Interesting, Incredible, Impressive – All The Best WordPress Stats & Facts

WordPress has come a long way since it first launched in the early aughts. As the most popular content management system, it has become a dominant force online, powering nearly half (a whopping 43%) of the web.

While checking facts can be fun, they can also provide value to those who don’t yet know WordPress’s worth, or appreciate its reach.

If you’ve ever had trouble convincing clients WordPress isn’t just for bloggers—these share-worthy tidbits can effectively lend credence to the platform’s prolific presence.

What follows is the mother lode of most interesting stats and facts about WordPress, divided into the following categories:

• WordPress General, & Automattic
• WordPress Community
• WordPress Events
• WordPress Themes
• WordPress Plugins
• WordPress Security
• WordPress Miscellany

And away we go!

WordPress General, & Automattic

Starting us off are some general WordPress stats regarding usage, co-founder Matt Mullenweg’s company Automattic, plus a few other morsels.

#1. WordPress was first released in 2003, which means 2023 will mark its twentieth anniversary. Wow! – WordPress.org

#2. While WordPress first found its niche as a blogging platform, it has evolved far beyond that, supporting a myriad of other web content, like mailing lists, forums, galleries & portfolios, membership sites, business sites, learning management systems (LMS), online stores, and pretty much any market you can think of. – Wikipedia

#3. The most current version of the software is currently being run on only about half (53%) of WordPress websites. – WordPress.org

#4. Major core updates of WordPress get released every 150 days, on average. – CodeinWP

#5. WordPress version 5.9 has had more than 104 million downloads at the time of this writing—and still counting. – WordPress.org

#6. A total of 582 versions of WordPress have been released to date. – WordPress.org, WordPress.org

#7. On WordPress.com, an excess of 409 million people view more than 20 billion pages each month…

#8. …users on more than 178 countries produce about 70 million new posts…

#9. …with 77 million new, legit comments (on average) per month. – WordPress.com

#10. WordPress tracks the embeds of partner services like Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and more. – WordPress.com

#11. The name “WordPress” was suggested by Matt Mullenweg’s friend, Christine Tremoulet, and was immediately well-received. Once she confirmed the domain name was available, that clinched it. – Web.Archive

#12. Technically, anyone can edit or add to the WordPress core code, since it’s classified as open-source software, licensed under the GPL. – WordPress.org

#13. Automattic officially owns WordPress, however the WordPress Foundation—a non-profit organization founded by Matt Mullenweg—owns and manages WordPress, WordCamp, and related trademarks. – WordPress Foundation

#14. Automattic employs 1,979 people, who work on a large number of projects in addition to WordPress. – Automattic

#15. WordPress is available in more than 70 languages and there are 205 (and counting) translation locales available for WordPress. – WordPress.org

#16. WordPress systems being run on the English language sit at 49.2%. – WordPress.org

#17. English is also the most used language to write content on WordPress, coming in at 71%. – WordPress.com

#18. The WordPress CMS has a 64.2% market share of all known CMS’s. – W3Techs

#19. Because employees rarely worked out of Automattic’s physical office in San Francisco, they closed it in 2017. – Quartz

#20. Quite a few Fortune 500 companies use WordPress, including Microsoft, Target, The Walt Disney Company, Coca-Cola, and PlayStation. – ZYXWARE, Steerpoint, WPExplorer

#21. WordPress sites make up 30.3% of the top 1,000 websites in the world. – Digital

#22. There are at least 30,462,105 live websites using WordPress, with the highest numbers found in these three countries: The United States (8,858,380), The United Kingdom (769,864), and India (375,206). – BuiltWith

#23. “WordPress” gets googled around 2.7 million times every month. – KWFinder

#24. WordPress allows great variety for different types of websites, including multisite, eCommerce, and membership sites. – WPMU DEV

#25. WordPress accounts for roughly 500+ (compared to Shopify and Squarespace’s 60-80) new sites being built daily, in the top 10 million sites on the web.– CodeinWP

#26. The number of WordPress.com websites that are launched daily is 50,000. – DMR

#27. WordPress resides at the very top of the most-downloaded software list. In fact, WordPress version 4.9 has had an insane number of downloads—over 260 million. – DisplayWP

#28. The average annual pay for a WordPress Developer in the United States is $64,308 a year. Annual salaries range from $24K to $106.5K, with the majority of these between $45.5K (25th percentile) to $75.5K (75th percentile). Top US earners (the 90th percentile) make $94K annually. – ZipRecruiter

#29. WordPress has more than 500 times fewer employees than Amazon. – Automattic

#30. WordPress websites get more unique visitors a month (@163M) than Twitter (@156M)―to the tune of seven million more. – Digital

WordPress Community

The WordPress community is made up of a diverse set of people, skill sets, and websites. These WordPress stats are all about the community behind the CMS.

#31. Automattic has had 100,907 DMCA takedown notices (trademark infringement complaints), and 29.09% of copyright notices where some or all content was removed. [Time period: Jan 1, 2014 – Dec 31, 2021.] – Automattic

#32. There are lots of ways to make money from WordPress: as a theme or plugin developer, a hosting company, maintenance service, services reseller, web designer/developer, and so much more. – WPMU DEV

#33. Some of the world’s top print publications use WordPress as their online home. That includes news sites, fashion & entertainment, business & tech, and more. Some examples: USA Today, Time, Fortune, Chicago Sun Times, The New Yorker, Reuters, Variety, People, & Vogue. – CodeinWP

#34. What do Beyoncé, Snoop Dogg, Wil Wheaton, Sylvester Stallone, Usain Bolt, and the Dallas Mavericks have in common? Aside from the obvious—they’re famous in their respective fields (music, acting, sports)—they all have websites that use WordPress. – CodeinWP

#35. WordPress is not only used by bloggers, businesses, and publications, but also educational institutions, and even governments. – WPMU DEV

#36. One quarter of WordPress users make a full-time living off of the CMS. – Kinsta

WordPress Events

#38. The first WordCamp event, organized by Matt Mullenweg, took place in 2006 and was held in San Francisco. – WordCamp Central

#39. At the time of this writing, there have been 1106 WordCamp events…

#40. …in 375 cities…

#41. …and 65 countries…

#42. …on 6 continents. – WordCamp Central

#43. WordCamp 2014 was the last official annual conference of WordPress developers and users to take place in San Francisco, having been replaced with WordCamp US.– WordCamp Central

#44. Besides city-specific WordCamp events, there are a number of niche WordPress events that include WordPress for Publishers, WooConf, LoopConf, WP Campus, and A Day of REST. – Torque Mag

#45. All WordCamp organizers and speakers are unpaid volunteers, doing it because of their passion for and dedication to the WP community. – WordCamp Central

#46. The WC events are not-for-profit, and aim to be accessible to all attendees, with things like closed captioning and ticket scholarships. – WordCamp Central

#47. WordCamp events are extremely economical—sponsorships and donations make this possible, keeping ticket prices low (usually less than $40) for a 2-day event where you get high-quality speakers and networking opportunities. – WordCamp Central

#48. If you miss a WordCamp event, you can catch session recordings for free on WordPress.TV. – WordPress.TV

#49. WordCamp Europe 2017 had a record attendance with more than 1900 people from 79 countries. – WP Tavern

#50. There are 1,288 Meetup groups and 750K+ members for WordPress scattered throughout the globe. – Meetup

#51. Well-known companies in the WordPress space also organize their own WordPress conferences, including Publish by Post Status and PressNomics by Pagely.

WordPress Themes

#52. The WordPress community has a stellar selection of free and paid themes for users to choose from, with options for purposes as varied as a Pokemon Game Portal, to car repair shops. Though free themes don’t necessarily mean low quality, premium themes tend to be easier to customize out of the box, with more features and support for implementation. The following WordPress stats are all about themes and their use.

#53. There are a lot of variables that will affect the overall cost of a WordPress site, such as the scope and scale of your site, the level of customization and design involved, the type and quality of services you select, and the type of hosting you go with. However, the average upfront cost for a WordPress website ranges from $75 to $115,000, then plan on about $75-$15,000 per year for ongoing maintenance costs. – WebFX

#54. WordPress has released a new, free, default theme annually, with a naming convention reflective of that year, starting in 2010—with Twenty Ten. (The exception being 2018, which was skipped). – Elegant Themes

#55. The earliest default WordPress themes were known simply as “WordPress Classic” and “Default” (or Kubrick). – Elegant Themes

#56. The average premium theme costs $59. – CodeinWP

#57. The average theme subscription membership (i.e. TeslaThemes, Themes Kingdom) comes in at around $115 for one-year’s access. – CodeinWP

#58. Divi and Astra are the two most popular WordPress theme installations, with 6% (Diva) & 5% (Astra) of the market. – BuiltWith

#59. There are dozens of theme designers on the ThemeForest marketplace who have sold $1M+ in themes through the platform. – Envato

#60. In fact, Envato’s total community earnings have now surpassed $1.3 billion USD across all its sites, since it was first established over 15 years ago. – Envato

#61. Divi has been translated into 32 languages, and is live on 2,262,231 websites (1M+ of which are in the United States). – ElegantThemes, BuiltWith

#62. Based on reviews, the best free/responsive themes include Neve, Airi, Hestia, ColorMag, OnePress, OceanWP, Sydney, Astra, OnePage Lite, and Customify. – CodeinWP

#63. To customize or modify an existing WordPress theme without losing the ability to upgrade that theme, child themes are often used. The concept of parent and child theme was formed to solve the issue of losing custom styling and changes made during theme upgrades. – WPMU DEV

#64. The first WYSIWYG editor for WordPress—which allowed technophobes to post content quickly and creatively—was created by Shane Melaugh and Paul McCarthy. – ThriveThemes

#65. The block editor in WordPress, Gutenberg, was officially released with the 5.0 core WordPress version. – Ma.tt

WordPress Plugins

#66. WordPress plugins add additional functionality to an existing WordPress website. While some are considered clear winners that benefit just about any type of WordPress site, others are pretty forgettable. Reviews and word-of-mouth from fellow WordPress developers can be good guides, in addition to the following related WordPress stats.

#67. There are over 59,000 unique plugins for WordPress available to download, with new ones added to the WordPress Plugin Directory on a daily basis. – WordPress.org

#68. Jetpack and Akismet, both created and maintained by Automattic, are the most installed free plugins. – WordPress.org

#69. Akismet catches an average of 7,500,000 pieces of spam per hour. – Akismet

#70. Here are the most popular WordPress plugins, with 5 million+ active installations each: Contact Form 7, Yoast, Elementor, Classic Editor, Akismet, WooCommerce, Jetpack, Really Simple SSL. – WordPress.org

#71. Hello Dolly, created by Matt Mullenweg and introduced in May of 2004, was the first plugin ever created for WordPress. Every version of WordPress since has come preinstalled with it, making it iconic. A simple visual serving lyrics from the song made famous by Louis Armstrong, it serves no real function (and is safe to delete). – James McAllister Online

#72. Bookly PRO, FileBird, and Slider Revolution are three of the best selling paid WordPress plugins. – CodeCanyon

#73. Our very own Smush image optimizer won Torque’s Plugin Madness competition, and was named the best in the WordPress Plugin Repository. – WPMU DEV

#74. WooCommerce, an e-commerce plugin from Automattic, powers 29% of all online stores. – Built With

#75. WooCommerce has been downloaded nearly 200 million times. – WordPress.org

#76. There are a massive amount of WooCommerce extensions for customizing WooCommerce, such as payment processing, shipping, and subscriptions. Look at these numbers: WooCommerce’s site = 750; CodeCanyon marketplace = 1,426; the WordPress Plugin repository = 1,000+. That doesn’t even include the many independent websites that sell WooCommerce extensions. – WooCommerce, CodeCanyon, WordPress.org

WordPress Security

WordPress Security is a priority among website owners. With the increasing number of vulnerabilities and attacks that happen every minute, anyone can be a victim of these breaches: individuals and companies, big and small.

It is of utmost importance to keep current on the latest security updates and practices, to avoid being compromised by hackers. These stats should encourage you to pay attention to WordPress security compliance.

#77. About 30,000 WordPress websites are hacked or infected with some type of malware daily. – Patchstack

#78. Google blocklists around 10,000 websites a day. – Patchstack

#79. Of the 40,000 most popular websites that use the WordPress software, 73% are vulnerable to attack. – WP White Security

#80. Weak passwords account for 8% of WordPress sites that are hacked. – WP Manage Ninja

#81. According to WordFence, there are almost 90,000 attacks per minute on WordPress websites. – Wordfence

#82. With the increase of cyberattack data thefts, organizations want to spend more money on security. Some forecasts suggest that the market will reach $170.4 billion in 2022. – Blogging Forge

#83. WordPress brute-force attacks refer to the trial and error method of entering multiple username and password combinations over and over until a successful combination is discovered. – WPMU DEV

#84. In 2017, WordPress saw the highest volume brute-force attack to date. This aggressive campaign peaked at over 15 million attacks per hour, forcing Wordfence security to scale up their logging infrastructure to cope with the volume. – Wordfence

#85. File inclusion exploits are one of the most common ways an attacker can gain access to your WordPress website. Most examples point to vulnerable PHP scripts, though it’s also common in other technologies such as JSP, ASP and more. – Owasp

#86. Cross-Site Scripting or XSS attacks account for 60% of all security vulnerabilities on the internet. – Secure Coding

#87. The four most common WordPress malware infections are Malicious redirects, Backdoors, Drive-by downloads, and Pharma hacks. – Cheq

#88. SQL injections occur when an attacker gains access to your WordPress database and to all of your website data. – WPMU DEV

#89. The WPScan Vulnerability Database is an online version of WPScan’s data files that are used to detect known WordPress core, plugins, and themes vulnerabilities. – WP Scan

#90. To date, the WPScan vulnerability database contains more than 28K vulnerabilities, 4,154 of which are unique. – WP White Security

#91. WPMU DEV’s Defender security plugin is available to download for free on WordPress.org. It’s free and highly effective, offering even more incentive to protect your WordPress website.

WordPress Miscellany

For everything else that didn’t quite fit into the above categories, here are some final WordPress stats and facts for you.

#92. Wapuu is the official mascot of WordPress, created by Japanese artist, Kazuko Kaneuchi. It was inspired by Matt Mullenweg’s trip to Japan, and unveiled at WordCamp Fukuoka on February 19, 2011. – Torque, Webgaku

#93. There’s a field guide & trading post for Wapuus, where you can find one for most WordCamp events, as well as many other special Wapuu categories. – Wapu.us

#94. Wapuu’s name was chosen through the Japanese WordPress group, which organized a poll in 2011 to collect ideas for naming it. Suggestions soon followed and were voted on. “Wappy” won, but due to a trademark issue, the runner-up “Wapuu” was chosen. – Wapu.us

#95. The WordPress Wiggle (accompanying song written by Jonathan Mann), is the unofficial dance of the WordPress people. – YouTube

#96. Starting from version 1.0, every major core release of WordPress (there are 42 to date) has been codenamed after well-known jazz musicians. – WordPress.org

#97. Those unfamiliar with the CMS are usually surprised to find that there are two very different versions of the software—WordPress.org and WordPress.com. – WPMU DEV

#98. WordPress VIP is a hosting solution for enterprise WordPress installations, and uses the agile content platform. – WordPress.com

#99. There are specific recommendations for running the components of WordPress software. The versions change, based on the content of new releases, but these core components are always necessary: PHP, MySQL OR MariaDB, and HTTPS. – WordPress.org

#100. “Code is Poetry”… The famous WordPress tagline, present since the first official release of the software, to this day remains in the default footer. – WPMU DEV

WordPress has certainly evolved over time. Countless reviews and continually increasing users show that it continues to grow in function and popularity.

Because it’s efficient and well-built, you can do a lot with very little knowledge, focusing instead on creating quality content for your site. Especially if you have a quality host or site management to maintain your site for you… you’ll rarely (if ever) have to sweat the small stuff.

On the flip side, if you are willing and/or eager to learn more about it, it can become a primary (or supplemental) source of income for you, as well as an in-demand field you can immerse yourself in.

Editor’s Note: This post has been updated for accuracy and relevancy.
[Originally Published: September 2017 / Revised: May 2022]

Do you have any favorite stats that we missed? What do you find most interesting about WordPress? Let us know in the comments below.

Tags:

• developers
• free themes
• wordpress editor