WordPress now powers more than a quarter of the internet! If that surprises you, read on for WordPress stats and amazing facts. See how this former blogging platform has taken the web by storm. 

Ruling the Web

As of March 2016, 26% of sites were built in WordPress. By October 2016, according to one source, that number had ticked up to 27.1%. And, 500 new sites are being launched on the platform each day. Its closest competition, Joomla, languished back at 2.7%.

Other interesting statistics include:

• There are more than 75 million WordPress sites currently on the web.
• The longest WordPress post ever contains more than 10 million words! Reading it would be like reading War and Peace 17 times.
• There are more than 44,000 WordPress plug-ins with more than a billion combined downloads.
• According to Torque, WordPress blogs receive 46.6 million comments per month.

How it Began

Matt Mullenweg founded Automattic, Inc. and its flagship product, WordPress, in 2005. The company also owns WordPress-compatible products like Akismet, Gravatar, and more than a dozen others. They say: “Our common goal is to democratize publishing so that anyone with a story can tell it, regardless of income, gender, politics, language, or where they live in the world.”

As of their 10th anniversary in 2015, Automattic reported 2.5 billion published posts. Those posts represent 137 different languages. In 2015 alone, WordPress users published 660 million posts and just as many comments.

For a company achieving so much, it’s surprisingly small. It has only 500 employees. Compare that with Alphabet’s (Google’s) 61,000.  

Millions of Users

Sites built in WordPress include The New York Times, People Magazine, National Geographic, and Forbes, TED, and USA Today, to name just a few of the big ones. But, millions use it for small, personal blog, as well as company websites of all sizes.

WordPress stats don’t tell the whole story, though. Its users share a real sense of community. In fact, WordCamp is a conference that anyone can host, anywhere in the world, to meet and share ideas with other WordPress users. WordCamps are being held practically every week of the year in locations ranging from Edinburgh to Seoul to Nairobi to Dayton, Ohio! To date, 640 camps have taken place on six continents.

According to the WebCamp website, “WordCamps are attended by people ranging from blogging newbies to professional WordPress developers and consultants, and usually combine scheduled programming with unconference sessions and other activities.”

What does all of this tell us? Well, first, you’re probably using WordPress whether you know it or not. You’ve most likely read and commented on a WordPress site. And, if you’re a content creator or developer, you’ve probably found it necessary to familiarize yourself with the platform.

Since you can get started for free, it’s easy to try it out and see what all the buzz is about. A more sophisticated site may cost you anywhere from $1,000 to $15,000, according to ManageWP. Basically, there’s a shape or size to fit just about anyone, which is why so many users are taking advantage of this platform.

IMAGE: Jeremy Keith / CC 2.0 (cropped from original)