Looking for some interested WordPress Statistics?
Here is a quick one: WordPress was launched in 2003…
…and since then, it has come a long way to grow up and establish its strong foothold as a major content publishing platform. On its journey thus far, it has been through a massive transformation. At present, it powers 35% of the operational websites in the digital space with impressive figures and statistics.
So, what is WordPress as a software alternative and a company? What are the important statistics based on which it projects itself as the ideal option among content management platforms? Read on to get the answers to these questions based on WordPress facts.
What Is WordPress?
WordPress is an open-source system for content management. It is a free platform for publishing content for both individuals and companies alike.
It has been an open-source publishing platform since the beginning. As a result, it has been able to establish its strong position on the web.
Websites are considered the lifeline of business these days. Whether it is a startup or a well-established company, having a website is not just an option but a necessity to attain business goals. As such, companies look for a reliable platform on which they can publish their content and grow at the subsequent stages.
This is precisely where WordPress comes to the fore. It has become synonymous with a viable or reliable platform to publish blogs, articles, and other content.
WordPress as a Company
WordPress started its operations in 2003 intending to provide easy access to a platform for publishing content. Since 2005, it has been on a vertical growth trajectory as a major force for the publication of a wide range of content.
However, the idea for the creation of WordPress began in 2002. A college student by the name of Matt Mullenweg had a knack for blogging and installed cafelog blogging system or the b2. Later the original creator of the blogging system left updating it due to which Matt sought ideas to create a new branch for it on SourceForge. He did it in collaboration with his friend, Christine Tremoulet, and assigned the name “WordPress” to the project. They stuck with this name while launching the company.
At present, it works with the sole mission to offer an invaluable user experience to a large set of audiences across the globe.
Top WordPress Stats
In recent years, the performance of WordPress has been impressive on several fronts. There are some WordPress statistics to prove this point.
Here are some useful WordPress stats & facts in favor of it:
- WordPress dominates the Internet with a 37.8% share in its virtual space. [1]
- WordPress drives the content on as many as 75 million websites on the Internet. [2]
- Searching for relevant information on Google by combining relevant queries with “WordPress” returns a whopping 2,060,000,000. [Google]
- WordPress puts other content management platforms in the shade with a massive market share of 60.2%. [3]
- 5. Despite employing 25x lesser employees, WordPress draws the attention of more visitors than Amazon and almost the same number of visitors as Facebook. [4]
- When it comes to publishing a blog or an article, WordPress is the preferred choice of more than 60 million people. [5]
- Among top websites, 14.7% of them run on WordPress. [6]
WordPress has a long list of elements featuring several aspects. If you consider their statistics as a whole, you might find it a little tricky to understand. You can simplify matters in this regard by breaking down the statistics and figures of each aspect individually as given below.
WordPress Usage & Traffic Statistics
As a useful content management system, WordPress has championed the cause of posting content on the Internet for users. With its increased usage, it has transformed the manner of posting content. Due to it, users have multiple options for posting their content and interact with the target audience. Take a look at some WordPress usage statistics to understand the performance of WordPress on this front.
- Of the total number of websites that are operational on the Internet, WordPress boasts a market share of 39%. [9]
- The percentage of websites that use a content management system is 63%. [9]
- WordPress powers more than 455 million websites. [10]
- Despite the dominance of English among compatible languages, WordPress supports up to 60 different languages on its platform. [10]
- In its directory, WordPress houses more than 8,000 themes and about 58,000 plugins. [5]
- Users use WordPress to publish 17 blog posts every second on the Internet. [11]
- Each month, users from distinct geographical nations run more than 37 million searches with WordPress in their query. [11]
- The support of WordPress for SEO mechanics ranges between 80-90%. [12]
WordPress Version Statistics
Thus far, WordPress has released several versions between 2003 and 2021. Here are some important statistics related to its different versions.
- The fifth version of WordPress has surpassed the 7.1-million mark in terms of downloads to power 86.0% of the existing websites. [9]
- The fifth version of WordPress is the most widely used version, followed by the older versions in decreasing order. [9]
- WooCommerce is the most widely used subcategory of WordPress followed by WpBakery, Elementor. These subcategories of WordPress have a user percentage of 18.9%, 16.4%, and 9.8% respectively. Others have a usage percentage below 1%. [9]
- WordPress is a widely used content management system (CMS) with 64.3% usage among all websites. [9]
- The first version of WordPress was 0.70 which was released on May 27, 2003. Its current version, 5.6.1, has been launched on February 03, 2021. [13]
WordPress Development Statistics
WordPress is an important tool for website development and content management. WordPress analytics, in collaboration with the other data linked to development, play an important role in determining the performance of WordPress sites for developers and marketers.
Here are some facts and statistics related to WordPress development.
- Developers use WordPress to develop more than 500 websites daily. [11]
- Among 1 million e-commerce websites, 22% of websites are based on Woocommerce – a subcategory of WordPress. [11]
- WooCommerce is used by 70 million + e-commerce shops. [11]
WordPress Plugin Stats
WordPress has a thriving plugin library that promotes user-friendliness among users. It consists of both free and paid tools with a wide range of variations. It contributes to the appeal of a website.
Wondering about the WordPress stats for plugin? Here are a few of them.
- WordPress boasts more than 58,000 plugins with a whopping 17 billion downloads. [14] and [15]
- Akismet, a popular plugin for protection against Spam, has blocked more than 508 comments that have been categorized as spam. [16]
- As many as 1 million websites operate the WordPress plugins that rank between #1 and #30. [17]
- WordPress supports more than 55,000 plugins. [18]
- In 2016, between 15th and 16th April, donate buttons featured in 47% of plugins, and homepage featured in 76% of plugins. Also, in the same period, 3% of WordPress plugins were not updated. [18]
- Among the top 1 million websites, the Contact Form 7 plugin was used by at least 95,000 sites. [19]
WordPress Theme Statistics
WordPress themes constitute one of the best options to change the layout of a website. Users can either choose a default theme or a third-party theme for this purpose. WordPress provides a wide range of options to its users to meet requirements related to customization and personalization. Equally impressive are the figures and statistics linked to WordPress themes. Take a look at a few statistics related to it.
- WordPress directory has as many as 7,986 themes. [5]
- “WordPress Classic” and “Kubrick” were the themes released by WordPress in the initial stages. [20]
- Since 2010, WordPress has been releasing a new theme every year with the year itself as the title. For example, Twenty Nineteen for the theme released in 2019 and Twenty Twenty for the one launched in 2020. [20]
- On average, a standard WordPress theme costs $57.45. [21]
- Users can subscribe to a theme club of WordPress at $145 which is the general price. [22]
- The annual charges for user subscriptions for themes and theme clubs may range between $48 and $399. [22]
WordPress Community Statistics & Facts
The WordPress community is one of the most popular communities with helpful people. Together, they make a positive contribution to the organization of free events. Plus, the members of the community also help users with software updates and in learning the methods to make the most out of WordPress.
Here are is a list of WordPress statistics 2021 related to its community.
- The WordPress community consists of a diverse workforce featuring professionals of different age-groups. [11]
- WordCamps is the most well-known WordPress event. Other events that rank next to it in terms of popularity include WPCampus, WooConf, and Pressnomics. [11]
- WordPress has about 1.2k official employees in its workforce. Besides, there are thousands of other developers who work for it. [23]
- On average, WordPress has about 50,000 contributors. It is set to increase further in the coming years. [23]
WordPress Security Stats
WordPress, for its major part, is a secure platform for managing content on different websites. However, it is an open-source platform due to which it is also open to various security risks/vulnerabilities.
Here are some WordPress stats linked to its security features.
- Spam infections pose a challenge to about 62% of operational websites on the Internet. [24]
- SQL infection amount to a 53% reinfection rate among WordPress sites. [24]
- About 56% of the instances of infections on websites are due to outdated CMS applications. [24]
- Outdated WordPress sites account for 44% of cases related to hacking. [11]
- Most WordPress vulnerabilities are found in its themes, plugins, and core. [25]
- XSS is the commonest form of infection among WordPress sites. [25]
- Until 2019, about 94% of infections were reported on WordPress websites. [23]
- Due to lack of updates, several thousands of WordPress plugins are at risk. [26]
- WP PHP widget has the most installs, whereas Blogstand Banner has the least installs among the WordPress plugins. [26]
- Until 2017, the WordPress plugin source code repository had 29,892 plugins that were not listed. [26]
Popular Sites Using WordPress
Now that you know a thing or two about WordPress site statistics, you might want to know about some popular sites that use WordPress. The list of such sites includes the following:
- Zillow.com
- Tradingview.com
- Freepik.com
- Udemy.com
- Etsy.com
- WordPress.com
- Microsoft.com
- Zoom.us
- Random selection
- Craigslist.org
- Grammarly.com
- Tradingview.com
Concluding WordPress Statistics
Going by the aforementioned WordPress site stats, it is easy to decipher that a lot has changed for WordPress over the years. Over time, it has shown both its positives and vulnerabilities. With the promise of new updates and features, users of WordPress can rest assured that there will be many more changes in the years to come.
References:
[1] https://w3techs.com/
[2] https://central.wordcamp.org/about/
[3] https://www.searchenginejournal.com/wordpress-powers-30-top-10-million-sites- web/242613/
[4] https://www.codeinwp.com/blog/mesmerizing-wordpress-stats/
[5] https://wordpress.org/
[6] https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/ultimate-list-of-wordpress-stats-facts-and-other-research/
[7] https://wordpress.com/activity/
[8] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=blogger,drupal,sharepoint,wordpress
[9] https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-wordpress
[10] https://www.envisagedigital.co.uk/wordpress-market-share/#1571043493011-c8e2afd9-4e78
[11] https://kinsta.com/blog/wordpress-statistics/
[12] https://hostingtribunal.com/blog/wordpress-statistics/#gref
[13] https://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Versions
[14] https://www.codeinwp.com/blog/wordpress-statistics/
[15] https://wordpress.org/plugins/
[16] https://akismet.com/
[17] https://devrix.com/wordpress-statistics-2020/
[18] https://kinsta.com/blog/wordpress-statistics/#plugins-statistics
[19] https://internetdevels.com/blog/prevent-wordpress-brute-force-attacks
[20] https://kinsta.com/learn/wordpress-history/#history-of-wordpress
[21] https://www.codeinwp.com/blog/wordpress-theme-cost-analysis/
[22] https://kinsta.com/blog/wordpress-website-cost/
[23] https://websitesetup.org/news/wordpress-statistics-facts/
[24] https://blog.sucuri.net/2020/01/hacked-website-threat-report-2019.html
[25] https://wpscan.com/statistics
[26] https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2017/05/22-abandoned-wordpress-plugins-vulnerabilities/
