Known CMS market
58.9%
WordPress share when a content system is identified.
Lead over nearest rival
7.7×
WordPress share compared with Shopify.
Free plugins
67,620
Current WordPress.org directory total.
Research section
What WordPress use looks like across 100 websites
The simplest way to understand its reach is to place WordPress, other content systems, and unidentified systems in the same group.
WordPress in a group of 100 websites
About 41 use WordPress
The rest use another known system or have no content management system that the measurement can identify.
- WordPress
- 41
- Websites where WordPress is detected.
- Other known CMS
- 28
- Websites using another identified content system.
- No detected CMS
- 31
- Custom, static, hidden, or otherwise unidentified systems.
In a group of 100 measured websites, about 41 use WordPress, about 28 use another known CMS, and about 31 have no detected CMS. The last group can include custom software, static sites, and systems that do not reveal what they use.
This also explains why two WordPress figures appear in research. WordPress accounts for 40.7% of all websites, but 58.9% of websites with a known CMS. The second percentage is higher because it leaves out the unidentified group.
Research section
WordPress is much larger than its nearest CMS rivals
Comparing every platform against the same all-website measure shows the size of the gap.
Share of all measured websites
WordPress is far ahead of its nearest CMS rivals
7.7×
the website share of Shopify
3.4×
the combined share of the next three systems shown
WordPress has about 7.7 times the website share of Shopify, its nearest platform in this dataset. It is also about 3.4 times the combined share of Shopify, Wix, and Squarespace.
The practical advantage is an ecosystem that smaller systems cannot easily reproduce. Website owners can find more hosting choices, specialists, documentation, themes, and extensions. The same scale also creates more variation in quality, so individual products still need careful selection.
Research section
The ecosystem is what WordPress adoption makes possible
A large installed base supports thousands of add-ons and specialist services around the core publishing system.
Two different measures of ecosystem scale
WordPress can grow from a simple site into a store or member service
67,620
free plugins in WordPress.org
Plugins add functions such as forms, memberships, multilingual content, backups, and ecommerce.
7,000,000+
active WooCommerce installations
WooCommerce shows how one plugin can turn WordPress into a widely used online-store platform.
The official directory currently lists 67,620 free plugins. A small business can begin with pages and a contact form, then add appointments, multilingual content, memberships, or a store without moving to a different publishing platform.
WooCommerce reports more than 7,000,000 active installations. That does not mean every installation is a live store, but it shows that ecommerce is a major part of WordPress use rather than a niche extension. For context beyond WooCommerce, compare it with the wider number of ecommerce websites across all platforms.
Research section
Market share is useful context, not a product score
The statistics explain WordPress reach and ecosystem size. They do not decide whether it fits one project.
WordPress is a practical fit when a website needs flexible publishing, a broad choice of extensions, or access to many developers and hosts. A managed builder may be simpler when a small team wants fewer technical decisions, while a custom application may need a different foundation entirely.
Use these figures to understand the size and staying power of the WordPress ecosystem. Choose the actual platform by what the website must do, who will maintain it, and how much technical responsibility the owner wants to carry.
Sources and method
How the numbers are maintained
September 7, 2026
WordPress all-websites share, known CMS market share, and competing CMS shares.
September 3, 2026
Official active-installation total and plugin update date.
When a source cannot be refreshed safely, the last approved value remains visible and the failed refresh is flagged for review. Missing data is never replaced with a guess.