WordPress was launched as a simple blogging tool back in 2003. Way before Twitter and Facebook were launched.
However, it has now become the #1 CMS in the world, with a market share of over 60% and powering more than 43% of all websites online.
It’s not just popular among bloggers and freelancers; big names like CNN, Sony Music, and The New Yorker also run on WordPress.
If you’re interested in knowing how big WordPress really is and what makes it so popular, this post is for you. Let’s dive into the latest WordPress stats and trends for 2026.
Table of Contents
Key WordPress Statistics At A Glance
- As of 2026, there are over 472 million WordPress users, making it the world’s most widely used CMS.
- Over 43% of websites on the web now use the WordPress content management system.
- The Classic Editor, Yoast SEO, Elementor Website Builder, and Contact Form 7 are among the most popular WordPress plugins, each with over 10 million active installations.
- WordPress offers a huge collection of over 59,000 free plugins and around 13,000 free themes.
- Malware is the most common security threat, affecting 72.72% of all infected WordPress websites globally.
- Yoast SEO powers over 22 million sites, including 11.9% of the top 1 million WordPress sites.
WordPress in Numbers (2026)
WordPress powers over 43% of all websites worldwide in 2026, remaining the most popular CMS.
The latest version, WordPress 6.8, is already used by 65%+ of sites. Here are the most essential up-to-date stats about WordPress in 2026.
Total websites powered by WordPress
Around 43.4% of the websites on the internet run on the WordPress content management system. (W3Techs)
WordPress Traffic Share by Country (2026)
WordPress continues to dominate the CMS landscape globally, powering over 43% of all websites. Its popularity, however, varies significantly from country to country. Here’s a breakdown of the top countries driving the most traffic to WordPress in 2026.
| Rank | Country | Traffic Share |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | 22.51% |
| 2 | Brazil | 5.44% |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 4.98% |
| 4 | India | 4.26% |
| 5 | France | 4.00% |
Source: Similar Web
WordPress version usage
65.8% of WordPress sites are already using the latest version 6.8, showing how fast users are updating.
Version 6.7 is next, with 8.5%, while older versions, such as 6.6, 6.5, and below, make up the rest. (WordPress)
WordPress Global usage
Globally, WordPress powers about 43.4–43.6 % of all websites worldwide as of mid-2025.
WordPress has a market share of over 60% in the CMS market. Besides that, WordPress powers 14.7% of the world’s top websites. (Kinsta)
Daily/Monthly WordPress downloads
The latest version of WordPress (6.8) has over 48.61 million downloads so far. (WordPress Counter)
WordPress users create around 70 million new posts and 77 million comments every month on average.
That’s about 16 million posts and 17.8 million comments each week, or roughly 2.3 million posts and 2.5 million comments every day. (WordPress)
WordPress Usage Statistics 2026
WordPress powers 23.75% of the world’s top 10,000 websites, and 4 out of 10 Fortune 500 companies use it.
Global Usage Trends
WordPress is the #1 CMS in the world with a share of over 60%. Here are some of the interesting global usage trends of WordPress.
Percentage of websites using WordPress worldwide
- 23.75% of the world’s top 10k websites use WordPress.
- 25.07% of the world’s top 100k websites use WordPress.
- 23.75% of the world’s top 1m websites use WordPress. (BuiltWith)
WordPress usage compared to other CMS platforms
Here’s the CMS usage stats (Jan 2026): (W3Techs)
- WordPress powers 43.3% of all websites and holds a 60.9% market share among CMS platforms, far ahead of the rest.
- Shopify comes next with 6.7%, followed by Wix at 5.5%, and Squarespace at 3.3%.
- Other platforms, such as Joomla, Webflow, Drupal, and Tilda, each have a market share of less than 2%.
Industry-Wise Adoption
WordPress powers 36.28% of the top 10,000 websites worldwide, making it one of the most trusted platforms for high-traffic and well-known websites. (WP Beginner)
Approximately 85% of blogging websites are powered by WordPress, making it the dominant blogging platform globally.
WordPress powers over 35% of news websites and is used by more than 25% of professional service sites.
Around 70% of creative portfolios also use WordPress. Even in ecommerce, about 20% of the top online stores are built on it.
Source: BlogCadre
In the enterprise world, nearly four out of ten Fortune 500 companies use WordPress.
There’s a huge $50 billion economy built around WordPress services, with over 50 million developers worldwide who are familiar with WordPress.
Source: Add Web Solution
WordPress Market Share Statistics
Let’s take a closer look at WordPress’s dominance in the CMS space and how it compares to other platforms.
Here’s a comparison of CMS Market Share (Jan 2026):
| CMS | Market Share |
| WordPress | 60.9% |
| Shopify | 6.7% |
| Wix | 5.5% |
| Joomla | 2.0% |
| Drupal | 1.1% |
WordPress clearly dominates the CMS, with more market share than all of them combined. (W3Techs)
WordPress Plugin Statistics
WordPress has over 59,000 free plugins in its official directory. 80% of WordPress websites use at least one plugin. Most WordPress websites use around 12 to 15 plugins on average.
WP plugins like Classic Editor, Yoast SEO, Elementor, and Contact Form 7 are among the most popular among WordPress plugins, with each having over 10 million active installs.
There are over 59,000 free plugins available on WordPress right now.
Most downloaded WordPress plugins in 2025
Here are the top 10 most downloaded WordPress.org plugins with active installs:
| Plugin Name | Active Installs |
| Classic Editor | 10 million+ |
| Yoast SEO | 10 million+ |
| Elementor Website Builder | 10 million+ |
| Contact Form 7 | 10 million+ |
| WooCommerce | 8 million+ |
| LiteSpeed Cache | 7 million+ |
| WPForms | 6 million+ |
| Akismet Anti-Spam | 6 million+ |
| Wordfence Security | 5 million+ |
| All‑in‑One WP Migration | 5 million+ |
(Source: WordPress)
SEO Plugins
As of Jan 2026, Yoast SEO is one of the most popular WordPress plugins, with over 13 million active installs and more than 829 million total downloads.
It has helped users fix over 85% of issues reported in the WordPress support forum. Yoast is also highly rated, with nearly 26,000 five-star reviews out of around 27,700 total. The plugin is available in 58 languages.
Source: Yoast
Other top plugins include All in One SEO Pack (3M+) and RankMath (3M+). (WordPress)
Security Plugins
Wordfence Security has been downloaded over 121 million times and has more than 5 million active installations, making it a top choice for security plugins. (Kinsta)
eCommerce Plugins
WooCommerce is the #1 eCommerce plugin for WordPress, which powers nearly 21–22% of all WordPress sites.
It also powers over 6 million eCommerce stores, and out of the top 1 million eCommerce sites, 4.75% use WooCommerce. (Loud Growth)
Page Builder Plugins
Elementor leads the page builder category with over 10 million active installations, powering approximately 5% of the top 1 million websites globally.
Elementor is also used by 22.4% of all WordPress websites worldwide.
Sources: WordPress and AIOSEO
WordPress Theme Statistics
As of Jan 2026, WordPress offers approximately 13,000 free themes on its official site, with a total of over 30,