One thing that I have noticed in the last few years is that my hosting packages have started approaching their Disk Space and Inode limits. Even packages that contain just a few small WordPress websites, for some reason these keep on growing in resource usage, even if there’s no new content and very low traffic.

Back in September 2018 I thought I found my culprit, something that I wrote about in my clickbait-ey article WordPress Image Sizes: a Ticking Time BOMB?.

WordPress got big and continues getting bigger

Have you ever wondered by how much WordPress has actually changed in the last 10 years? What’s the difference between WordPress 3.0 and WordPress 5.0? That’s exactly what I decided to look at.

Package Size of Major WordPress Versions

In the last 10 years, WordPress has grown from 5.38 MB and 603 files to 38.0 MB and 1,713 files. It has grown in size by over 600% and has tripled the number of bundled files.

WordPress version Release Date Folder size Total files 2.7 December 10, 2008 5.38 MB 603 Files in 76 Folders 2.8 June 11, 2009 6.83 MB 726 Files in 81 Folders 2.9 December 18, 2009 7.29 MB 753 Files in 82 Folders 3.0 June 17, 2010 7.92 MB 756 Files in 79 Folders 3.1 February 23, 2011 8.23 MB 835 Files in 83 Folders 3.2 July 4, 2011 9.36 MB 947 Files in 97 Folders 3.3 December 12, 2011 9.96 MB 936 Files in 97 Folders 3.4 June 13, 2012 11.0 MB 981 Files in 96 Folders 3.5 December 11, 2012 11.8 MB 1,025 Files in 109 Folders 3.6 August 1, 2013 11.9 MB 1,057 Files in 111 Folders 3.7 October 24, 2013 13.0 MB 1,061 Files in 112 Folders 3.8 December 12, 2013 15.9 MB 1,162 Files in 130 Folders 3.9 April 16, 2014 16.1 MB 1,137 Files in 115 Folders 4.0 September 4, 2014 16.8 MB 1,156 Files in 119 Folders 4.1 December 18, 2014 17.4 MB 1,168 Files in 119 Folders 4.2 April 23, 2015 17.9 MB 1,195 Files in 120 Folders 4.3 August 18, 2015 18.7 MB 1,210 Files in 120 Folders 4.4 December 8, 2015 19.8 MB 1,299 Files in 123 Folders 4.5 April 12, 2016 20.8 MB 1,349 Files in 123 Folders 4.6 August 16, 2016 21.5 MB 1,432 Files in 131 Folders 4.7 December 6, 2016 22.2 MB 1,480 Files in 138 Folders 4.8 June 8, 2017 22.7 MB 1,487 Files in 138 Folders 4.9 November 16, 2017 26.8 MB 1,542 Files in 141 Folders 5.0 December 6, 2018 36.8 MB 1,709 Files in 173 Folders 5.1 February 21, 2019 38.0 MB 1,713 Files in 173 Folders 5.2 May 7, 2019 40.6 MB 1,835 Files in 193 Folders 5.3 November 12, 2019 42.5 MB 1,922 Files in 204 Folders 5.4 March 31, 2020 43.4 MB 1,903 Files in 206 Folders 5.5 August 11, 2020 45.5 MB 1,980 Files in 249 Folders

Package Size of Popular WordPress Plugins

The WordPress dashboard does not show a lot of data about the plugins that we can so easily install. It will only show the current version and the developer of a plugin. But have you looked at the amount of files that we so easily put on our web servers?

Here’s a mockup of what it could look like, which would maybe convince users to really think about the dozens of plugins that they casually install on their websites.

Jetpack alone is close to 20 MB in size and has almost as many files as WordPress itself – 1,467 files.

The very popular The Events Calendar plugin is even more ridiculous – 58.2 MB in 1,992 files. Imagine – something bigger than WordPress itself is there just to add a page with upcoming events. It is installed on more than 700,000 websites and uses more than 40 TERABYTES of data in 1.3 BILLION files (1,394,400,000). All this data is stored and is constantly powered across tens of thousands of servers.

WordPress Plugin Plugin Version Folder size Total files Advanced Custom Fields 5.7.12 6.53 MB 230 Files in 23 Folders Akismet Anti-Spam 4.1.1 222 KB 20 Files in 3 Folders All In One SEO Pack 2.12 1.46 MB 114 Files in 16 Folders Contact Form 7 5.1.1 515 KB 79 Files in 16 Folders Elementor 2.5.14 7.73 MB 388 Files in 99 Folders Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights 7.5.1 3.37 MB 166 Files in 32 Folders Insert Headers and Footers 1.4.3 21.9 KB 6 Files in 2 Folders Jetpack by WordPress.com 7.2.1 19.4 MB 1,467 Files in 281 Folders Limit Login Attempts 1.7.1 331 KB 40 Files in 0 Folders Loco Translate 2.2.2 1.19 MB 259 Files in 55 Folders Mailchimp for WordPress 4.5.1 5.97 MB 257 Files in 39 Folders Ninja Forms 3.4.10 18.9 MB 923 Files in 110 Folders Page Builder by SiteOrigin 2.10.5 1.19 MB 147 Files in 47 Folders Really Simple CAPTCHA 2.0.1 2.08 MB 16 Files in 2 Folders Shortcodes Ultimate 5.3.0 4.16 MB 279 Files in 36 Folders Smush Image Compression and Optimization 3.2.0.1 5.56 MB 213 Files in 41 Folders TablePress 1.9.2 1.01 MB 145 Files in 14 Folders The Events Calendar 4.9.0 58.2 MB 1,992 Files in 422 Folders UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin 1.16.12 22.7 MB 1,365 Files in 208 Folders W3 Total Cache 0.9.7.3 6.96 MB 943 Files in 78 Folders Wordfence Security – Firewall & Malware Scan 7.2.5 11.1 MB 546 Files in 89 Folders WP GDPR Compliance 1.5.0 816 KB 38 Files in 12 Folders WP Maintenance Mode 2.2.3 6.24 MB 119 Files in 11 Folders WP Super Cache 1.6.4 2.80 MB 60 Files in 3 Folders WP-Optimize 2.3.3 2.20 MB 161 Files in 29 Folders Contact Form by WPForms 1.5.2.2 5.65 MB 243 Files in 41 Folders Yoast SEO 11.0 13.1 MB 975 Files in 143 Folders

Package Size of Popular WordPress Themes

I have looked only at some of the most popular free WordPress themes in the official WordPress.org theme repository. Even here some themes have a worrying size.

What’s the situation with premium themes like Avada and Divi? Can anyone share the data in the comments section below?

WordPress Theme Theme Version Folder size Total files Ashe 1.8.2 5.41 MB 98 Files in 26 Folders Astra 1.8.2 3.46 MB 359 Files in 93 Folders Customizr 4.1.37 18.6 MB 594 Files in 113 Folders Foodica 1.0.9 699 KB 52 Files in 14 Folders GeneratePress 2.2.2 1.91 MB 98 Files in 11 Folders Hestia 2.4.4 8.63 MB 357 Files in 104 Folders Kale 2.4.2 4.42 MB 94 Files in 15 Folders Mesmerize 1.6.81 6.92 MB 424 Files in 60 Folders Neve 2.3.6 8.83 MB 447 Files in 110 Folders OceanWP 1.6.7 9.55 MB 541 Files in 95 Folders OnePress 2.2.4 4.46 MB 154 Files in 13 Folders Primer 1.8.6 1.74 MB 137 Files in 18 Folders Shop Isle 1.1.53 4.46 MB 205 Files in 46 Folders Storefront 2.4.5 3.34 MB 159 Files in 31 Folders Sydney 1.54 3.36 MB 115 Files in 20 Folders Zerif Lite 1.8.5.48 5.40 MB 448 Files in 69 Folders

The Size of a Simple WordPress Website

If a regular WordPress user installs just a few of the most popular plugins (Advanced Custom Fields, Akismet, Contact Form 7, Cookie Notice, Jetpack Really Simple Captcha, Wordfence, Yoast SEO and WP Super Cache), then that’s a total of 55.9MB in 3,393 files and 568 folders. This is of course without all the data that is stored in the database.

If you add that to a clean installation of WordPress 5.1, a popular free theme like Hestia, then just your website’s files without the database will reach ~102 megabytes, 5,463 files and 845 folders.

Currently WordPress powers over 60 million websites, that is an estimated ~33% of the Internet. Some of these websites are large websites with tens of thousands of content pages. But a vast majority of WordPress websites are run by regular people and small businesses, many of them with probably less than 20 pages of content.

Now imagine that these millions of WordPress websites rely on thousands upon thousands of files, hundreds of megabytes worth of scripts and libraries, just to output a few hundred of cached kilobytes of “Hello World” content.

WordPress Websites and the Environment

In a 2012 paper by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy it was presented that 5.12 kWh of electricity is spent per gigabyte of data:

Our major finding is that the Internet uses an average of about 5 kWh to support the utilization of every GB of data, which equates to about $0.51 of energy costs. Only 38% of those costs are borne by the end-user, while the remaining costs are thinly spread over the global Internet through which the data travels; in switches, routers, signal repeaters, servers, and data centers. This creates a societal “tragedy of the commons”, where end users have little incentive to consider the other 62% of costs and associated resources.

If we were to transform these values into CO2 emissions, then according to CarbonFund.org, on average, electricity sources emit 1.222 lbs (0.55 kg) CO2 per kWh. The same amount of CO2 emissions come from burning of 0.773 lbs (0.35 kg) of coal, by charging 90 smartphones or by driving 1.7 miles (2.73 km) an average passenger vehicle.

Having said that, do you think that WordPress websites are good for the environment? Is it worth keeping 100+ MB worth of CMS files just to output a few content pages, pages that we end up transforming into cached, static files?

But what is there to do?

Please understand that I’m not criticizing WordPress as a whole. I simply want to point out that WordPress has grown so big in all these years, that it is no longer a sane choice for building simple landing websites, one-page websites and other types of small-scale websites.

You don’t buy a car just to cross the street every day. You don’t use a blowtorch to light a match. There are appropriate tools for all tasks, and WordPress is no longer suitable for the most basic of websites.

It doesn’t matter if you believe in climate change and man-made global warming, this is not just about that. I’m talking about professional efficiency, pride and laziness.

Or maybe we simply went insane.