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

Did you know that over 500 websites are built using WordPress every day? This is just one of the many interesting WordPress statistics that you have probably never heard. With a dominant 60.8% market share in the CMS domain, WordPress currently powers nearly 15% of the leading websites across the globe.

If you love reading about numbers and statistics, here are the best stats about WordPress that you should be aware of. As this is an exhaustive list, we have grouped the WordPress facts under the following categories:

• WordPress General & Automattic
• WordPress Community
• WordPress Events
• WordPress Themes
• WordPress Plugins
• WordPress Security
• WordPress Miscellaneous

So, let’s get started with each of these categories.

WordPress General & Automattic

Let’s start with some general WordPress usage statistics – and about its owning company, Automattic:

1. The first version of WordPress was released way back in 2003.
2. WordPress powers 3 of all websites – up from just 27.3% in 2017. The next leading CMS platform is Joomla with a 2.6% market share.
3. The latest released WordPress version is 6.0 – released in May 2022. This version is named “Arturo” after the German jazz musician, Arturo O’Farrill.
4. Since the year 2003, 582 WordPress versions (major and minor) have been released till date.
5. Some of the famous sites on WordPress include those of Vogue, BBC America, TechCrunch, and the Meta Newsroom.
6. Every month, 409 million people view over 20 billion WordPress web pages, creating 70 million new posts and 77 million comments.
7. Besides the WordPress CMS, Automattic has successfully worked on several other products including WooCommerce, Jetpack, and Akismet.
8. WordPress is searched on Google around 7 million times each month.
9. At around 2000 employees, Automattic has 500 times fewer employees than Amazon.
10. Over 50,000 new com websites are launched every day.

WordPress Community

Here are some interesting stats about WordPress community users:

1. Since 2006, over 990 WordCamps (non-profit WordPress events organized by volunteers) have been held across 73 cities, 65 countries, and 6 continents.
2. Till December 2021, Automattic has received over 100,000 complaints about trademark violations.
3. Popular celebrities like Beyonce, Snoop Dogg, Sylvester Stallone, and Usain Bolt all own WordPress-powered websites.
4. On average, WordPress developers across the globe charge an hourly rate of $20 to $100.
5. There are over 1,550 WordPress meetup groups all across the globe.
6. Over 2 million topics are available on the official WordPress support forum.
7. In the year 2017, 126 official WordCamps were organized.

WordPress Events

Here are some interesting statistics about WordPress events organized around the globe:

1. The first WordCamp event was organized in San Francisco in 2006 – and was organized by Matt Mullenweg.
2. The 2017 WordCamp event in Europe witnessed a gathering of 1,900 attendees from 79 countries.
3. WordPress users gather for monthly meetups spread across 436 cities.
4. Each WordCamp event can be attended for a low-ticket cost of less than $40 (valid for 2 days).
5. WordCamp event recordings can also be viewed for free on WordPress TV.
6. Companies like PressNomics by Pagely and Publish by Post Status also organize their WordPress events.
7. All WordCamp event organizers and speakers are unpaid volunteers, who simply love working on WordPress.

WordPress Themes

Next, here are some interesting facts about WordPress themes:

1. Introduced in 2005, the first “default” WordPress theme was called Kubrick.
2. There are over 5,800 free themes available on the WordPress.org theme repository.
3. The average cost of a WordPress theme is $59.
4. The Envato theme marketplace contains over 11,000 themes and attracts over 70% of theme-related searches.
5. Divi and Astra are the most popular WordPress themes – capturing 6% and 5% of the market share respectively.
6. WordPress theme developers have sold over $1 million worth of themes on the ThemeForest marketplace.
7. Translated into 32 languages, the Divi theme is live on over 2.26 million WordPress sites.
8. WordPress officially releases default themes every year on its WordPress Theme Directory – with each theme named after the release year (for example, Twenty Twenty).
9. There are over 11,000 themes on the ThemeForest marketplace.

WordPress Plugins

Next, let’s read some interesting facts about WordPress plugins:

1. There are over 59,000 free plugins available for download on WordPress.org.
2. Between April 2016 to April 2019, 18,262 new plugins have been published.
3. The leading WordPress plugin is Classic Editor which has over 4 million active installations.
4. Around 57% of the WordPress plugins have never been reviewed.
5. Hello Dolly was the first-ever WordPress plugin introduced in May 2004.
6. The WooCommerce plugin powers 29% of all eCommerce websites.
7. Yoast SEO is among the leading WordPress plugins with over 176 million downloads.
8. The CodeCanyon plugin marketplace (from Envato) contains over 6,000 paid plugins.
9. org plugins have been downloaded over 1 billion times.

WordPress Security

How safe are WordPress websites? Here are some of its security-related statistics:

1. Over 40% of the WordPress attacks are caused due to a vulnerability on the hosting platform.
2. 44% of hacks are caused by outdated WordPress versions.
3. Over 90,000 attacks are attempted on WordPress websites every minute.
4. Weak passwords are the reason behind 8% of successful WordPress hacks.
5. 52% of WordPress vulnerabilities are caused due to outdated WordPress plugins.
6. In the year 2017, a fake SEO plugin infected 4,000 WordPress sites with malware.
7. The WPScan vulnerability database contains over 28,000 WordPress-related vulnerabilities.
8. Cross-site scripting (or XSS) attacks account for over 60% of all security-related vulnerabilities.
9. A security plugin company received over 90% of website cleanup requests from WordPress site owners in 2018.
10. Backdoors, pharma hacks, and redirects are the most common malware attacks on WordPress sites.

WordPress Miscellaneous

Listed below are the best miscellaneous WordPress statistics:

1. A majority of WordPress downloads occur on Wednesdays, while the least downloads occur on Fridays.
2. 38% of the WordPress code is in the form of comments.
3. Over 7 million files are uploaded every month to WordPress.com blogs.
4. The WordPress Wiggle is the unofficial dance song of the WordPress community.
5. Unveiled in 2011, Wapuu is the official WordPress mascot created by Kazuko Kaneuchi.
6. The average pay for WordPress developers in the U.S is $79,000 yearly.
7. The famous “W” logo for WordPress was created in 2005 by Jason Santa Maria.
8. Christine Selleck Tremoulet suggested the name “WordPress” to her friend, Matt Mullenweg, who founded WordPress.

Conclusion

Since its release in 2003, WordPress has continued to grow in popularity and functionality, thus attracting a host of users across the globe. This CMS platform is now used by Fortune 500 companies as well as small or individual business owners. We hope you have found these WordPress stats interesting to read. Do let us know if we have missed out on any interesting facts about WordPress.

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