WordPress on 40% of sites and with WooCommerce it dominates the e-Commerce
It may not be the best CMS platform in the absolute sense, but it is certainly the most widely used in the world and its domain continues to grow, also extending to e-commerce. New data arrive on WordPress, the content management system invented in 2003 by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little that, according to the latest research, feeds just under 40% of all websites, surpassing rivals even in specific segments such as e-Commerce thanks to its plugins.
New data on WordPress: now it is the CMS of 4 out of 10 sites
The updated data on the spreading of WordPress and other CMS are provided by W3techs, which keeps track of statistics on the use of web technologies, including content management systems, operating systems, web hosting providers, top-level domains and more.
According to the latest surveys, WordPress feeds 39.6% of all websites in 2021, compared to 35% of the sites that used the platform in 2020.
More generally, counting only sites that use a CMS, WordPress has a market share of 64.1%, given that a significant number of websites (38.3%) does not use a content management system at all.
In practice, four out of ten websites in the Web use WordPress and, analyzing only sites with CMS, WordPress is chosen by almost two out of three sites.
WordPress also dominates in e-Commerce
The data on the spreading of WordPress confirm what we already knew, while it is another interesting element that derives from reading statistics: as noted by Matt Southern on Search Engine Journal, in fact, even in e-commerce there is no competition and WP is the most popular CMS, while being less “specific” than rivals.
At an absolute level, in fact, the second CMS of the Web is Shopify, which has a market share of 3.2%: despite this, Shopify is not the most used CMS for e-commerce, because WordPress also gains this title.
WordPress plugins make a difference
Although Shopify is specificallydesigned for online commerce, while WordPress is generalist (and generally considered a simple blogging platform), to make the difference are the various plugins installable on the CMS of Mullenweg and Little.
Thanks to the various WordPress plugins, in fact, the owners can use to transform their website into almost anything they want it to be, as demonstrated by the success of Woocommerce, used by about 5% of all websites.
What is WooCommerce and its spreading
Woocommerce is an exclusive plugin for WordPress designed for the needs of digital shopping: according to recent data, it feeds more than 28% of all online stores and is the most popular plug-in on the Internet, with a distribution of use of 68%.
Launched on September 27, 2011, Woocommerce is precisely an open source e-commerce plugin developed exclusively for WordPress and designed to meet the needs of small and large online traders who use that CMS; It immediately, the plugin has become popular for ease of installation, open source technology and customization possibilities that it offers users.
WooCommerce’s numbers are impressive:
- It is used by over 3 million active sites (3,317,205 to be precise).
- Woocommerce is used by 4.9% of all websites.
- Woocommerce feeds over 28.19% of all online stores.
- 22% of the first million e-commerce sites use Woocommerce.
- Il 93,7% di tutti i siti Web di e-commerce con WordPress utilizza il plug-in WooCommerce.
- Woocommerce is the most popular plugin/module on the Internet, with a usage distribution of 68%.
- Woocommerce has been downloaded more than 82 million times (a piece of data in continuous evolution).
- There are 1,267 Woocommerce themes only on Themeforest.
- There are 980 plugins for Woocommerce only on WordPress.org.
Just analyzing the choices of the best e-commerce sites in the world, we can highlight some interesting data. On the sample of the first million digital shopping sites, in fact, Woocommerce is the most present solution with 22% of use, surpassing Shopify and Magento (respectively with 18% and 13%). However, narrowing the field to the first 100 thousand sites, the most popular e-commerce platform becomes Shopify with 21% (Woocommerce is third with 12%), and among the top 10 thousand e-commerce sites is confirmed Shopify with 23%, with Woocommerce sharing fourth place with Oracle Commerce with 6%.
hese results highlight a feature of the WordPress plugin, namely its prevalent spread to smaller e-Commerce sites – while larger e-Commerce prefer specific platforms.
Is WordPress the best CMS in the whole world?
Back to the main news, the numbers seem to leave no doubt that WordPress is the best CMS, but in reality this assessment depends on various factors and the perspective with which we set ourselves.
For example, owners of inexperienced and resource-constrained sites “may prefer a CMS like Wix or Squarespace that are more beginner-friendly”, although their “lack of functionality may induce intermediate users to look for other solutions,” says Southern.
Who has more experience with web technology “will definitely appreciate the level of customization offered by WordPress” and it is difficult to argue that WordPress does not meet the needs of most owners, in particular “those who use their website to manage an activity“. In addition, according to the author “Wordpress excels in areas such as user experience, mobile usability, security, speed and SEO”.
Ultimately, the article defines “Wordpress is the best CMS for most people, which is why it holds well over half the market share of all content management systems”.
This is the ranking of the global circulation of CMS updated in January 2021 by w3techs.com:
