WordPress is widely renowned as the most popular CMS (Content Management System) in the world.
Simple and convenient, WordPress promises people from all backgrounds an opportunity to build a powerful, customizable website based on their specific needs. Doesn’t really matter whether you’re just looking to start blogging on the side or you’re planning to create a scalable media site, WordPress has got you covered.
Though solutions like Shopify are growing more attractive, WordPress is still the platform that powers 41% of the top 10 million most-visited sites worldwide.
Crucially, WordPress isn’t just the ultimate option for smaller businesses and websites. Companies all over the world rely on WordPress to connect with customers and fans.
Today, we’ll be exploring some of the most important WordPress statistics for 2024.
Key WordPress Statistics for – Editor’s Choices
- WordPress powers around 41.8% of all websites
- The WordPress CMS has a market share of around 65%
- English is the language used to write 71% of all WordPress content
- WordPress has 501 times fewer employees than Amazon
- Users on WordPress make around 27 new posts per second
- WordPress is the most searched for CMS on Google
- WordPress users are less likely to face attacks from a lack of updates than other CMS users
WordPress Usage Statistics
1. Over a third of the web uses WordPress
WordPress currently accounts for 41.8% of the world’s websites. As a content management system, the service has a market share of around 65%, making it much larger than any other competing CMS. In fact, Shopify (the nearest competitor to WordPress) only accounts for 3.6% websites and has around 5.6% of market share.
2. Some of the most popular sites in the world use WordPress
According to WordPress, around 409 million people view more than 20 billion pages of WordPress sites per month. TechCrunch, CNN, Spotify, TED, and many other market leaders use WordPress today.
3. Leading sites use WordPress
It’s not just small websites using WordPress. WordPress is the CMS of over 28 million live websites. According to the latest live statistics from Built With, WordPress accounts for around 34% of the top 1 million sites in the world, 35% of the top 100k, and 36% of the top 10,000 sites.
4. WordPress market share is constantly growing
(W3Techs)
WordPress market share has constantly been growing every year since it’s launch. At the start of 2017, WordPress accounted for a around 27.3% of all websites. Now, that number is over 41%. Although market share of other CMS solutions has been growing too, the speed is nowhere near that of WordPress.
5. Users publish 70 million posts each month
WordPress itself tells us that every month, around 70 million new posts are published by WordPress users. That accounts for over 2 million new posts every day, or 97,222 posts per hour. People are engaging with those posts regularly too, with around 77 million new blog comments generated by readers each month.
6. WordPress is available in 65 languages
Currently, WordPress is available in 65 languages fully, and there are various other “locales” available if you’re willing to look into third-party plugins and apps. You can find tons of tools for translating your WordPress website.
7. WordPress websites also get 487 billion spam messages per month
(Akismet)
Unfortunately, spam comments have increased drastically in the last few years. According to Akismet, the number of spam comments sent into WordPress is about 6,208 times higher than the number of legitimate comments received from site owners.
8. People search for “WordPress” nearly 3 million times per month
(KWFinder)
According to KWFinder, the term “WordPress” is searched online around 2,940,000 timers per month, by people across the globe. You could imagine how much higher the search volume might be if you also looked for long-tail keywords like “WordPress websites in the UK”.
9. WordPress is most common in the US
Although WordPress has a growing presence all across the globe, around 44.5% of the websites built on WordPress are located within the US, according to the current statistics. The second largest market share currently belongs to Spain, with around 6.1% of all websites.
10. Most WordPress pages are written in English
According to WordPress statistics, around 71% of the content on WordPress comes from English users. The second most popular language is Spanish, at 4.7%, followed by Indonesian at 2.4% and Portuguese at 2.3%.
WordPress Functionality Statistics
11. Less than half of all users have updated to the latest version of WordPress
According to WordPress.org, only around 45.6% of users have upgraded to the latest version of WordPress (5.7) at the time of writing. There’s still a huge number of people using older versions of the platform. This could be part of the reason that some people suffer from WordPress security issues.
12. Paragraph blocks are the most popular in Gutenberg
(Kinsta)
Kinsta tells us that of all the blocks available for the Gutenberg WordPress editor, the most popular is the “paragraph” block – used around 60% of the time when customers are using Gutenberg. There are also apps specifically designed for the Gutenberg editor.
13. WordPress updates are delivered every 152 days
(CodeinWP)
WordPress attempts to keep users up to date by releasing major updates an average of around 152 days. Although a lot of people don’t update immediately, these changes help to keep WordPress running as smoothly as possible.
14. The WordPress community has held more than 1000 “WordCamps”
WordPress has one of the best communities in the world, which is a big reason as to why it’s so popular. WordCamps are designed to help people make the most out of WordPress by introducing groups to how various features and services work. There have been 1048 Wordcamps at the time of writing in over 372 cities, 65 countries, and 6 continents.
15. WordPress gets more visitors than Twitter
WordPress is currently more popular than Twitter for regular monthly visitation. WordPress gets around 163 million unique visitors a month. Twitter only gets around 156 million unique visitors per month, making WordPress more popular.
16. Only 0.7% of people are using the latest WordPress MySQL version
For users of the open-source WordPress landscape, it’s important to keep code up to date. Unfortunately, only around 0.7% of people use the latest version of MySQL. The biggest portion of people, 36.8%, use MySQL 5.5. Currently, around 32.7% of people use PHP version 7.4, while only 0.5% of people use PHP 8.0.
17. WordPress Handles up to 90% of Google Crawling Issues
Matt Cutts says that WordPress helps to tackle SEO problems. As a member of the Google Webspam team, Cutts knows all about SEO-friendly tools. According to Matt, sites built with WordPress are capable of ranking higher in the search engines, because the CMS can handle up to 90% of the issues Google has with crawling most sites.
WordPress Plugin and Theme Statistics
18. There are over 58,730 WordPress plugins available today
WordPress is constantly rolling out new plugins and add-ons thanks to a huge community of developers. There are currently 58,730 plugins available at the time of writing, including block-enabled plugins, free plugins and more.
19. SEO plugins are among the most popular WordPress plugin
(Kinsta)
Yoast is currently one of the most popular plugin for WordPress, with over 329 million downloads, and an app rating of 4.8.
The other most popular plugins available on WordPress right now include SEOPress, with more than 3 million downloads, and the SEO framework with over 1 million downloads. Rank Math SEO has more than 15 million downloads, with a rating of more than 4.9 out of 5 stars.
20. Jetpack is the most popular multi-purpose plugin
Jetpack is currently the most popular WordPress plugin for multi-functional site support. The plugin, now on version 9.8.1 has more than 5 million active installations at the time of writing, and supports everything from backup and website speed to security.
21. There are More than 11,000 WordPress themes
(Kinsta)
There are currently more than 11,000 themes on Envato market, one of the most popular locations to find free and paid themes. Around 70% of all searches for themes are based on niche terms. Additionally, a theme is sold on Envato market around once every five seconds.
22. Divi is the most popular WordPress theme
(IsitWP)
Essentially a WordPress theme and a page builder in one, Divi is the most popular WordPress theme on the market today, created by the Elegant Themes team. Divi is currently active in more than 2 million WordPress websites. The Astra theme is the second most popular, with around 1.5 million websites using the solution today.
23. eNom Hosting is the most popular host for WordPress
(Builtwith)
According to BuiltWith, of the 2.5 million live WordPress websites using hosting services, the most popular hosting provider is eNom hosting. Just over 2 million people use eNom hosting. The second most popular service is Bizland, with just over 1.8 million users.
WordPress Security Statistics
24. Plugins are most likely to lead to WordPress security issues
(iThemes)
Although WordPress plugins are some of the most popular features of the CMS, they can also be the cause of various problems. WordPress plugins account for around 75% of all WordPress security issues, while only 14% of security issues come from core WordPress problems. Around 11% of security issues link back to themes.
25. 90% of hacked websites in 2018 were hosted by WordsPress
(Sucuri)
As the world’s most popular CMS, WordPress is also a target for many hackers and criminals. According to Sucuri, around 90% of hacked CMS-powered websites in 2018 were powered by WordPress. This accounts to around 90,000 attacks per minute on WordPress sites.
26. XSS attacks are very common on WordPress
(WordPress Vulnerability Database)
Cross-scripting attacks are among the most common issues that people have with security on WordPress. According to the WordPress Vulnerability detector, a cross-scripting infection attacked around 1,585 sites – more than any other security issue.
27. Nearly half of all security issues are caused by an outdated CMS
(Sucuri)
A report from Sucuri in 2019 found that 56% of all CMS platforms are out of date when they’re infected by security problems like viruses and malware. Sucuri found that 49% of WordPress installations, in particular, were outdated at the point of infection, meaning that it’s less likely for a WordPress site to be out of date compared to other CMS options.
28. WordPress Security Issues can Stem from Various Locations
(KeyCDN)
A WordPress website can be subject to a range of security attacks. Around 41% of WordPress attacks are caused by vulnerabilities in the WordPress hosting platform, while around 84% of all security vulnerabilities are caused by XSS and cross-scripting attacks.
29. WPS Login Security is the most popular WordPress security plugin
(Kinsta)
The most popular security plugin for WordPress is WPS Hide Login with more than 8 million downloads. Kinsta identifies Sucuri Security as the second most popular WordPress plugin for WordPress security. The free version comes with malware scanning, blacklist monitoring, security activity auditing, security notifications, and more. There are more than 7 million customers using this today.
Other General WordPress Statistics
30. The Average salary for a WordPress developer in the US IS $35 per hour
The average developer salary for someone specializing in WordPress is around $35 per hour, or $68,250 per year, according to Talent.com. Experienced employees can earn up to $100,000 per year, while entry-level positions often start at around $58,500 per year.
31. The most popular eCommerce plugin on WordPress is WooCommerce
(Kinsta)
WooCommerce is easily the most popular tool for selling products through your WordPress website, with more than 137 million downloads at the time of writing. Other popular eCommerce plugins include Easy Digital Downloads, with more than 3 million downloads.
32. More than 1.1 million new Domains are registered on WordPress every 6 months
Over 1.1 million new domains are registered with WordPress websites every 6 months or so, according to a global survey from 2015. There’s no doubt this number has increased significantly since then, as WordPress gains more market share.
Want to Learn More?
- The Ultimate List of Blogging Statistics
- How To Start A Blog: Step-by-Step Guide
- The Best Website Builders
Sources
W3Techs.com
WordPress.com
BuiltWith
WPBeginner
Akismet
KWFinder
WordPress.org
Kinsta
CodeinWP
Central.wordcamp
Digital.com
Matt Cutts
ThemeIsle
IsitWP
iThemes
Sucuri
WordPress Vulnerability Database
Talent.com
