20 WordPress Statistics and CMS Facts

What was launched as a basic blogging tool quickly evolved to become an innovator in the digital marketing scene and a go-to platform for website building. Our collection of the most important WordPress statistics will help you understand its dominance in the CMS market, how powerful it is, and why you should consider it for your next project. In the end, you will also find some fun facts that will get you closer to the WordPress concept, as well as the answers to five of the most frequently asked questions. 

WordPress Statistics (Editor’s Choice)

• Over 500 new WordPress sites are built daily.
• There are 28,183,568 live WordPress websites.
• 35% of 10,000 popular business sites use WordPress.
• WordPress is available in 179 languages.
• It takes $50-60 to host a professional WordPress site.
• Half of all WordPress themes on ThemeForest have made $1,000 per month.
• Wordfence reports 90,000 attacks on WordPress platforms per minute.
• WordPress has only 1,149 employees.

WordPress Usage Statistics

1. 41.2% of the websites on the Internet run on WordPress.

The percentage of websites using WordPress is impressive. The platform powers more than one-third of all the websites, including the ones without a CMS or with a custom-coded CMS. If you only consider the sites with a known CMS, WordPress market share amounts to 64.8%.

(w3techs)

2. WordPress is more popular than Shopify and Joomla.

WordPress popularity only grows with time. CMS usage stats show that it dominates Shopify and Joomla, the self-hosted CMS that power 3.5% and 2.1% of all websites and 5.5% and 3.3% of the market, respectively.  

(w3techs)

3. WordPress gets 126 million unique visitors.

WordPress is a giant in every sense of the word. It sees 126 million unique visitors every month which is more than Amazon that gets 96 million unique visitors per month.

(ManageWP)

4. There are 500+ new WordPress sites built daily. 

WordPress stats speak louder than words. Undoubtedly, this is the preferred CMS for the majority of webmasters. To put the number of 500 sites that get built every day on the platform in perspective, we must highlight that there are only 60-80 sites built on other platforms like Shopify and Squarespace.

(Kinsta)

5. WordPress 5.7 has been downloaded over 34 million times. 

WordPress 5.6 version called Esperanza was released in early 2021 and to date, it has been downloaded more than 34 million times. It comes with some advanced features including a new API, dynamic hook, updated block editor and support for block variations, one-click switch from HTTP to HTTPS, default lazy loading of iFrames, and more.

(WordPress)

6. 38.5% of WordPress websites are running on the platform’s latest version.

On second and third place are versions 5.5 and 5.6 with 10.7% and 10.6% of WordPress websites, respectively. 9.2% of WordPress websites run on its 5.4 iteration, while 7.1% haven’t updated since 4.9. 

(WordPress)

7. Currently, there are 28,183,568 live WordPress websites. 

Many web development experts are choosing to build websites on WordPress. The latest WordPress user statistics show that there are more than 28 million live sites. 345,310 of them (or 34.53%) are in the top 1 million sites, 34,665 (or 34.66%) are in the top 100,000 websites, and 3,664 (or 36.64%) are in the top 10,000 sites. 

(Built With)

8. 35% of 10,000 popular business sites use WordPress. 

WordPress has established itself as a real game-changer. It’s no surprise that prominent names like The New Yorker, Sony Music, Whitehouse.gov, and BBC America have chosen it to build their websites. WordPress also powers the websites of some famous personalities like Justin Bieber and Katy Perry.

(WeDevs)

9. 44.8% of universities, colleges, and schools all over the world use WordPress. 

Nearly 50% of the top universities globally—the likes of Harvard, Stanford, and the University of California—are using WordPress. The platform also hosts thousands of government sites including US Federal and State government websites and small towns.

(Fingent, WPBeginner)

10. Over 409 million people view more than 20 billion pages each month.

WordPress handles a considerable amount of traffic. As WordPress statistics show, 409 million people generate approximately 20 billion page views on WordPress blogs. The number of people creating and consuming content continues to grow, and WordPress usage doesn’t show signs of slowing down. 

(WordPress)

11. 21,903,491 files were uploaded to WordPress.com in December 2020.

People do love uploading files on WordPress, and this stat proves it. 21,903,491 files were uploaded in December 2020. At 70,399,151, the number of files uploaded was historically highest in December 2018. The monthly average stands at around 24.7 million files. 

(WordPress)

12. Users produce about 70 million new posts and 77 million new comments each month.

Blogging stats indicate that more and more people are using WordPress to post new content and spark up discussions. In December 2020, there were 79,271,587 new posts. At 136,185,666, this figure was highest in December 2018. When it comes to comments, WordPress saw the highest number of 575,137,941 in September 2019. At 75,134,349, the number of comments in 2020 was in the median range.

(WordPress)

13. WordPress is available in over 120 languages and actively used in 68 of them. 

At the moment, WordPress statistics show that the English language version tops the list of the most used languages with 71%. Spanish is next in line at 4.7%, followed by Indonesian at 2.4%, Portuguese at 2.3%, and French at 1.5%.

(WordPress, WPbeginner)

14. WordPress hosts 76.5 million blogs in 120 languages.

Roughly 71% of WordPress blogs are written in English and Spanish is the far second with nearly 5%. 

(CodeinWP, WordPress)

WordPress Themes Statistics

15. The free theme directory has over 8,000 themes.

There is a vast number of themes you can opt for without spending a dime. You get to choose from a variety of combinations of layout, color schemes, design, and features. 

(WordPress)

16. ThemeForest is the most popular premium theme marketplace. 

ThemeForest offers over 51,000 premium themes and templates, over 15,000 of which are for WordPress. As per WordPress stats, the most popular theme is Avada, which costs $60, and it has been bought over 680,000 times. The7 and BeTheme are also part of the top three best-selling themes on ThemeForest.

(WinningWP, Envato)

17. Half of all WordPress themes on ThemeForest have made $1,000 per month.

Half of the ThemeForest themes for WordPress have made at $1,000 a month. A quarter have made $2,500 in a month, 15% have made $5,000 or more a month, and 7% have seen $7,500 in a month.

(Envato)

18. The median membership price per theme is $4.20. 

According to CodeinWP WordPress statistics, the average theme club subscription per theme will cost you $4.20. On average, a theme club subscription will cost you $145 per year, with $139 as the median cost. 

(CodeInWP)

19. The median price of a WordPress theme is $59. 

WordPress offers a variety of themes at different prices. For a premium theme, you can pay anywhere between $10 and $200. Currently, the median price is $59, which is a rise from $46 in 2013. 

(CodeInWP)

WordPress Plugins Statistics

20. There are more than 58,000 WordPress plugins.

At the time of writing this page, there are 58,385 plugins available at WordPress.org. So yes, there’s likely a plugin for any problem you have. Still, you shouldn’t exceed 20 plugins; otherwise, you can compromise your site’s load time. And remember, SEO stats show that 40% of visitors would abandon a site that takes more than three seconds to load. 

(WordPress, NeilPatel)

21. The top 19 plugins have been downloaded over 1 million times.

WordPress stats confirm that some plugins are outstanding in terms of functionality. Users have recognized this and placed such plugins on the top of the list of the most downloaded ones. Yoast, Contact Form 7, Akismet, W3 Total Cache, and Google XML Sitemaps are some of the plugins with over 1 million downloads. 

(CodeinWP)

22. There are 11 plugins with more than 7 million downloads.

Further proving the effectiveness and popularity of WordPress plugins, 11 of them have seen more than 7 million downloads. WooCommerce, NextGEN Gallery, WordPress Importer, WP Super Cache, and Google Analytics by Yoast, to name a few.

(CodeinWP)

23. The most popular free page builder is Elementor with over 430,000 new downloads every week. 

Packed with the most useful widgets and advanced capabilities, Elementor quickly became the favorite page builder in the ecommerce industry. At the moment, this plugin has over 2 million active installations and is available in 52 languages.

(Software Findr)

24. Yoast SEO is the most downloaded plugin. 

With more than 310 million downloads and 5 million active installations, Yoast SEO is the most popular WordPress plugin. WordPress usage statistics place Akismet, Google XML Sitemaps, Contact Form 7, and NextGEN Gallery on the list of the most downloaded plugins. 

(Wikipedia, WordPress)

25. MonsterInsights’ business intelligence has helped webmasters increase their revenue by 50% and profits by 126%.

MonsterInsights is a plugin that makes it easy for WordPress users to track user page views effortlessly. It enables ecommerce tracking, Google AdSense tracking, file downloads, popular post tracking, and much more. At the moment, it has over 3 million active installations. 

(MonsterInsights)

26. Jetpack is one of the WordPress plugins with over 5 million active installations. 

Have you ever been wondering how to check views within the WordPress dashboard? The answer is Jetpack. Besides providing data on site visits, views, and search terms people used to discover your site, this popular plugin enables 24/7 security, effortless management, and elevated site performance. 

(WordPress)

27. Akismet has blocked over 450 billion spam comments. 

Akismet is an anti-spam plugin that checks comments and submissions to ensure the website doesn’t publish them. Statistics on WordPress show that Akismet is now protecting more than 6 million websites and has blocked 450+ billion spam comments.

(Akismet)

WooCommerce Statistics

28. WooCommerce is installed on over 5 million websites. 

WooCommerce is indisputably the most popular ecommerce plugin used by the leading ecommerce development specialists. The current market share of WooCommerce is 30% of the top 1 million websites running online stores. The number of WordPress sites with WooCommerce goes over 5 million and notes over 82 million all-time downloads. 

(WPbeginner, Built With)

29. WooCommerce powers over 23.42% of all online stores.

It is slightly surpassed by Squarespace with 23.47% and followed by 100sklepow with 15.12%. WordPress statistics from BuiltWith estimate that WooCommerce powers over 60,000 of the top 1 million sites online. 

(Datanyze, BuiltWith)

30. There are over 1,100 WooCommerce themes on WordPress.org.

In addition to the more than 1,100 themes for WordPress available on WordPress.org, there are over 1,300 themes on ThemeForest. This totals to over 2,400 themes from these two resources, excluding independent theme companies and theme marketplaces.

(Theme Forest, WordPress)

31. 8% of all websites are using WooCommerce.

WordPress trends show continuous growth of WooCommerce plugin adoption. Just a year ago, a little over 6% of all sites were using the plugin and in 2019, this number was about 4.7%.

(w3techs)

32. 93.7% of WordPress online stores are using the WooCommerce plugin.

No ecommerce plugin can compete with WooCommerce. The most popular plugin for online shops is installed on more than 2.9 million WordPress sites. For comparison, Ecwid, the second-most-popular WP ecommerce plugin powers only a little over 120,000 sites.

(Barn2)

WordPress Security Stats 

33. 83% of hacked CMS-based websites are built on WordPress. 

WordPress ranks as the top security-compromised CMS even though it’s continually inspected and improved upon version-by-version by the top security experts. 

(WP Manage Ninja)

34. Running outdated versions of WordPress, themes, and plugins leave you vulnerable to attacks.

WordPress stats reveal 52% of detected vulnerabilities are from plugins, 37% are from core WordPress, and 11% are from themes. The best solution is to keep your WordPress site up to date. Pro tip: leave the WordPress core self-update option on and also adjust plugins to auto-update.  

(iThemes)

35. Vulnerabilities on the hosting platform are responsible for 41% of WordPress attacks. 

CMS-related vulnerabilities mostly relate to maintenance, with 61% of infected WordPress websites being out of date and 44% of hacking being caused by outdated WordPress sites.

(Prevent Direct Access)

36. In a data breach in 2011, 18 million users were compromised. 

The biggest WordPress data breach happened in 2011. The attack compromised 18 million users. Another large data breach hit WordPress in 2016. Known as the Panama Papers Leak, the attack affected 2.6 TB of data, 4.8 million emails, and 11.5 million documents. 

(Comparitech, WordFence)

37. Wordfence reports approximately 90,000 attacks on WordPress platforms per minute. 

Wordfence, a WordPress security plugin, reports close to 90,000 attacks every minute. This figure further proves that WordPress is highly vulnerable to bot and hacker attacks. Brute force attack is one of the most common vulnerabilities for sites using this CMS. 

(WP Manage Ninja)

Fun WordPress Facts

38. A total of 28 versions of WordPress have been released in 2020.

This is the most since in a year the platform’s launch in 2003. On average, major core updates are released every 152 days. All WordPress versions have been named after jazz musicians since the developers are jazz music lovers. 

(WordPress)

39. 1,078,835 is the number of times users switched their WordPress theme in December 2020.

WordPress statistics show that more than 1 million people have changed their theme during December 2020. Historically, this number was highest in March 2015 when 5,334,942 people switched their WordPress theme. 

(WordPress)

40. Christine Selleck Tremoulet suggested the name WordPress.

Christine is a successful blogger herself and a close friend to the co-founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg. 

(Wikipedia)

41. WordPress has only 1,464 employees.

WordPress has only 1,464 employees across 80 countries. This is only a fraction of the number of employees other big companies have. 

(Automattic)

42. WordPress has the largest Internet community.

The platform’s community of developers, contributors, and WordCamp organizers is what makes this open-source platform more usable. Currently, WordPress stats indicate there are nearly 250,000 active members and over 840 meetup groups globally.

(WP Online Support)

43. It takes $50-60 to host a professional WordPress site. 

WordPress is affordable. Hosting a professional site will cost you anywhere between $50 and $60 a year, while a “.com” domain is approximately $10 a year. All in all, you can have a top-notch site with excellent hosting and domain of your choice for as much as $70. Due to the high demand and competition, WordPress development companies are also affordable to hire.

(Elementor)

FAQs

Sources

• W3techs
• ManageWP
• Kinsta
• WordPress
• WordPress
• BuiltWith
• WeDevs
• Fingent
• WPBeginner
• WordPress
• WordPress
• CodeinWP
• WordPress
• WinningWP
• Envato
• CodeInWP
• WordPress
• NeilPatel
• Source Findr
• Wikipedia
• WordPress
• MonsterInsights
• WordPress
• Akismet
• WPBeginner
• BuiltWith
• Datanyze
• BuiltWith
• Theme Forest
• WordPress
• W3techs
• Barn2
• WP Manage Ninja
• iThemes
• iThemes
• Prevent Direct Access
• WordFence
• Comparitech
• WordPress
• WordPress
• Wikipedia
• Automattic
• WP Online Support
• Elementor

By Ana Gajic