This blog post is part of a multi-part article series aimed at helping business owners and non-technical users succeed online with the WordPress CMS.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this article, you will learn some impressive WordPress facts and figures that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress and what kind of businesses and people use WordPress today.
Some Facts And Figures About WordPress Usage
In short:
- WordPress began in 2003.
- WordPress offers two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 23 out of every hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress site.
- There are well over 60 million installations of WordPress. This number increases every day.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world are built with 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 websites worldwide that use a content management system are built with 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 under an open source content management system.
- WordPress is built and improved upon by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world work on developing and improving the WordPress software on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress application is updated on a regular basis to fix bugs and improve its features and security.
- WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages and dialects.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what type of site you can build using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Usage
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easy for non-technical website owners to add, edit and manage content on their site.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, it has grown to become the most downloaded self-hosted content management system (CMS) in the world, used on millions of sites 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 are home-based. Despite its distributed model and so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique visitors than Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, and eBay …
(WordPress.com monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest stats on WordPress:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP usage statistics. Source: trends.builtwith.com/cms)
In terms of CMS dominance, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more and more websites and blogs are being powered by WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that even keeping up with statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the information changes so often.
For example, at the time this article was published, this is the 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 WP installations to the latest version …
(WordPress versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this post was being written, the number of downloads is already increasing. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you should expect to see a much higher number of downloads … perhaps even a newer version, as the WordPress community 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 software updates in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over 100 new versions of WordPress have been made available in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new update every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
here is an interesting fact: all major WordPress releases are named after famous Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.5 = Billy Strayhorn (February 17, 2005),
- v.2.2 = Stan Getz (May 16, 2007),
- v.2.8 = Chet Baker (June 11, 2009),
- v.3.7 = Count Basie (October 24, 2013),
- v.3.9 = Jimmy Smith (April 16, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
In a nutshell, all types of organizations and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to blog about everything and anything.
Popular brands, businesses, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, colleges, government department sites, community organizations – even countries are using WordPress sites …
WordPress.org Showcase
Here are just some of the many businesses, companies and people who have chosen to use WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Aqua Hotels and Resorts, Glad, Groupe Renault, Group Bouygues, Vogue, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Ariana Grande, The Meredith Vieira Show, Beyoncé, The Sacramento Ballet, Snoop Dogg, William Shatner, Howie Mandel, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Washington University’s School of Law, Lafayette College, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Thrive Magazine, Time.com, Facebook Newsroom, CBS New York, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Humanitarian Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Canadian Olympic Committee, Slow Food Italia, UK Government Cabinet Office Digital Team, Amnesty International Korea, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer to download 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 running some type of business.
- More than half of all WordPress users use the hosted version on WordPress.com
- In 2014, blogs that are part of the WordPress network (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or self-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 posts per second (around 1.5 million per day).
You can see a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress.com – Live Users WorldWide
In later posts, we will explain the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 free WP plugins …
(WP free plugins repository)
We have published a detailed article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 free WordPress themes …
(WP theme directory)
For a detailed article about themes see this post:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages 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. “WordPress themes”, “WP plugins”, ”WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to more than thirty million …
(WordPress-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched 5 x as much as Joomla and 9x more often than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of 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 around US$50.
You can find WordPress developers and designers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see, the growth of WordPress is predicted to continue for many years to come.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best vehicle for growing your business online,
- Dozens of compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a comprehensive review of the benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to generate targeted visitors to your website, get more leads, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide loads of tutorials and examples on how you can use WordPress to grow your business online, while also saving thousands of dollars on website development and website design costs.
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Information Sources:
The above statistics were 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
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