Hey there! With so many different content management systems (CMS) out there, have you ever wondered exactly what percentage of all websites run on WordPress? If so, you’ve come to the right place.
As an experienced cybersecurity professional and WordPress user myself, I’ve dug into the data to uncover the latest statistics on WordPress adoption. In 2023, WordPress remains the undisputed leader powering over 43% of all websites worldwide.
Let me walk you through the numbers…
Back in 2013, WordPress was used by less than 1 in 5 sites on the internet. But its smart open source model and constant innovation have helped drive phenomenal growth since then.
Just look at how WordPress market share has shot up over the years:
2013 – 17.4% of all sites
2022 – 43.2% of all sites
That‘s an astounding 5x growth over the past decade! No other CMS even comes close in terms of adoption. Here‘s a graph to visualize the trends:
[Insert graph showing WordPress usage percentage from 2013 to 2022]Industry analysts predict this rapid growth to continue, with WordPress likely crossing 45% market share in 2023.
Driving this popularity is WordPress‘ ease of use, flexibility, vast ecosystem and engaged community. Both novice users and tech professionals love it for website building.
With regular maintenance and security releases, WordPress aims to make site management smooth for users. But owners need to update to leverage the newest features and improvements.
Per data from W3Techs, most WordPress adopters stay current with the latest major releases:
- WordPress 6.0 (Nov 2022) – Used by 62.2% of sites
- WordPress 5.0 (Dec 2018) – Used by 30.6% of sites
- WordPress 4.0 (Sept 2014) – Used by 6.7% of sites
In contrast, early versions like WordPress 2.0 (May 2007) now have negligible usage at less than 0.1%.
Maintaining an up-to-date WordPress site is considered WordPress best practice. It helps maximize performance, security and lets you access new capabilities.
With over 55,000 free plugins, WordPress can be customized to support virtually any website need. Tools like WooCommerce and Elementor are used by millions to add ecommerce stores, page builders and more.
Here are some stats on the most popular plugins (via W3Techs):
- WooCommerce – Powers online stores for 20% of WordPress sites
- Elementor – Used by 18.3% for drag-and-drop page building
- WPBakery – Enables visual editing for 13.6% of sites
- Contact Form 7 – Simple form builder used by 5.3% of sites
There are also thousands of niche plugins for SEO, security, marketing, integrations, and everything in between! This ecosystem of extensions contributes greatly to WordPress’ flexibility.
From small personal blogs to mega corporations, WordPress powers them all. Many instantly recognizable brands use WordPress including:
- Media Giants: Time, Vogue, Wired, CNN
- Tech Leaders: Sony, Microsoft, Google, Spotify
- Ecommerce Sites: Etsy, Shopify, WooCommerce
- Government Sites: The White House, US Department of Education
Notable companies like Forbes, FedEx, Ford, LinkedIn and Amazon also rely on WordPress to build and manage their online presence.
This adoption by major enterprises clearly demonstrates WordPress’ capabilities as a secure, scalable CMS suitable for the biggest websites.
With its unmatched growth and user base, WordPress has risen to dominate the global CMS market.
It holds a 64.2% share of all sites using a known CMS according to BuiltWith. The next closest competitor is Shopify at just 6.2%!
Here‘s a breakdown of market share across the top platforms:
[Insert pie chart showing WordPress vs other CMS market share stats]Industry pundits agree that the company‘s laser focus on user experience and open source community building have been instrumental to this runaway success.
Who’s behind the world’s most popular website builder? WordPress was created in 2003 by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little as a fork of an existing tool called b2.
Today it‘s developed by Automattic along with an army of 1,000+ volunteer contributors. Thousands more developers build commercial plugins and themes.
Prominent WordPress personalities like Matt Mullenweg, Josepha Haden Chomphosy and Jeff Chandler also foster a vibrant global community through meetups, conferences and the ‘ WordPress way‘.
This grassroots open source momentum helps explain WordPress’ rapid growth. Developing in the open allows faster innovation.
Rather than resting on its laurels, WordPress‘ development team keeps pushing out enhancements that expand its use cases.
Recent major updates have added new features for:
- Multilingual sites
- Full site editing
- Block-based templates
- Reusable blocks
- Accessibility improvements
Such advances make WordPress easier to use for beginners while also more powerful for advanced users. They contribute to its widening footprint across the web.
Given its phenomenal growth trajectory and product velocity, WordPress is likely to extend its CMS lead over the coming years.
Most projections estimate its market share will surpass 45% in 2023. It helps that WordPress caters brilliantly to emerging website building trends like no-code, headless and cloud hosting.
With a vibrant open source community churning out enhancements, the platform seems poised for continued adoption growth.
So in summary, WordPress absolutely dominates the global CMS landscape today powering over 4 in 10 websites. And with its remarkable innovation and grassroots culture, this growth seems certain to continue!
Hope this breakdown of WordPress market share statistics for 2023 gave you a helpful overview. Let me know if you have any other questions!
