WordPress Market Share 2023: All You Need To Know

Note: This article was created in 2023. For more up-to-date information, head over to our WordPress market share statistics for 2024.

If you’re considering creating a website or online store, you’ve probably heard of WordPress. It’s the world’s most popular content management system (CMS).

But what sets WordPress apart from other website builders like Wix, Shopify and Squarespace? 

In this guide, we’ll dive into WordPress’s market share, explore WordPress statistics and explain why it’s the ideal choice for your blogging platform or eCommerce website. We’ll also examine how WordPress stacks up against its competitors.

What is WordPress?

WordPress is a free open-source software that empowers you to create your own website. It’s free and can be downloaded from WordPress.org. You can install it on any WordPress hosting company, like Bluehost, Hostgator or iPage. In fact, many hosts preinstall WordPress for you.

Note that WordPress.com is different from WordPress.org.

WordPress.com is a hosted platform where you can create a website or eCommerce store without the need for separate web hosting. With WordPress.com, you can choose from a selection of templates and customize your website with a limited range of plugins and themes. 

On the other hand, WordPress.org is where you find WordPress software. WordPress.org (or WordPress) gives you complete control over your website, allowing you to customize it with themes and plugins. You can even monetize it with ads or eCommerce.

The first version of WordPress was launched in May 2003 by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, it has evolved into a content management system (CMS), website builder, eCommerce platform and more.

A CMS is a software tool to create, manage, and publish digital content. Examples of other CMS platforms include Wix, Squarespace, Drupal and Joomla.

WordPress is a community software that thousands of users have developed from around the world. They’ve submitted code, fixed bugs, translated, tested and supported other users.

WordPress usage statistics

According to W3Techs, just over 43% of the world’s websites are built with WordPress. That’s almost half of the entire internet!

That number includes custom-coded websites and websites built on a CMS. Looking only at websites created using a CMS, WordPress powers over 63%. This shows how versatile and popular WordPress is with users ranging from small bloggers to large corporations.

To use WordPress outside of WordPress.com, you’ll need a website host. Some great WordPress website hosting options include Bluehost, iPage and Hostgator.

WordPress’s widespread use and popularity make it a go-to choice for website creation, regardless of your technical ability or the size or purpose of your website.

In fact, according to BuiltWith, almost 30% of the world’s top 10,000 most popular websites use WordPress. And among CMS platforms, WordPress leads the pack as the most used CMS platform for the top one million most visited websites in the world.

What about WordPress’s competitors?

W3Techs shows that WordPress has been steadily growing its market share by 2-4% on average from 2012 to 2021. However, it has remained close to a 43% market share over the last two years. 

Meanwhile, CMS platforms like Wix and Squarespace have witnessed growth in their market share between 2021 to 2023. While Wix’s share grew from 1.5% to 2.4%, Squarespace’s market share rose from 1.4% to 2%.

However, WordPress remains the world’s most popular CMS, with its market share leaving its competitors far behind.

In fact, if we only consider the CMSs monitored by W3Techs, WordPress’s market share rises further to 63.3%. In comparison, Shopify, Wix and Squarespace have market shares of 5.6%, 3.7% and 3.1%, respectively.

WordPress continues to dominate the website creation market. While competitors are seeing some growth, WordPress market share is still significantly larger.

Where does WordPress.com stand compared to Wix?

Among hosted website builders, Wix is the most popular, with a 45% market share, and Squarespace comes in second at 16%. 

Hosted website builders offer an all-in-one platform for website creation, including hosting, security and maintenance. They’re suitable for beginners, but they have some limits when it comes to backend control and what features are available.

Wix is getting popular among beginner bloggers because it’s user-friendly and has a free option. Wix has templates you can pick from and a drag-and-drop feature that makes it simple to create a website.

WordPress is relatively more advanced and customizable. You might need more technical knowledge for the advanced functionalities, but you can do a lot more with it than with Wix.

WordPress is also helpful if you decide to scale your eCommerce business in the future. WordPress gives you complete control over your website’s design and functionality. 

If you’re just starting, you must compare Wix and WordPress before deciding on one.

And while that 45% of hosted websites sounds impressive, BuiltWith found WordPress is used by the top 28% of the world’s websites overall, while Wix is used by less than 1%. Some of the most famous websites, like Sony Music, Spotify, TechCrunch, Vogue, TED blog, Time Magazine and People, are built on WordPress.

WordPress is not just for blogging; it’s used for all kinds of websites and is a top choice for online store owners. WooCommerce market share is a solid 39% compared to other eCommerce platforms. And it is the most popular eCommerce plugin for WordPress and is owned by the parent company of WordPress. 

Why is WordPress so popular?

Wondering what makes almost half of the entire internet trust WordPress? Let’s find out:

User-friendly

WordPress is popular simply because it’s user-friendly. You don’t need coding skills to create custom pages, posts and menus. This makes it popular among small online business owners, new bloggers and anyone looking to create a website.

WordPress is flexible and can be used for many purposes, from simple blogs to complex eCommerce websites.

Customizable

WordPress is also highly customizable. You can easily add new features to your website with thousands of free and paid themes and plugins. WordPress has got you covered whether you’re looking to add contact forms, social media links or eCommerce functionality.

SEO-friendly

Many SEO plugins available on WordPress, such as Yoast and SEOPress, can help boost your website’s ranking on search engines. This means more people can find your website when searching for keywords related to your content.

Open-source

WordPress is open-source, which means it’s free to use and modify. 

This makes it an affordable choice for small business owners and bloggers who don’t have a large budget for website development. 

Its open-source nature also means a large community of WordPress developers constantly working to improve the platform and make it even better.

Most popular WordPress plugins

One of the reasons why users love WordPress is its extensive collection of free plugins that currently stands at over 60,000. And additional paid plugins raise options even higher. 

Below are some of the most popular WordPress plugins:

• Divi: With this WordPress theme and page builder plugin, you can create professional-looking websites without any coding knowledge.

• WooCommerce: A free eCommerce plugin, WooCommerce can turn your website into an online store. You get tools to manage products, orders, payments and shipping needed to run an eCommerce store.

• Jetpack: Jetpack is a WordPress plugin that provides a suite of tools that helps with your website’s security, performance and functionality.

• Yoast: This plugin optimizes your WordPress website’s content and structure for search engines. It has tools to analyze your content, generate XML sitemaps and manage your website’s metadata.

• Wordfence Security: This plugin protects your WordPress website from hackers and malware. It includes firewall protection, malware scanning and login security.

• Really Simple SSL: This WordPress plugin helps you switch your website to HTTPS, a more secure HTTP version.

• WPForms: WPForms lets you create contact forms, payment forms and surveys on your WordPress site. It comes with a drag-and-drop interface and pre-built templates making it easy to create professional-looking forms.

• MonsterInsights: This plugin tracks your website’s traffic and user behavior. Integrating with Google Analytics offers insights into your WordPress site’s visitors, pageviews and bounce rate.

• Akismet: Akismet protects your website from spam comments.

How does the future look for WordPress?

WordPress’s market share reflects that it is a nimble and well-supported open-source product that can quickly fix bugs and security issues. 

Additionally, the introduction of WooCommerce, a popular eCommerce plugin, has helped WordPress remain competitive and relevant for online store owners. 

WordPress.com, the affiliated hosting service of WordPress, is competing with Wix.com. However, it remains to be seen whether WordPress.com will surpass Wix as the most popular hosted website builder. 

But because WordPress is open-source, people have more customization options and can move to custom hosting plans off the WordPress.com platform instead of being stuck with rebuilding as they would to move from Wix.

This architecture gives WordPress users the flexibility and scalability not offered by other CMS platforms. This means WordPress will likely continue to occupy a dominant portion of the CMS market share.

Final thoughts: WordPress market share statistics: All you need to know

WordPress has been the most widely used CMS despite a slight stagnancy in WordPress market share over the last two years. And for a good reason. 

While various CMS options are available, none can match WordPress’s flexibility and customization. 

Its robust ecosystem of plugins and themes, coupled with a large WordPress developer and user community, are some reasons why it’s the most popular content management system with an over 40% market share.

So if you’re looking to build a website or start an eCommerce store, look no further than WordPress. And with an affordable, reliable and user-friendly host like BlueHost at your fingertips, your WordPress hosting needs will be easily taken care of. 

Contact us today to learn more about our WordPress hosting options, including our Managed WordPress plans.