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In this article, we present a number of WordPress facts and figures that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress and what kind of businesses use WordPress today.
WordPress: How Popular Is It? Useful Statistics About WordPress Usage
In short:
- WordPress began in 2003.
- WordPress offers two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every 100 new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress website.
- There are well over sixty million installations of WordPress. This number is growing every day.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world 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 that use a content management system are driven by WordPress.
- Over 35,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
- The WordPress application is 100% free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is continually built and improved upon by volunteers. People from all over the world are at work developing and improving WordPress functionality every day.
- The WordPress application is continually being 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 seventy languages.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is practically no limit to what you can do using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Usage
A content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easier for non-technical users to add, modify and manage all content on their website.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, it has become the most downloaded self-hosted content management system (CMS) in the world, used on millions of websites and seen 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 software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo.com, eBay, and Twitter …
(WordPress.com monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Here are just some of the latest WordPress CMS usage figures:
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 now being built on WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is difficult because the data changes so often.
For example, at the time this post was published, here is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above figures represents only the most recently released version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their sites to the latest version …
(WP versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this article was being written, the number of downloads has already increased. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you should expect to see a significantly higher figure … perhaps even a newer version, as the WordPress development 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 one hundred new software updates since 2003 …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been made available in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new software version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
Incidentally, all major WordPress releases have a tradition of being named in honor of well-known Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.7 = John Coltrane (December 10, 2008),
- v.3.1 = Django Reinhardt (February 23, 2011),
- v.3.4 = Grant Green (June 13, 2012),
- v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
In a nutshell, all different kinds of enterprises and people from all walks of life use WordPress to publish content about everything and anything.
Giant brands, businesses, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous actors, universities, government sectors, not-for-profits – even nations use WordPress blogs …
WordPress.org Site Showcase
Here are just some of the sites, institutions and people who have built their online presence with WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Coca-Cola France, Boardshorts.com, GDF SUEZ, Groupe Vivendi, Vogue, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Kylie Minogue, Brian Smith, Dallas Mavericks, Steve Blake, LA Lakers, Blondie, Howie Mandel, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, Bates College, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Tribune Media, The New Yorker, InStyle News, LinkedIn, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: San Pellegrino Terme, Canadian Olympic Committee, São Paulo Carnival, 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 in their domains and customized to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for commercial purposes.
- 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 new blog posts every second (around 1.5 million per day).
You can see a live map that shows the latest user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Live Activity
In later posts, we will cover the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 WordPress plugins for free from the WordPress free plugin repository …
(WordPress.org free plugins repository)
We have published a detailed article about WordPress plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 free WP themes …
(WordPress.org free themes repository)
We have published a comprehensive article about WP themes here:
Translations Of WordPress
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WP language translations)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than 35 million …
(WP searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online 5 x more than Joomla and nine times more often than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of 33,000 WP users who responded to the survey stated that they make a full-time living off the WordPress CMS. 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 by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can clearly see from the statistics presented above, WordPress is poised for continued growth for a long time to come.
In other blog posts, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best platform for growing your small business online,
- Over fifty great reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a detailed review of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- Ways to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate more traffic, get more leads and subscribers, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing loads of step-by-step tutorials and examples of how you can use WordPress and grow your business online, and save thousands of dollars on web development and web design costs.
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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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