WordPress market share.

WordPress, the leading CMS globally, powers over 38 million websites. This overview presents the latest market share stats, historical trends, main competitors, and popular plugins, highlighting its role in the CMS market. 📊

Key Findings

  • 43.5% of all websites use WordPress.
  • 63.1% of websites with a known CMS use WordPress.
  • Roughly 71.7% of all websites using WordPress are running on the latest Version 6.
  • 64 content management systems claim at least a 0.1% market share each.
  • Overall, 62 WordPress plugins have over 1 million active installations each.

WordPress Market Share

WordPress market share reached 43.5% across all websites in July 2023.

Among the websites with a known CMS (content management system), that percentage is 63.1%.

Is WordPress Market Share Growing or Slowing?

The growth of WordPress’ market share is quite impressive 🔥. Here at Themeisle, we’ve been tracking this growth for the past six years. Here’s how WordPress market share changed in this time:

Between 2012 and 2023, WordPress market share among websites with known content management systems grew from 54.3% to 63.7%.

Despite its dominant position during all of the years with available data, WordPress growth slightly declined to 63.1% in July 2023, down from an all-time high of 65.2% in January 2022.

👉 Here’s a complete overview of WordPress CMS market share since 2012:

WordPress Competitors Market Share

Recent CMS market share statistics show that 64 content management systems claim at least a 0.1% market share each in the global market.

Despite the vast choice of CMSes available, only Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, and WordPress achieved a market share greater than 3.0% individually (claiming roughly 75.5% of the market).

👉 Here’s a complete list of WordPress competitors (excluding software applications with less than 0.1% market share in the CMS category):

How has the market share of the top five WordPress competitors changed over time?

  • Looking at the top five WordPress competitors’ market share, Shopify grew its usage share by 5.5% since 2014 (from 0.3% to 5.8%), more than any other WordPress alternative.
  • Both Wix and Squarespace saw market share growth over the past years, reaching 3.6% and 3.0% in July 2023, respectively.
  • Despite Joomla and Drupal claiming collectively 14.8% of the CMS market back in January 2014 – the heyday of Joomla’s popularity, these systems lost in popularity over past years (totaling only 4.5% of the market share in July 2023).

👉 Here’s how the market share of the leading content management systems (excluding WordPress) has evolved since 2014:

WordPress Version Market Share

Roughly 71.7% of all websites using WordPress are running on the latest Version 6 (initially released in May 2022), followed by Version 5 (22.1%) and Version 4 (5.7%).

👉 Here’s a complete breakdown of the WordPress version market share as of July 2023:

WordPress Plugins Market Share

Out of roughly 59,650 free plugins available in the WordPress directory, 10 plugins have crossed a milestone of over 5 million active installations:

  • Contact Form 7
  • Elementor
  • Yoast SEO
  • Classic Editor
  • WooCommerce
  • Akismet
  • Contact Form by WPForms
  • All-in-One WP Migration
  • Really Simple SSL
  • Jetpack

Overall, 62 WordPress plugins have over 1 million active installations each. 🤸‍♂️

📋 WordPress plugins with more than 1M active installations

👉 Here’s a complete list of popular WordPress plugins (sorted by active installs count; over 1 million only):

PluginActive installs
Contact Form 7over 10 million
Elementor Website Builderover 10 million
Yoast SEOover 10 million
Classic Editorover 10 million
WooCommerceover 7 million
Akismet Anti-Spam: Spam Protectionover 6 million
Contact Form by WPFormsover 6 million
All-in-One WP Migrationover 5 million
Really Simple SSLover 4 million
Jetpackover 4 million
Wordfence Securityover 5 million
LiteSpeed Cacheover 6 million
Yoast Duplicate Postover 4 million
WordPress Importerover 3 million
UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Pluginover 3 million
Site Kit by Googleover 4 million
MonsterInsightsover 3 million
WP Mail SMTP by WPFormsover 3 million
All in One SEOover 3 million
Duplicate Pageover 3 million
Redirectionover 2 million
Advanced Editor Toolsover 2 million
Limit Login Attempts Reloadedover 2 million
MC4WP: Mailchimp for WordPressover 2 million
Advanced Custom Fields (ACF)over 2 million
Rank Math SEOover 3 million
Classic Widgetsover 2 million
WPCodeover 2 million
WP Super Cacheover 1 million
Essential Addons for Elementorover 2 million
Loco Translateover 1 million
Duplicatorover 1 million
Starter Templatesover 1 million
Elementor Header & Footer Builderover 2 million
SiteGround Optimizerover 1 million
Popup Builder by OptinMonsterover 1 million
XML Sitemap Generator for Googleover 1 million
Disable Commentsover 1 million
Smushover 1 million
WP Fastest Cacheover 1 million
Regenerate Thumbnailsover 1 million
WPS Hide Loginover 1 million
CookieYesover 1 million
Better Search Replaceover 1 million
ManageWP Workerover 1 million
Loginizerover 1 million
Autoptimizeover 1 million
Smash Balloon Social Photo Feedover 1 million
Custom Post Type UIover 1 million
Cookie Notice & Compliance for GDPR / CCPAover 1 million
W3 Total Cacheover 1 million
One Click Demo Importover 1 million
WP-Optimizeover 1 million
SVG Supportover 1 million
File Managerover 1 million
Redux Frameworkover 1 million
ElementsKit Elementor addonsover 1 million
WP Multibyte Patchover 1 million
All-In-One Security (AIOS)over 1 million
EWWW Image Optimizerover 1 million
Envato Elementsover 1 million

FAQ – Why is WordPress so popular?

How many websites use WordPress?

Roughly 38.54 million currently active websites using WordPress.

How many websites use WordPress VIP?

Around 864 active websites using WordPress VIP (enterprise version of the leading CMS).

How many WordPress plugins are there?

Around 59,650 free plugins are available to download from the WordPress plugin directory as of July 2023 (that’s up from 55,661 plugins available in the directory back in July 2018).

How many WordPress themes are there?

WordPress theme directory had about 12,200 free WordPress themes available to install in July 2023 (representing a 44.68% 3-year increase with 7,647 available themes in July 2020).

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