WordPress statistics paint a remarkable picture – a single platform powers 43.4% of all websites on the internet. This figure shocked me at first, and it might surprise you too. The numbers translate to roughly 564 million WordPress-powered websites worldwide, and this count keeps growing year after year.
The platform's dominance becomes clearer in the content management system (CMS) space. WordPress holds an impressive 60.8% of the CMS market, leaving its competitors far behind.
On top of that, it has expanded well beyond basic blogs and websites. Through WooCommerce, WordPress now controls 33.85% of the e-commerce platform market. These numbers show why businesses keep choosing this platform to build their online presence.
In this piece, I'll walk you through the latest WordPress usage statistics for 2025. You'll learn what these numbers mean and how they might affect your decisions about building or moving your website. These insights will help you understand today's web landscape, whether you're an experienced developer or just starting your digital venture.
Wordpress Statistics: How many websites use WordPress in 2025?
WordPress powers 43.4% to 43.6% of all websites on the internet. This remarkable achievement translates to roughly 564 million active websites worldwide running on this platform. The numbers become even more impressive when looking at content management systems (CMS), where WordPress commands a 61.4% to 62.5% market share.
Latest WordPress usage statistics
WordPress growth tells an amazing success story. The platform powered just 13.1% of all websites in 2011. This number grew to 27.3% by 2017, and now stands at over 43% in 2025.
These figures show more than 27% growth in the last decade.
WordPress remains the world's fastest-growing CMS. 500 new websites within the top 10 million sites worldwide choose WordPress every day. The platform speaks more than 60 different languages and serves users in 178+ countries.
The United States leads WordPress adoption with about 9 million websites. Russia follows with 550K sites, then the United Kingdom with 380K, and India with 275K. American users maintain 3.77 million active WordPress sites, keeping the US at the top.
How WordPress compares to other platforms
WordPress dominates its competitors by a wide margin. Here's the CMS market breakdown in 2025:
- WordPress: 61.4-62.5%
- Shopify: 6.5-6.7%
- Wix: 4.4-5.6%
- Squarespace: 3.1-3.3%
- Joomla: 1.5-2.2%
- Drupal: 0.8-1.3%
- Others: 15.8%
Competitors show some growth – Wix increased from 2.6% to 3.3% last year. Yet, they remain far behind WordPress. Shopify, the closest competitor, runs only 4.6-4.8% of all websites, roughly one-tenth of WordPress's share.
Time tells an even more compelling story. WordPress powered 21% of CMS-based websites in 2014. Meanwhile, Joomla and Drupal's combined market share dropped from 14.8% in 2014 to 3.3% in 2025.
What this means for website owners
These numbers bring good news to website owners. WordPress's massive adoption creates a robust support ecosystem. The global community includes over 20,000 contributors, making solutions and resources easily accessible.
WordPress's popularity has created an extensive collection of themes and plugins. Users can choose from 73,000 free plugins and themes. The platform saw 7,670 new plugin submissions in 2025, showing an 87% increase from the previous year.
WordPress keeps growing and innovating. Major organizations trust it with their online presence – The New York Times, Spotify, TechCrunch, and The White House all run on WordPress. This adoption by enterprise-level organizations proves WordPress can handle everything from small blogs to high-traffic, mission-critical websites.
Website developers should note that WordPress stands as the mainstream choice. The platform offers the largest developer community, extensive resources, and strong support. Simple website builders might offer easier interfaces, but WordPress remains the top choice for balancing flexibility, functionality, and future-proof features.
WordPress market share and CMS dominance
WordPress continues to rule the content management system (CMS) landscape in 2025. The platform commands 61.4% to 62.5% of the entire CMS market. This remarkable position didn't happen overnight. WordPress has grown steadily over a decade and now serves as the foundation that much of the web runs on.
Global CMS market share breakdown
WordPress powers 43.4% to 43.6% of all websites on the internet. This includes sites without a CMS or those using custom-coded solutions. The numbers become even more impressive since about 70-71% of websites use a content management system, and WordPress claims the biggest piece of this pie.
The gap between WordPress and other platforms tells an interesting story:
|
CMS Platform |
CMS Market Share |
% of All Websites |
|
WordPress |
61.4-62.5% |
43.4-43.6% |
|
Shopify |
6.5-6.7% |
4.6-4.8% |
|
Wix |
4.2-5.3% |
3.2-3.8% |
|
Squarespace |
3.1-3.3% |
2.2-2.4% |
|
Joomla |
2.1-2.5% |
1.5-1.6% |
|
Drupal |
1.2-1.8% |
0.8-0.9% |
WordPress has managed to keep this strong lead since 2014, when it already held about 60% of the CMS market. Websites without a CMS dropped by 8% between 2024 and May 2025. This suggests more sites are moving toward structured content management platforms.
Comparison with Shopify, Wix, and Squarespace
WordPress stands as the clear market leader, but its competitors have shown impressive growth. Shopify focuses on e-commerce and holds second place with 6.5-6.7% of the CMS market. The platform grew from just 0.3% in 2014 to its current position.
Wix showed the most dramatic growth. Its market share jumped from 0.2% in 2014 to 4.2-5.3% today. This represents over 1,600% growth in the last decade. Between May 2024 and May 2025, Wix's market share grew by 35.9%.
Squarespace has grown steadily and now holds 3.1-3.3% of the CMS market. The platform appeals to users who want design-focused, easy-to-maintain solutions. Its share grew 10% from 2024 to 2025.
Traditional open-source platforms like Joomla and Drupal have lost ground. These platforms held 14.8% of the market in 2014 but now represent just 3.3%. Joomla's share fell from 10.9% in 2011 to 2.4% by 2025.
Why WordPress guides the CMS space
WordPress stays on top through several key advantages. The platform's open-source nature makes it cost-effective. Users only pay for hosting and a domain name, unlike Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify's subscription models.
The platform offers unique flexibility and customization options. Thousands of themes and plugins let WordPress adapt to any need, from simple blogs to complex e-commerce sites and enterprise platforms. Major brands like Etsy, CNN, and Microsoft use WordPress for their websites.
WordPress also benefits from its huge community support and constant growth. The WordPress ecosystem, supported by over half a billion websites, keeps creating breakthroughs that leave competitors like Wix, Squarespace, and WebFlow behind.
Business owners and marketers find WordPress strikes the perfect balance between power and ease of use. It offers enterprise-level features with a user-friendly interface that marketing teams can use effectively. Users who want long-term flexibility over initial simplicity will find WordPress gives them complete control of their digital content without getting locked into proprietary platforms.
Historical growth of WordPress over the years
WordPress started as a simple blogging tool in 2003. Today it stands as the world's most influential content management system. The platform's growth tells one of the most fascinating success stories in web development. Its market share grew from a tiny 0.8% almost two decades ago to a commanding 43.4% of all websites.
From 2003 to 2025: A timeline
Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little created WordPress on May 27, 2003. These developers took a discontinued blogging platform called b2/cafelog and gave it new life. They released the first official version that same day. The real breakthrough came with WordPress 1.2 "Mingus" in May 2004, which brought the revolutionary plugin architecture.
WordPress kept growing and adding new features:
- 2005: Version 1.5 "Strayhorn" added themes and pages that pushed WordPress beyond just blogging
- 2010: Version 3.0 "Thelonious" became a full-fledged CMS with custom post types
- 2013: Version 3.7 "Basie" brought automatic updates for maintenance and security
- 2018: Version 5.0 "Bebo" launched the Gutenberg block editor that changed how users create content
The numbers tell an impressive story. WordPress powered 13.1% of all websites in 2011. This number jumped to 27.3% by 2017, then reached 35.4% in 2020. Now in 2025, WordPress manages to keep its 43.4-43.6% market share.
Key milestones in WordPress adoption
The year 2021 marked a crucial moment when WordPress became the most popular way to build websites. Hand-coding websites ruled before this point. Another big moment came in 2014 when non-English downloads surpassed English ones, showing WordPress's global reach.
The platform grows steadily by about 12% each year since 2011. WordPress's share in the CMS market rose from 58.8% to 63.7% between 2016 and 2025.
Some notable achievements include:
- 2004: Downloads jumped from 8,670 in April to 19,400 in May
- 2005: Version 1.5 hit more than 900,000 downloads
- 2015: The Plugin Directory crossed one billion total downloads
- 2023: WordPress turned 20, powering 43.1% of the top 10 million websites
WordPress leads the competition by a wide margin. It held 54.8% of the CMS market share in 2013 and grew stronger since then. Joomla and Drupal used to be the closest rivals with about 17% market share ten years ago. Now they make up less than 5% combined.
Decline of non-CMS websites
The sort of thing I love about WordPress's growth is how it relates to the decline of websites without content management systems. Hand-coded websites made up 76% of all sites in 2011. This number dropped to 64.8% by 2014.
The decline continues steadily. January 2013 showed 68.2% of websites running without a recognized CMS. This number fell to just 28.6% by September 2025. This is a big deal as it means that structured content management systems have taken over.
A historic shift happened in 2021. WordPress-powered sites outnumbered non-CMS websites for the first time. Today, only 28.7% of websites run without a CMS, while WordPress holds 43.3% of the market.
This steady drop in non-CMS websites shows how WordPress altered the map of web development. Content management systems have become the new standard for creating websites.
Themes and plugins: The backbone of WordPress
WordPress dominates the market thanks to its remarkable ecosystem of themes and plugins. The versatility of WordPress stems from over 65,000 plugins and tens of thousands of themes. This creates endless customization options for website owners worldwide.
Total number of themes and plugins available
The WordPress ecosystem features a remarkable collection of themes. Over 13,000 free themes exist in the WordPress.org directory and approximately 12,000 paid themes on ThemeForest. Independent theme shops add thousands more, which brings the total
WordPress themes to more than 30,000. This selection has grown significantly. The theme collection is now 9 times larger than it was in 2010.
The WordPress.org directory now hosts more than 59,000 free plugins. When you add premium offerings and third-party marketplaces, the total number of plugins exceeds 70,000. The plugin ecosystem has grown 6x since 2010, jumping from 9,600 to over 60,000. This shows how the platform continues to expand its capabilities.
Most popular themes in 2025
BuiltWith.com data from the top 1 million websites shows these are the most used WordPress themes in 2025:
|
Theme |
Number of Websites |
Market Share |
|
Hello Elementor |
18,366 |
1.84% |
|
Astra |
12,417 |
1.24% |
|
Divi |
11,327 |
1.13% |
|
GeneratePress |
8,786 |
0.88% |
|
Newspaper |
5,164 |
0.52% |
Note that these top five themes make up only about 25% of tracked WordPress sites. This highlights how diverse theme usage is across the WordPress ecosystem.
Top plugins by active installations
Several plugins stand out in WordPress's directory with exceptional adoption rates. Here are the plugins with over 10 million active installations:
Elementor: 10+ million installations Contact Form 7: 10+ million installations Yoast SEO: 10+ million installations Classic Editor: 9-10+ million installations
Popular plugins also include WooCommerce (7-8+ million), LiteSpeed Cache (6-7+ million), Akismet (6+ million), and WPForms (6+ million). These plugins help with essential website functions from content editing to SEO optimization.
How the ecosystem supports flexibility
WordPress's strong theme and plugin ecosystem offers unique versatility. Users can build any type of website they want – from blogs and portfolios to complex e-commerce operations and enterprise platforms.
WooCommerce now runs on one-fifth of all WordPress websites. This makes WordPress a leader in both content management and e-commerce. A March 2025 report shows that WooCommerce powers about one-third of all tracked online stores.
The ecosystem thrives because of its openness and community support. WordPress's open-source nature lets developers worldwide create themes and plugins for specific needs.
This shared approach has created solutions for almost every website requirement – from analytics and marketing technology integrations to specialized industry tools.
Website owners can create exactly what they want while staying budget-friendly. Many quality themes and plugins are free, which makes website creation possible on almost any budget.
WooCommerce and the rise of WordPress eCommerce
WordPress has grown beyond content management and become a major e-commerce player through WooCommerce. This powerful plugin turns regular WordPress sites into complete online stores. Right now, it powers about 35% of ALL online stores globally.
WooCommerce usage statistics
The numbers tell an impressive story – WooCommerce now runs more than 5.8 million active e-commerce stores worldwide. About one-fifth of all WordPress websites use WooCommerce.
The plugin boasts 8 million active installations and users have downloaded it more than 329+ million times.
WooCommerce keeps growing steadily. Store Leads' March 2025 report shows that WooCommerce runs about a third of 13.59 million tracked live stores. These numbers mean WooCommerce now powers 9.2% of the entire internet. No other WordPress e-commerce solution comes close.
Comparison with Shopify and other eCommerce platforms
WooCommerce's market share varies based on website popularity:
|
Website Category |
WooCommerce |
Shopify |
|
Entire Internet |
17% |
28% |
|
Top Million Sites |
14% |
24% |
|
Top 100k Sites |
8% |
20% |
|
Top 10k Sites |
5% |
19% |
BuiltWith data reveals that WooCommerce represents 13% of sites using e-commerce technologies among the top million websites. The platform's market share grows significantly for medium and high-traffic websites.
Why WooCommerce is a preferred choice
Several key benefits drive WooCommerce's popularity. The platform is free to use, making it available to businesses of any size without licensing costs. This sets it apart from platforms like Shopify that require ongoing subscription fees.
Users get limitless customization thanks to WooCommerce's open-source nature. Store owners have total control and can modify code as needed. The platform's ecosystem includes over 1,200 official extensions that support almost any e-commerce need.
WooCommerce shines in SEO too. The platform builds on WordPress's SEO-friendly foundation and makes product page optimization easier than other platforms. Many merchants choose WooCommerce because it offers adaptable solutions and complete ownership of their stores.
Geographic and language spread of WordPress
WordPress has revolutionized the digital world well beyond North America. The platform's reach now extends to numerous continents and languages. Recent statistics show a fascinating trend – non-English WordPress installations now exceed English ones.
Top countries using WordPress
Each region shows unique patterns in WordPress adoption. The United States leads the pack with 3,325,051 sites, which makes up 10.92% of all active WordPress installations. Other major users include:
- Germany: 1,463,149 sites (4.8% of all WordPress sites)
- United Kingdom: 1,084,957 sites
- Brazil: 858,293 sites
- France: 847,213 sites
Japan stands out as a remarkable case. WordPress powers 58.5% of all Japanese websites and dominates 83% of the CMS market share – this is a big deal as it means that it's way above global averages. Google Trends reveals another interesting pattern – the highest interest in WordPress comes from Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Kenya.
WordPress in non-English languages
WordPress started as an English-only platform but now supports 208 locales. The platform's user base has evolved, and non-English WordPress installations now surpass English ones. This marks a major transformation in the platform's language distribution.
The language evolution continues to grow. The year 2014 marked a milestone when non-English downloads surpassed English downloads. Today, English content makes up 71% of WordPress.com blogs, with Spanish and Indonesian following at 4.7% and 2.4% respectively.
Localization and global community support
WordPress's resilient infrastructure includes a thriving community support network. The platform now boasts 748 Meetup groups with 515,745 members spread across 108 countries. These local communities organize various events from presentations to workshops and contributor sprints.
The translation project makes WordPress accessible to more people. Many languages have achieved 100% translation status for core components. Dutch, Romanian, Spanish, and Korean maintain perfect or near-perfect translation rates for most WordPress components.
Real-life success stories prove the value of this global approach. Companies that create multilingual WordPress sites see impressive traffic gains. Kinsta experienced an 18% growth after translating into 10 languages. SEO expert Neil Patel's blog saw an amazing 47% traffic increase after translation into 82 languages.
Conclusion
The latest WordPress statistics reveal an amazing story of platform dominance in 2025. WordPress powers 43.4% of all websites and holds 61.4% of the CMS market. These numbers amazed me when I first saw them, and they should make website owners rethink their platform choices.
What started as a simple blogging tool in 2003 now runs more than half a billion websites. This shows how adaptable WordPress has become. The open-source nature of WordPress has created an ecosystem with 70,000+ plugins and 30,000+ themes. Users now have unlimited flexibility without getting stuck with proprietary platforms.
Shopify and Wix have grown impressively but remain nowhere near WordPress's market share. WooCommerce has turned WordPress into an e-commerce giant that runs about 35% of online stores worldwide.
Non-CMS websites make up just 28.6% of all sites now. This shows how WordPress has changed the way people build websites. Website owners now have user-friendly tools that don't compromise on features.
WordPress speaks to users in 208 languages and has strong communities around the world. This global reach and active local support keep driving new features and improvements.
These statistics deserve your attention before you pick a platform. WordPress gives you the right mix of flexibility, support, and room to grow – no matter your business size. You might want a basic blog or a complex online store. Either way, these numbers show that WordPress remains your best choice to build your online presence in 2025.
FAQs
Q1. How popular is WordPress in 2025?
WordPress powers 43.4% of all websites on the internet, which translates to approximately 564 million active websites worldwide. It dominates the content management system (CMS) market with a 61.4% share.
Q2. What advantages does WordPress offer over its competitors?
WordPress provides unparalleled flexibility through its vast ecosystem of over 70,000 plugins and 30,000 themes. It's open-source, cost-effective, and offers complete ownership of digital content without locking users into proprietary platforms.
Q3. How has WordPress's market share changed over time?
WordPress has seen significant growth, from powering just 13.1% of all websites in 2011 to 43.4% in 2025. It has consistently increased its market share by approximately 12% year-over-year since 2011.
Q4. What role does WooCommerce play in WordPress's success?
WooCommerce, a WordPress plugin, powers approximately 35% of all online stores globally. It has over 5.8 million active e-commerce stores and has been integrated into about one-fifth of all WordPress websites.
Q5. How widespread is WordPress's global adoption?
WordPress is used across 178+ countries and supports 208 locales. The United States leads adoption with about 3.3 million sites, followed by Germany, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and France. Non-English WordPress installations now outnumber those in English.
