This article is part of an article series designed to help business owners and non-technical users grow online.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this blog post, you will learn a number of facts and figures about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress and what kind of businesses and people are using WordPress today.
How Popular Is WordPress? Some Surprising Facts And Figures About WordPress
Below is a summary of what we will cover:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress is available as a hosted application (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 a new WordPress website.
- There are over sixty million installations of WordPress. This number increases everyday.
- 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 websites using a content management system are driven by WordPress.
- Over 35 million searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is continually built by volunteers. People from all around the world work on developing and improving the WordPress software on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress software is continually being updated to fix bugs and improve 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 almost no limit to what you can build with WordPress.
WordPress Market Share
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 easier for non-technical website users to add, edit and manage 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, WordPress has grown to become the widely-used self-hosted CMS application 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 being a distributed company and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique views per month than Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, and eBay …
(WordPress [hosted version] unique monthly visits. Source: Automattic.com)
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 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 sites today are being built with WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that keeping up with the latest statistics on WordPress is difficult because the numbers change so frequently.
For example, at the time this post 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 …
(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 click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you will no doubt see a much higher download number … perhaps even a newer version, as WordPress continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Regarding updates, WordPress has released over one hundred new updates since 2003 …
(Over one hundred 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 software updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
An interesting fact, is that all major WordPress version updates are typically named after famous Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.5 = Billy Strayhorn (February 17, 2005),
- v.2.7 = John Coltrane (December 10, 2008),
- v.3.1 = Django Reinhardt (February 23, 2011),
- v.3.5 = Elvin Jones (December 11, 2012),
- v.4.0 = Benny Goodman (September 4, 2014),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress?
In a nutshell, all types of enterprises and people from all walks of life use WordPress to publish content about everything and anything.
Giant brands, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous actors, educational institutions, government department sites, local organizations – even nations are using WordPress to run their official sites …
WordPress.org Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of businesses, institutions and people who have chosen to build their online presence with WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Sony Music, Dole, Method Products, Group Bouygues, Vogue, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Rush, Nancy Pelosi, Brian Smith, Dallas Mavericks, Steve Blake, LA Lakers, Dave Matthews Band, Channing Tatum, Russell Brand, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, Washington University’s School of Law, MIT Sloan Management Review, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Fortune, Time.com, FiveThirtyEight, Enterprise Magazine, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Community Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Chicago Weather Center, São Paulo Carnival, Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, Amnesty International Korea, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their domain names 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 posts per second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
You can see a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity Worldwide
In later articles, we explain the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over almost 40,000 free WordPress plugins from the WordPress free plugin directory …
(WordPress.org free plugins repository)
We have written a detailed article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 free themes from the WordPress themes repository …
(WordPress themes directory)
We have written a detailed article about WP themes here:
Translations Of WordPress
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages in addition to English …
(WP language translations)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WP plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to around thirty million …
(WP searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched online five times as much as Joomla and 9x more often than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of all WordPress users who answered the survey stated 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 designers and developers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork.com, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can see, WordPress is poised for continued growth for a long time to come.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the smartest option in most situations when it comes to choosing a vehicle for growing your business online,
- Dozens of great reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a comprehensive review of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate targeted visitors, get more leads and subscribers, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide lots of tutorials and useful tips and examples of how to use WordPress to expand your business online, and save thousands of dollars on the costs of web development and web design.
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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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