This blog post is part of a multi-part series of articles aimed at helping small businesses grow and succeed online.
For more information about of the article series, see this post:
In this article, you will learn a number of surprising facts and figures about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress and what kind of businesses and people use WordPress today.
WordPress: How Popular Is It? Surprising Statistics About WordPress Usage
A brief summary:
- WordPress began as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress is available as a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 23 out of every one hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress site.
- There are over sixty million installations of WordPress. This number increases every day.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites worldwide are powered by WordPress.
- WordPress sites around the world publish an average of 24 posts per second.
- WordPress sites receive over 22 billion monthly pageviews.
- WordPress blogs receive around 50 million comments per month.
- WordPress has been translated into over 70 languages.
- More than 60% of all sites worldwide using a CMS application are driven by WordPress.
- Over 37 million searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is distributed as an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is continually built by volunteers. People from all over the world are at work developing and improving WordPress on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress core software is regularly updated to fix bugs and improve both its usage and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what can be built using WordPress.
WordPress Market Dominance
A content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easier for non-technical website owners to add, edit and manage content on their site.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the largest self-hosted content management system (CMS) in the world, used on millions of websites and accessed by tens of millions of people every day.
WordPress is owned by Automattic.com, which currently employs around 300 people, all of whom work from home. Despite its distributed model and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Twitter, and Yahoo …
(WordPress.com unique monthly visitors. Source: Automattic.com)
Here are just some of the latest statistics on WordPress:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress usage statistics. Source: trends.builtwith.com/cms)
In terms of CMS usage, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more and more sites today are using the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that even trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is difficult because the data changes so frequently.
For example, at the time this article was published, this is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download numbers represents only the most recent version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their installations to the latest release …
(WP versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this post was being written, the number of downloads has already shot up. If you were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you should expect to see a much higher figure … perhaps even a newer version, as the WordPress development team continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Regarding updates, WordPress has made available to users over 100 new updates to date …
(Over 100 new versions of WordPress have been released in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new software version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
Curiously enough, all major WordPress updates are named after Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.7 = John Coltrane (December 10, 2008),
- v.3.0 = Thelonious Monk (June 17, 2010),
- v.3.5 = Elvin Jones (December 11, 2012),
- v.4.0 = Benny Goodman (September 4, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
In a nutshell, all types of enterprises and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to blog about every kind of topic imaginable.
Large corporations, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous actors, educational institutions, government sectors, community organizations – even countries are using WordPress-powered sites …
WordPress.org Showcase
Here are just some of the many sites, organizations and people who use WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Bata, Dole, GDF SUEZ, Groupe Vivendi, Vogue, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Rush, Nancy Pelosi, Beyoncé, Dallas Mavericks, Snoop Dogg, Mötley Crüe, Gabriel Iglesias, Russell Brand, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, International Relations Online at American University, Washington University’s School of Law, Carleton University, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Tribune Media, New York Post, FiveThirtyEight, LinkedIn, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Canadian Museum of History, Slow Food Italia, CURE International, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- Businesses often choose the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their domain names and freely modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are used for business sites.
- More than half of all WordPress users use the hosted version on WordPress.com
- In 2014, blogs belonging to the WordPress network (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 blog posts per second (around 1.5 million per day).
You can see a live map showing the latest user activity across its hosted platform …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Live Users WorldWide
In later articles, we will explain the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 free WordPress plugins …
(WordPress.org plugin directory)
For more information about plugins see this post:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 free themes …
(WordPress.org free themes repository)
We have published a detailed article about themes here:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WP language translations)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to more than 35 million …
(WordPress-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched online 5 x more than Joomla and nine times more often than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of all 33,000 WP users who responded to the survey said that they make a full-time living off WordPress. An earlier survey conducted by WordPress (2012) also found that the median hourly rate of WordPress projects is US$50.
You can find WordPress developers and designers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork.com …
According to Upwork.com, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can see from the above facts and figures, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to dominate the CMS landscape.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best option when it comes to choosing a platform to grow your small business online,
- Over 50 great reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive breakdown of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted traffic, increase conversions, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing new ”how to” tutorials and tips of how you can use WordPress to expand your business online, and save thousands of dollars on web development and website design costs.
Subscribe below & receive 101+ useful WordPress tips that will help grow your business online faster ...
Sources:
The information for this post was sourced from various locations around the web, including the following sites:
- https://wordpress.org
- https://wordpress.com
- http://automattic.com
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPress
- http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-wordpress/all/all
- http://trends.builtwith.com/cms
- http://ma.tt/2014/10/sotw-2014
- https://managewp.com/14-surprising-statistics-about-wordpress-usage
- http://torquemag.io/13-surprising-wordpress-statistics
- https://websitebuilder.org/resources/amazing-facts-you-probably-dont-know-about-wordpress
***
"Your training is the best in the world! It is simple, yet detailed, direct, understandable, memorable, and complete." Andrea Adams, FinancialJourney.org