WordPress handles all-things website building and hosting, from personal blogs, information sites, small business content, and big business companies.

WordPress is the most well-known open-source software that is the most popular Content Management System (CMS) on the planet. It also continues to grow in its reach and usage by individuals, notable celebrities and leaders, and big companies all over the world.

So to dive deeper into this amazing platform, here are some astounding WordPress statistics that any online user can benefit from!

WordPress Statistics 2020 (All you need to know!)

Want a quick glimpse of WordPress? Well, below are some key statistics that we have curated that give a quick overview of WordPress, its growth, users and history.

• WordPress receives over 175 million page views per month.

• Each month, the keyword ‘WordPress’ is searched around 2,740,000 times.

• There have been so far 98 versions of WordPress released.

• Established in 2003, it has now been hosting sites for 16 years.

• WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg apparently got the name for WordPress from his friend Christine Select Tremoulet.

• WordPress is also used educational institutions and governments, along with publications, bloggers and other businesses.

• In 2014, the ability to use WordPress was the most requested job skill globally.

• 25% of users are making a full-time living off WordPress sites.

• WordPress is the most hacked CMS of all time by malicious programs and individuals.

• WordPress.com and WordPress.org are very different platforms, with the key differences being about functionality and the different free ad paid plan offerings.

Different WordPress Versions Over Time

As with any technology, especially with a live online presence, the need to update and create new software and functionality for users is necessary to stay relevant. WordPress updates their versions regularly.

• WordPress was established on the online word in May 2003 by its founders Mike Little and Matt Mullenweg.

• There have been 35 major versions of WordPress released since it’s beginning, with many more upgrades in between the core releases.

• Every core update of WordPress is named after a famous Jazz musician. The WordPress developers apparently had a common love for Jazz music.

• The current version running, Version 5.1, or ‘Betty’, is named after the jazz vocalist Betty Carter.

• This version was released in February 2019.

• WordPress 5.1 Betty has been downloaded over 20 million times, and the number continues to rise.

• A major release of WordPress upgrades happen on average every 4 months.

• With less than 1/3 of WordPress installations updated to the current version, it takes quite some time for people to upgrade their sites.

• Around 25% of WordPress sites are currently running the latest version of WordPress.

• WordPress statistics state that the downloads for the sites mostly happen on Wednesday, and on Friday they happen the least.

WordPress Market Share

WordPress is currently the most popular and used Content Management System (CMS) in the world, and continues to grow in reach and popularity among businesses and individuals.

• WordPress enjoys 59% of the market share, more than Drupal, Joomla and other CMS’s combined.

• The second most popular CMS is far behind WordPress, with just 6% of the market share.

• WordPress statistics reveal that this CMS is nearly 12 times more popular than Drupal for users in India.

• For 7 consecutive years, WordPress has been the top of the global CMS market.

• 27% of all of the internet’s active websites are powered by WordPress.

• It’s estimated of the 172 million active sites on the internet, WordPress is the CMS for 75 million.

• 20% of all self-hosted websites are using WordPress.

• WordPress sites get more unique visitors per month than Amazon.

• WordPress sites are said to be on par with the amount of unique monthly visitors as Facebook.

• The update of WordPress 4.7 – this version called ‘Vaughn’, has been downloaded more than 19,700,000 times. This is the download rate, rather than the active usage of live sites with this version.

• WordPress has made it possible to have thousands of jobs created all over the world with the communities using the sites for their businesses. Freelancing websites will have a large percentage of their open jobs linked to sites using WordPress CMS.

Top Websites Built on WordPress

WordPress sites are used by people all around the world from many different contexts. From the casual individual personal blogger to large corporations, WordPress even hosts some significant companies and people you will recognize.

• Of the top 100 websites globally, WordPress has 14.7% of them running with their CMS.

• The following well-known and successful companies use WordPress as their site’s CMS: CNN, NBC, TechCrunch, TED, CBS Radio, UPS, People Magazine, The NFL.

• Including the above names mentioned, WordPress hosts many of the Fortune 500 companies sites.

• There are also celebrity WordPress users, including Sylvester Stalone, Kobe Bryant, Beyoncé, and Russell Brand.

• Of the most popular 100 blogs in the world, WordPress hosts 8% of them.

• Of the top 10 thousand websites on the internet, WordPress is hosting close to 3000.

• Of the top 100 thousand websites in the world, WordPress is hosting almost 23,000.

• Of the top 1 million websites on the internet, WordPress is hosting close to 300,000.

WordPress Growth

The growth of WordPress since it’s inception has always been steadily rising to the top of the market of CMS sites. It continues to be the leader, and projections suggest that WordPress will remain the top CMS hosting software for a long time.

• There are around 500+ new websites being built on WordPress daily, making it the fastest growing CMS site.

• WordCamp has been one way that WordPress has grown in its global reach and engagement. These are community-organized conferences that focus on all things WordPress. Users and developers professional and casual share ideas, participate and engage in learning about this CMS.

• WordPress statistics share that there are around 635 WordCamps around the globe in almost 70 cities.

• WordCamps happen mainly in South Africa, Italy, Ireland, Spain, Austria, Portugal, Canada, and the USA.

• WordPress is available in more than 50 languages and has translations available for more than 160 languages.

• The current version of WordPress features 52 different languages, including the most spoken in the world, such as Spanish, German, Chinese, and more.

• The English language is still the top used and translated to language on WordPress, with 71% o the blogs being in English.

• From 2004 to 2019, Google Trends reported that WordPress related keywords in search engine queries have raked higher than any other CMS in that time.

• On average, core updates of WordPress are released around every 152 days. Constant advancement in technology and interaction frequency and quantity means that the CMS must continue to update to handle the growth.

WordPress Blogging Statistics

When it comes to online blogging, WordPress is the leader. As it is accessible for individuals to create free blog sites and start sharing their work, the popularity is due to this fact, as well as how companies utilize blogs for marketing purposes. For more WordPress statistics based on how people engage with blogging and user interaction with posts, read on.

• Currently, there are around 76.5 million WordPress.com blog sites.

• 50,000 WordPress.com sites are launched each day.

• There are around 81.8 million new posts added to sites each month.

• There are almost 50 million new comments added to WordPress sites every month.

• There are around 24.7 million files uploaded to WordPress.com blogs every month.

• More than 70% of WordPress.com blogs are written in the English language.

• On WordPress.com sites, the most embedded services are Photobucket, YouTube, and Flickr.

• For blogs in general, current statistics state that companies who offer blog content will get 97% more links to their website from their blog.

• Once there are over 21 blogs posts, the traffic to the blog site will increase, in some cases by up to 30% more traffic.

• The most shared content online are blog posts.

• Though taking into account that posts are most shared, an average reader may only spend less than 40 seconds reading a blog post.

• This relates to the statistics that 73% of blog post readers are reported to simply ‘skim’ the writing, rather than thoroughly read.

WordPress E-commerce Statistics

E-commerce refers to the ability for hosters to offer products and services online to be consumed by global buyers. WordPress supports E-commerce to be utilized on small and large-scale sites, and the leader of the software is WooCommerce.

• The top five WordPress E-commerce software are WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads (EDD), WP eCommerce and Ecwid E-commerce Shopping Cart.

• WooCommerce is the most popular WordPress E-commerce software.

• WooCommerce runs more than 39% of all online stores. More than 1.5 million active online stores are WordPress WooCommerce sites.

• WooCommerce has 10% of the market share of the entire technology E-commerce market.

• WooCommerce has been downloaded more than 30 million times.

• WordPress WooCommerce sites can be customizable with additional extensions. There are over 400 WooCommerce additions such as subscription, payment processing, and shipping, to name a few.

• There are 296 extensions available on WooCommerce.com.

• At a rate of 13-15% per quarter, WooCommerce is growing faster than any other E-commerce site.

• When it comes to the top 10,000 sites in the world, WooCommerce isn’t in the top, however. Magenta is the leader in terms of this range of sites.

WordPress Themes and Plugins

There is a range of free and paid themes for WordPress users, which govern the design aspect of a website. Plugins are also additional WordPress features which can extend the functionality of the site and allow for customization.

• A custom build WordPress site can cost between $1,000 and $100,000. That’s a big range number, as WordPress supports small businesses to large corporations.

• Themes were introduced with the 1.5 version of WordPress back in 2005.

• Each year WordPress releases a new default theme which is depicted in the title to represent that year’s ‘core’ design. For example, this year is titled ‘2019.’

• Themes on WordPress started humbly, with most early themes of WordPress available were called ‘WordPress Classic’ and ‘Default.’

• The average price of a premium WordPress theme is $40 USD.

• Every month, there are around 2 million instances of switching themes for WordPress users.

• On the online WordPress theme collection called ThemeForest, there are over 11,000 themes to choose from.

• The most popular themes on WordPress take up 17% of the market share together. They are Divi, Avada, and Genesis.

• Of all WordPress themes on ThemeForest, 50% have made at least $1,000 USD in one month.

• Of all WordPress themes on ThemeForest, 5% have made at least $10,000 USD in one month.

• Of the 10 most popular themes on WordPress.org that are free, 4 of these came from developers that weren’t by WordPress.org or Automattic. These developers are Hestia, OceanWP, Sydney, and Mesmerize.

• Plugins on WordPress.org have received 1 billion downloads – and counting!

• In the official directory, there are 50,000+ WordPress plugins available, with daily additions always being made.

• 11 plugins on WordPress.org have received more than 7 million downloads. These most popular plugins are Google XML Sitemaps, Jetpack, WooCommerce, WordPress Importer, Contact Form 7, All in One SEO Pack, WordFence Security, Yoast SEO, NextGEN Gallery, WP Super Cache, and Google Analytics by Yoast.

• The most popular WordPress plugins that are considered ‘non-standard’ are WooCommerce, Contact Form 7, WordPress Importer and All in One SEO pack. They each have around 3 million active installations.

• Akismet, a spam filtering service, is the most popular plugin of all time, with more than 82 million total downloads.

WordPress Security

Security issues all over the internet are a big issue, as hacking software is becoming more intelligent and widespread. Since WordPress sites make up a big portion of the internet, it makes sense that WordPress sites are some of the most vulnerable to these attacks.

• WordPress is the most hacked CMS of all hosting software.

• In one instance of WordPress’s security breaching history, 18 million WordPress users were compromised.

• It’s estimated that close to 75% of the top 40,000 popular WordPress hosted websites are vulnerable to attack.

• Only 8% of WordPress websites will get hacked because of a weak password.

• Per minute, WordPress statistics state that there are over 90,978 attacks happening to WordPress sites.

• Almost 85% of all security vulnerabilities on the internet are from XSS attacks or Cross-Site Scripting.

• The top four common malware infections on WordPress are Backdoors, Pharma hacks, Drive-by downloads, and Malicious redirects.

• Apparently, over 50% of security vulnerabilities on WordPress sites relate to the WordPress plugins.

• The three top plugins that hackers infiltrate are Revslider, TimThumb and Gravity Forms.

• The security plugin that WordPress.org offers, ‘WPMU DEV’s Defender’ is free for download for anyone.

WordPress.com Versus WordPress.org Facts

These two versions of the software are very different. With WordPress.com, all of the site hosting and management is done for you. With WordPress.org, you are hosting your own site, you’ll download and manage your own web server functions.

• WordPress.org is the most popular version of the WordPress offering, as it is the free version that only requires a domain name and web hosting. It’s most often referred to as the ‘self-hosted WordPress.’

• WordPress.org gives you full freedom to customize and control your site. You can add free or paid WordPress themes and design elements in your own way.

• Custom tracking and analytics can also be used on these sites, with Google Analytics available.

• Online stores are also possible to create, with WordPress.org allowing for E-commerce plugins.

• Membership sites are possible to create as well, allowing the owner to build engagement through an online community.

• Web-hosting is where WordPress.org sites will cost you some money, but at a small amount of $3-$10 a month, it’s accessible.

• As the site becomes more popular, and traffic grows, the hosting will begin to cost more money.

• Updates and backups are the responsibility of the owner to do themselves.

• A low-budget WordPress.org site will cost less than $50 USD per year.

• WordPress.com, on the other hand, is a hosting service that co-founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg created.

• There are five different plans for users, ranging from a very limited free plan, up to a VIP plan that will cost $5000 per month.

• This option is valuable for bloggers in particular, as it lets you store a lot of information. More than 3GB of space will require a paid plan to support more space.

• The limitations of WordPress.com are that all free websites will have ads being shown to visitors.

• Free websites on WordPress.com also don’t allow for plugins and custom themes. Only Premium and Business plan users can select these options.

• E-commerce, membership, and Analytics also can’t be used on most WordPress.com sites.

• Perhaps due to these facts, it’s no surprise that WordPress.com sites get an average of 22 million page views per month, as the amount of self-hosted sites continue to grow.

If you want to create your very own WordPress site, the first thing you’ll want todo is find a reputable web host. To get started, you can see my web hosting comparison chart which has 8 of the top providers in the industry.

If you are after a recommendation, I would have to recommend BlueHost, to learn more, you can see my full BlueHost review and an accompanying BlueHost coupon discount guide on how to get the cheapest plan possible.

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