This blog post is part of a detailed series of articles designed to help you succeed online.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this article, you will learn a number of facts and figures about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress and what kind of people and businesses use WordPress today.
How Popular Is WordPress? Facts And Figures About WordPress
Below is a summary of what you will learn in this blog post:
- WordPress began as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress is available in 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 website or blog.
- There are over 60 million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number grows significantly every day.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites worldwide 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 sites worldwide that use a CMS application are powered by WordPress.
- Over 37 million searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress is continually built by volunteers. People from all over the world work on developing and improving WordPress every day.
- The WordPress core software is continually being updated to fix bugs and improve both its usage and security.
- WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WP plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is practically no limit to what type of site you can build with WordPress.
WordPress Popularity
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easy for non-technical users to add, edit and manage all content on their website.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the widely-used self-hosted CMS-based publishing platform 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 views per month than Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, eBay, and Yahoo.com …
(WordPress [hosted] unique monthly visits. Source: Automattic.com)
Consider the following WP CMS usage stats:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP CMS usage figures. 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 websites and blogs are now being built on WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that even keeping up with the latest statistics on WordPress is difficult because the numbers change so often.
For example, at the time this article was published, here is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download figures 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 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 site, you should expect to see a much higher download figure … perhaps even a different version, as the WordPress developer community continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has made available over one hundred new software versions to date …
(Over one hundred new WordPress versions have been made available in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new update every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new software updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
An interesting fact, is that all major WordPress releases are named in honor of well-known Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.2.1 = Ella Fitzgerald (January 22, 2007),
- v.2.5 = Michael Brecker (March 29, 2008),
- v.2.9 = Carmen McRae (December 18, 2009),
- v.3.4 = Grant Green (June 13, 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 use WordPress to publish content about everything under the sun.
Leading corporations, businesses, technology companies, celebrities, politicians, famous artists, educational institutions, government department sites, not-for-profits – even countries are using WordPress to run their official websites and blogs …
WordPress.org Web Site Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of businesses, institutions and people using WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Bata, DC Diaper Bank, GDF SUEZ, Groupe Vivendi, Vogue, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Rush, The Meredith Vieira Show, Beyoncé, Usain Bolt, The Rolling Stones, Blondie, Howie Mandel, Russell Brand, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, International Relations Online at American University, Washington University’s School of Law, Lafayette College, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Tribune Media, The Australian, IMC TV, Enterprise Magazine, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Community Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Canadian Olympic Committee, Slow Food Italia, CURE International, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available as 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 and modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are business marketing or sales purposes.
- More than half of all WordPress users use the hosted version on WordPress.com
- In 2014, WordPress blogs (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 blog posts per second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
You can see a live map that shows the latest activity across its hosted service …
WordPress.com – Activity Around The World
In other posts, we address the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 WP plugins for free …
(WordPress.org plugin repository)
We have published a great article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 free WP themes from the WordPress themes directory …
(WordPress.org free themes directory)
We have published a comprehensive article about themes here:
WordPress 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. “WP themes”, “WP plugins”, ”learn WordPress”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around thirty-seven million …
(WP-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online five times more than Joomla and nine times more than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of all 33,000 WordPress users who participated in the survey stated that they make a full-time living off WordPress. An earlier survey conducted by WordPress (2012) also found that the average hourly rate of WordPress projects is US$50.
You can find WordPress designers and developers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork.com, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can see, the growth of WordPress is predicted to continue for many years to come.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the smartest option in most situations when it comes to choosing a platform to grow your small business online,
- Over 50 great reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a comprehensive look at the benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- Ways to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate more visitors, get more leads and subscribers, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing new step-by-step tutorials and great examples and tips on how to use WordPress to expand your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on website development and website design costs.
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Information Sources:
The information for this article 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
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