WordPress Market Share Statistics (2011-2024)
When you’re looking to create a website, you’re likely to encounter lots of talk about several content management systems, including WordPress. This may leave you wondering—just how much of the market share does WordPress dominate? And how does it compare to its various competitors?
Spoiler alert – the answers are that:
- WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system, so it’s about as popular as can be.
- WordPress dominates other markets, like ecommerce, so it’s definitely not just for blogging.
And to show you where those conclusions came from, we’ve collected some mind-boggling statistics about WordPress’ market share, as well as the market share of two of the most popular ecommerce plugins for WordPress – WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.
WordPress’ market share is 43.6% of all websites
WordPress powers 43.6% of all the websites on the Internet, including those without a content management system (CMS) or with a custom-coded CMS. Or, to put it another way, WordPress powers over one-third of the web! And if you limit the data set to only websites with a known CMS, WordPress’ market share becomes even more dominant.
In that case, WordPress holds a 62.1% market share for content management systems on websites with a known CMS. How does that compare to the market share of other popular content management systems? Let’s take a peek:
| % All Websites | % CMS Market | |
|---|---|---|
| WordPress | 43.6 | 62.1 |
| Shopify | 4.6 | 6.6 |
| Wix | 3.2 | 4.6 |
| Squarespace | 2.2 | 3.2 |
| Joomla | 1.6 | 2.3 |
| Drupal | 0.9 | 1.3 |
While much has been made of hosted website builder tools like Squarespace and Wix, the numbers show that WordPress isn’t in any danger of being dethroned any time soon! WordPress also holds a dominant position over Joomla, another popular self-hosted content management system, and Shopify, a widely used hosted ecommerce platform.
Is WordPress’ market share still growing?
Yes! WordPress’s market share has been growing pretty consistently since 2011. 2023 marked the first year since 2011 that WordPress market share dropped, but even then, it was only a slight drop of 0.1%,
At the start of 2017, WordPress powered 27.3% of all websites. By August 2024, WordPress had reached a market share of 43.5%.
How does that square up with years past? Here’s WordPress’ overall market share going all the way back to 2011:
| 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13.1% | 15.8% | 17.4% | 21.0% | 23.3% | 25.6% | 27.3% | 29.2% | 32.7% | 35.4% | 39.5% | 43.2% | 43.1% | 43.6% |
As you can see, WordPress has been consistently growing its market share (in overall market share numbers) over the past few years. And it shows no signs of slowing down. If this trend continues, it won’t be long until WordPress is powering one-half of all the websites on the Internet.
Over 900 companies contributed to WordPress core in 2023.
How does WordPress’ growth compare with other content management systems?
So WordPress is growing… but is it growing faster than the competition? That’s a trickier question to answer.
From 2023 to 2024:
- Shopify’s market share increased from 5.7% to 6.6%
- Wix’s market share increased from 3.6% to 4.6%
- Squarespace’s market share increased from 3.0% to 3.2%
- Joomla’s market share decreased from 2.7% to 2.3%
- Drupal’s market share decreased from 1.8% to 1.3%
These minor changes in market share reflect the growth of specialized platforms like Shopify and Wix, which cater to niche needs. However, for those looking for a versatile, powerful, and highly customizable platform, WordPress remains the top choice.
In 2024, WordPress continues to be the most popular content management system, powering over 43.5% of all websites. While the market saw a slight shift from 2023 to 2024, with WordPress’s share adjusting slightly, it’s essential to recognize that this is still a dominant position far ahead of competitors.
You can see these growth trends play themselves out in Google Trends, where Wix, Squarespace, and Joomla (and, to a lesser extent, WordPress) have declined or remained flat, while Shopify is generating increasing interest:
WooCommerce Market Share
Because WordPress originated in blogging, you might be surprised to realize how dominant WordPress is in other areas – notably, ecommerce.
WooCommerce, the most popular ecommerce plugin for WordPress, powers 17% of all the ecommerce sites on the Internet according to BuiltWith. While that number might not be very impressive, WooCommerce’s market share is actually greater if you filter out lower-traffic sites.
Of the Top 1 Million Sites on the Internet, WooCommerce is still a very popular solution.
How does WooCommerce’s market share compare to Shopify?
While WooCommerce is a market leader, Shopify is competitive and even leading in some categories. Here’s how WooCommerce’s market share compares to Shopify when you segment by website popularity:
| WooCommerce | Shopify | |
|---|---|---|
| Entire Internet | 17% | 28% |
| Top Million Sites | 14% | 24% |
| Top 100k Sites | 8% | 20% |
| Top 10k Sites | 5% | 19% |
When you look at only the Top 100k or Top 10k most popular websites on the Internet, Shopify is the market leader. But, it’s worth pointing out that only 36,094 websites in that Top 100k slice are running a known ecommerce platform, so the sample size is not very large. And in terms of the actual number of sites in the Top 10k Sites running each platform:
- 342 sites are using Shopify
- 97 sites are using WooCommerce
Easy Digital Downloads market share
While it’s not nearly as popular as WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads is still a small but noticeable player in the ecommerce industry.
According to BuiltWith, Easy Digital Downloads powers 0.07% of the BuiltWith Top Million (an estimate of the one million most popular websites on the Internet).
Here’s to the world’s most popular CMS
While the growth of hosted website builders like Squarespace, Wix, and Shopify is something to pay attention to, all the numbers add up to one conclusion: WordPress is, without a doubt, the world’s most popular way to build a website.
Are you ready to get started? We offer one-click WordPress installations so you can get up and running in no time.