This article is part of a multi-part article series designed to help business owners and non-technical users succeed online with the WordPress content publishing platform.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this article, you will learn some surprising WordPress usage statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress and what kind of people and businesses use WordPress today.
WordPress: Usage And Market Share
A brief summary:
- WordPress started in 2003.
- WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are over 60 million installations of WordPress. This number grows significantly 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 that use a content management system are powered by WordPress.
- Over 30,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- The WordPress application is 100% free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed as an open source content management system.
- WordPress is continually built by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world work on developing and improving WordPress on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress application is continually being updated to eliminate bugs and improve its ease of use and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is practically no limit to what can be built using WordPress.
WordPress Market Dominance
A content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easier for non-technical website users to add, edit and manage content on their website.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the most popular self-hosted CMS application 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 work from home. Despite its distributed model and so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique views per month than Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, and Twitter …
(WordPress.com monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Consider the following figures on WordPress CMS usage:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP usage figures. 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 websites are being powered by the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that even keeping up with the latest statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the data changes so often.
For example, at the time this article was written, this is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download figure represents only the most recently released version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their sites to the latest release …
(WordPress versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this article was being written, the number of downloads has already grown. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you should expect to see a much higher figure … perhaps even an updated version, as the WordPress developer team continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Regarding updates, WordPress has made available over one hundred new software updates since 2003 …
(Over 100 new versions of WordPress have been released in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new update every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Incidentally, all major WordPress upgrades are named in honor of Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.3 = Dexter Gordon (September 24, 2007),
- v.2.9 = Carmen McRae (December 18, 2009),
- v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
Who doesn’t use WordPress nowadays? All different types of businesses and people from all walks of life use WordPress to publish content about everything and anything.
Large corporations, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous musicians, universities, government sectors, humanitarian organizations – even nations use WordPress to publish web content and run their official websites and blogs …
WordPress Blog Showcase
Here are just some of the many sites, companies and people who use WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Google Ventures, Dole, Dassault Aviation, McDonald’s Singapore, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Rush, Nancy Pelosi, Beyoncé, The Sacramento Ballet, The Rolling Stones, Blondie, Howie Mandel, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, UCF College of Medicine, Lafayette College, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Fortune, Time.com, InStyle News, LinkedIn, etc.
- Governments, Public Services & Community Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Canadian Museum of History, Maryland National Road Association, AIDS Project Rhode Island, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available as 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 own domains and freely modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are business marketing activities.
- 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 every second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
WordPress.com provides a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Live Users WorldWide
In other tutorials, we look at the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 free plugins from the WordPress plugin repository …
(WP plugin repository)
We have written a comprehensive article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 themes at no cost …
(WordPress.org free themes directory)
We have published a detailed article about themes here:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages in addition to English …
(WordPress.org language translations)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WP plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to around 37 million …
(WordPress-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched 5 x more than Joomla and 9x more than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of users who participated in 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 …
According to Upwork, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can clearly see, WordPress is poised for continued growth for a long time to come.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best option when it comes to choosing a platform for growing your small business online,
- Dozens of compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive look at the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- Ways to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted traffic to your website, get more leads and subscribers, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing lots of step-by-step tutorials and practical examples on how you can use WordPress to grow your business online, while also saving thousands of dollars on website development and web design costs.
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References:
The above figures 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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