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With all of the drama surrounding WordPress (extra particularly, Matt Mullenweg) this previous yr, you’d suppose there’d have been a mass migration from the world’s hottest content material administration system. 

However that’s the fascinating half. What this entire circus has proven us is that individuals don’t have an issue with WordPress. The difficulty is with Mullenweg, the chaos swirling round him, and the concern that it’ll trickle over to everybody’s web sites and companies sooner or later. 

Whereas there are some individuals contemplating various choices in mild of the WordPress vs. WP Engine showdown, many aren’t. Even with its flaws, WordPress’s popularity as the very best CMS endures. 

So, let’s lower Mullenweg out of the image for the second. As a substitute, let’s replicate on WordPress’s legacy, strengths, and the rationale why so many individuals wish to reserve it even with all of the messiness happening round it. 

WordPress by the Numbers

WordPress started in 2003 as a fork of the b2/cafelog running a blog platform. It has come a great distance since then.

Listed below are 20 info and statistics about WordPress that show why this CMS has endurance:

4 core freedoms

Below WordPress’s GPL license, you’ve gotten the liberty to: 

1. Use the software program for any purpose.
2. Make alterations to how WordPress works so it matches your wants.
3. Redistribute the software program as you want.
4. Share the altered model of WordPress with different individuals. 

(Supply: WordPress)

55%+ energy ardour tasks with WordPress

WordPress is essentially the most versatile and highly effective CMS, enabling individuals to make use of it for a lot of completely different functions. In 2023, individuals used WordPress for the next causes: 

• To launch private and fervour tasks (55.1%)
• As a service providing for shoppers (48.8%)
• To offer a platform for their very own enterprise (43.1%)
• To construct a web site for an employer (36.7%)
• Tutorial functions (13.7%)
• One thing else (8.1%)

(Supply: Report for 2023 WordPress Annual Survey)

43.6% of the net is WordPress

If we take a look at all the web sites that exist in the mean time, WordPress powers 43.6% of them. If we glance solely on the variety of web sites with recognized CMS, that proportion jumps to 62.0%.

The subsequent closest CMS is Shopify with 4.7% of the whole internet market share.

(Supply: W3Techs)

34 million web sites

As of 2025, 34,342,409 stay web sites are constructed on WordPress. If we take a look at all of the web sites ever recognized to be constructed with WordPress, the whole goes as much as 66,583,563.

(Supply: BuiltWith)

70+ languages

You should use WordPress in additional than 70 languages. U.S. English is essentially the most generally used with 43.38%. Different in style languages and locales embody: 

• Spanish (Spain): 5.87%
• Japanese: 5.82%
• German: 5.51%
• French (France): 4.55%
• Portuguese (Brazil): 3.73%
• English (UK): 3.42%
• Italian: 3.19%

(Supply: WordPress)

#1 platform total

WordPress is the #1 platform in key classes like: 

• Content material administration programs
• Open supply
• Running a blog

For example, out of the 40 million web sites that use open supply applied sciences, 91% use WordPress (in the event you mix it with WooCommerce Checkout).

(Supply: BuiltWith)

#1 open supply by nation

WordPress ranks because the #1 open supply CMS within the U.S., UK, the Netherlands, Russia, Indonesia, and Germany. 

(Supply: BuiltWith)

#1 open supply by web site reputation

WordPress is the most well-liked web site builder answer for the highest web sites world wide. 

• Of the highest 1 million, 23.23% are on WordPress.
• Of the highest 100,000, 26.19% are on WordPress.
• Of the highest 10,000, 25.25% are on WordPress.

(Supply: BuiltWith)

63% agree WordPress is the very best

63.3% of WordPress customers agree that it’s higher than every other web site builder or CMS in the marketplace. Why? These are the highest causes:  

• Wants achievement (58.4%)
• Open supply (56.6%)
• Familiarity (52.0%)
• Effectively-established (49.4%)
• Value-effectiveness (49.1%)
• Group and assist (44.0%)
• Constructive popularity (37.5%)

(Supply: Report for 2023 WordPress Annual Survey)

$1,000,000+ gross sales income

Web sites that generate tens of millions and billions of {dollars} a yr select WordPress over different content material administration programs. For instance: 

• creativecommons.org makes over $2M
• outbrain.com makes over $82M
• bloomberg.com makes over $100M
• kohls.com makes over $1B
• salesforce.com makes over $2B

Different top-ranking websites that use WordPress embody microsoft.com, digicert.com, nih.gov, ebay.com, and creditkarma.com.

(Supply: BuiltWith)

75% of enterprise customers are loyal

Enterprise customers have a tendency to stick with WordPress over the long run, with 75% utilizing the CMS for five years or extra. 

22% of enterprises have used WordPress between 2 and 5 years whereas solely 2% have used it for much less time.

(Supply: State of Enterprise WordPress 2024 Report)

41% of huge groups use it

WordPress isn’t some open-source platform that solely tremendous tech-savvy customers like internet builders can use. Enterprise customers agree that it successfully permits large-scale collaboration. 

• 41% have 50 or extra workers that use it
• 12% have between 20 and 49 workers utilizing it
• 28% have between 5 and 19
• 19% have fewer than 5

(Supply: State of Enterprise WordPress 2024 Report)

64,000+ plugins accessible

One of many the reason why WordPress is so in style is its extensibility, thanks to an enormous plugin repository. 

On wordpress.org, there are at present over 59,000 free or freemium plugins. CodeCanyon has greater than 5,200 premium plugins. 

(Sources: WordPress, CodeCanyon)

Tens of tens of millions of plugin installations

The WordPress neighborhood has finished a improbable job in making WordPress plugins to meet each want. The most well-liked (free) plugins have amassed tens of tens of millions of installations between them. These embody: 

• Elementor: 10M
• Contact Kind 7: 10M
• Yoast search engine optimisation: 10M
• Traditional Editor: 10M
• WooCommerce: 8M

(Supply: WordPress)

Elementor — the #1 plugin

Greater than 18 million web sites have been constructed with Elementor and Elementor Professional. Greater than 1 / 4 of all WordPress web sites (26.8%) use Elementor. 

(Supply: Elementor, W3Techs)

25,000+ themes accessible

On wordpress.org, there are at present over 13,000 free or freemium themes. ThemeForest has nearly 12,000 premium themes (together with Avada, which lately sailed previous a mind-blowing a million downloads):

#Avada celebrates 1,000,000 gross sales on Themeforest, a milestone of epic proportions & world-class achievements https://t.co/TRoqm7EVrf @envato#HappyNewYear2025 to the #Avada neighborhood; thanks for an additional great yr! Keep tuned for what comes subsequent – #HappyNewYear #WordPress pic.twitter.com/2A7Q9x4nOP

— ThemeFusion (@Theme_Fusion) December 31, 2024

The attractive factor about having such an enormous array of WordPress themes accessible is you don’t have to fret about each web site you construct trying the identical as everybody else’s. 

Working example, these are the most well-liked WordPress themes utilized by the highest 1 million web sites: 

• Whats up Elementor: 1.68% of internet sites
• Astra Theme: 1.2%
• Divi: 1.11%
• GeneratePress: 0.83%
• Newspaper: 0.53%
• Avada: 0.47%
• Genesis Framework: 0.39%
• Flatsome: 0.32%
• Twenty Seventeen: 0.3%
• Kadence: 0.3%

With a small proportion of websites utilizing the identical themes, WordPress makes it simple to create actually distinctive designs.

(Sources: WordPress, ThemeForest, BuiltWith)

72% Hhappy with WordPress ROI

37% of enterprise WordPress customers rated WordPress a “good return on funding” whereas 35% rated it an “glorious return on funding”. That is in relation to income era, time saved, and/or useful resource effectivity.

(Supply: State of Enterprise WordPress 2024 Report)

24 WordPress contributor groups

Matt Mullenweg may steal a lot of the headlines, however there are such a lot of amazingly proficient individuals working behind the scenes to make WordPress the very best CMS on the market. Actually, there are 24 groups of contributors dedicated to the trigger: 

• Core
• Design
• Cell
• Accessibility
• Polyglots
• Help
• Documentation
• Themes
• Plugins

• Group
• Meta
• Coaching
• Check
• TV
• Advertising and marketing
• CLI
• Internet hosting
• Tide

• Openverse
• Images
• Core Efficiency
• Sustainability
• Media Corps
• Playground

1,286 WordCamps and counting

WordCamps are native conferences the place WordPress customers of every type come collectively to be taught, share concepts, and community. 

Mullenweg launched the primary WordCamp again in 2006 in San Francisco. So far, there have been 1,286 WordCamps. They’ve been hosted in 406 cities, 65 international locations, and on 6 continents.

(Supply: WordCamp Central)

517,000+ meetup members 

Meetups are a good way to fulfill different WordPress customers and to construct WordPress communities on an area stage. Presently, there are 517,599 Meetup members, 641 WordPress teams, and 93 international locations the place these meetups happen. 

(Supply: Meetup)

Conclusion

When Matt Mullenweg went to Reddit on the finish of 2024 to ask WordPress customers “What drama ought to I create in 2025?”, it was clear the place their frustrations lie. (Trace: It wasn’t with the platform.)

Since its founding in 2003, WordPress has slowly and steadily received over internet execs, enterprise homeowners, entrepreneurs, bloggers, store homeowners, self-starters, and others. Irrespective of how a lot chaos follows its co-founder round, customers aren’t keen to depart WordPress behind. 

The WordPress info and statistics above present us why that’s the case. WordPress provides its customers an enormous quantity of freedom, flexibility, and energy to construct something they’ll think about. There’s nothing else in the marketplace that may examine.