion of not only the top 1 million sites but all active sites across the globe.
The United States alone makes up 34.29% of known live WordPress-powered websites. Meanwhile, Iran makes up 1.2% of those active sites. While WordPress may be used worldwide, it is still most widely used in the United States.
WordPress WooCommerce Market Share
Key Statistics
- Of the top 1 million websites, 6.8% use WooCommerce for their eCommerce transactions.
- WooCommerce has been downloaded a total of 82,375,929 times globally.
- 26% of all online stores use WooCommerce to do business. That’s 4% more than the number of stores in 2019.
- WooCommerce dominates the market share when compared to other WordPress plugins like Ecwid, MarketPress, and WP eCommerce, making up 93.72% of the market among them.
- The most recent version of WooCommerce, version 4.0.1, has been installed over 5 million times.
- WordPress.org alone offers 1,032 WooCommerce themes.
- WooCommerce has 5% more of the market share than Shopify, the second most popular eCommerce platform available.
As the most popular eCommerce plugin for the most popular content management system, WooCommerce makes up the largest portion of the market share at 4.9%. WooCommerce is used more often for smaller websites and businesses, which is why, when you look at the WordPress stats for its use among online shops specifically, that market share jumps to 26%.
Not only has the percent of sites using WooCommerce’s increased in the past year, but it’s also maintained its place above Shopify. There are over 2,231 WooCommerce plugins and extensions to maintain online sales, and because it’s a plugin and not a new website altogether, many people find it convenient for their eCommerce needs.
WooCommerce vs. Shopify (Market Share)
WooCommerce and Shopify market shares come in almost neck and neck when it comes to small businesses. Shopify stands at 21% market share, whereas WooCommerce takes 26%. Of the top 1 million websites, WooCommerce makes up 6.31% of the market share.
That doesn’t sound like much until you remember that it’s a plugin from an open-source CMS platform and not a specialized eCommerce website on its own. Shopify, on the other hand, is a website you build from the ground up, and it takes 2.84% of the market share from the top million websites.
However, if you look at the top 10,000 websites, Shopify pulls ahead of WooCommerce with 3.59% of the industry share to WooCommerce’s 2.75%. No other eCommerce sites or plugins compare to WooCommerce, making Shopify its biggest competitor.
However, WooCommerce and Shopify serve different purposes. As a plugin, WooCommerce is something you add to your existing website, which means it may not be the main focus of your website. Shopify, on the other hand, is its own entity, and you build your entire shop with Shopify alone.
The popularity of each one depends in part on which country you look at, too. For example, Shopify is far more popular in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. However, in Iran, WooCommerce comes out on top.
WordPress vs. Joomla (Market Share)
While Joomla is WordPress’s closest competitor, it’s difficult to call it a competitor at all. WordPress market share stands at 33.72% of the top 1 million companies—Joomla sits far behind at 1.39%.
WordPress has also experienced steady growth as a content management system since 2011. Joomla, on the other hand, peaked in 2015 and has since been on the decline. Additionally, while WordPress maintains about a third of the industry share, whether you look at all websites on the internet or the top 10,000. Joomla decreases significantly from 5.7% across the internet to 0.45% in the top 10,000.
WordPress also has more active sites in the United States alone than Joomla has across the internet. With 27,021,750 total live websites, WordPress far outpaces Joomla, which has 829,035 active websites.
