WordPress Usage Statistics 2026: 29+ Data Points on Share, Versions, and Plugins

WordPress powers 59.5% of websites with an identifiable CMS, equal to 41.9% of all websites (W3Techs, Usage Statistics and Market Share of Content Management Systems 2026). HTTP Archive’s latest CMS chapter says CMS-driven sites now account for over 54% of the observed web and puts WordPress at 64.3% of mobile CMS usage (HTTP Archive, Web Almanac CMS 2025).

At the top end, HTTP Archive still sees WordPress at roughly 58% of CMS usage among the top 10,000 sites, while W3Techs shows 92.0% of WordPress sites already running version 6 (HTTP Archive, Web Almanac CMS 2025; W3Techs, Historical Trends in the Usage Statistics of WordPress Versions 2026).

We aggregated data from W3Techs, WordPress.org, HTTP Archive, Wordfence, and the WordPress release archive and dozens of other primary sources to compile this report. WordPress Usage Statistics 2026 matter right now because WordPress 7.0 “Armstrong” was released on May 20, 2026, which makes upgrade speed, plugin compatibility, performance, and security maintenance the real story behind the market-share headline (WordPress.org, Version 7.0 2026).

Key Takeaways

• WordPress powers 41.9% of all websites and 59.5% of CMS-tracked websites (W3Techs, Usage Statistics and Market Share of Content Management Systems 2026).
• CMS-driven sites now account for over 54% of the observed web, and WordPress alone takes 64.3% of mobile CMS usage (HTTP Archive, Web Almanac CMS 2025).
• WordPress still accounts for roughly 58% of CMS usage among the top 10,000 sites (HTTP Archive, Web Almanac CMS 2025).
• W3Techs puts WordPress at 49.2% of the top 1 million sites and 51.9% of the top 100,000 (W3Techs, Usage of WordPress as Content Management System Broken Down by Ranking 2026).
• 92.0% of WordPress sites run version 6, while version 5 is down to 5.6% (W3Techs, Historical Trends in the Usage Statistics of WordPress Versions 2026).
• WordPress 7.0 “Armstrong” was released on May 20, 2026 (WordPress.org, Version 7.0 2026).
• The official WordPress.org directory lists 63,000+ free plugins (WordPress.org, Plugins Directory 2026).
• Elementor appears on 31.2% of live WordPress sites, and WooCommerce appears on 19.9% (W3Techs, Usage Statistics and Market Share of WordPress 2026).
• PHP 8.2 is the largest WordPress PHP branch at 25.804%, but PHP 7.4 still holds 19.288% (WordPress.org, Statistics API: PHP Versions in Use 2026).
• 46% of WordPress origins pass mobile Core Web Vitals, and recent editor work delivered up to 35% faster template loading in block-heavy setups (HTTP Archive, Core Web Vitals Tech Report 2025; HTTP Archive, Web Almanac CMS 2025).
• Wordfence counted 8,233 distinct new WordPress vulnerabilities published in 2024, and one late-April to early-May 2026 week alone added 87 new disclosures (Wordfence, 2024 Annual WordPress Vulnerability and Threat 2025; Wordfence, Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report 2026).

Contextual source: W3Techs content management market share overview.

Recommended reading: WordPress Security Statistics 2026: 29+ Data Points on Vulnerabilities, Attacks, and Patching

1. Market Share: WordPress Still Sits in a Category of One

59.5% CMS share means WordPress is no longer fighting for first place so much as defending a lead that no rival has seriously compressed. W3Techs measures WordPress at 41.9% of all websites, while HTTP Archive’s different crawl methodology puts WordPress at 64.3% of mobile CMS usage and says CMS-driven sites now account for over 54% of the observed web. Those numbers are not contradictory. They describe different measurement frames that still point to the same conclusion: WordPress remains the center of gravity for the CMS web (W3Techs, Usage Statistics and Market Share of Content Management Systems 2026; HTTP Archive, Web Almanac CMS 2025).

Contextual source: HTTP Archive Web Almanac CMS chapter.

2. Traffic Tiers: WordPress Is Not Just a Long-Tail CMS

49.2% of top-1-million sites is the stat that keeps the “WordPress is only for small sites” argument from holding up. W3Techs still shows WordPress above 50% in the top 100,000, and HTTP Archive still sees WordPress at roughly 58% of CMS usage among the top 10,000 sites. The very top of the web is more diverse than the open web, but WordPress is still deeply embedded in high-traffic publishing and enterprise content stacks (W3Techs, Usage of WordPress as Content Management System Broken Down by Ranking 2026; HTTP Archive, Web Almanac CMS 2025).

Contextual source: W3Techs ranking breakdown for WordPress.

3. Version Adoption: The Installed Base Has Consolidated Around 6.x

92.0% of WordPress sites now run version 6, which tells you the real upgrade story of 2026. The installed base is not split across many major branches anymore. It is concentrated, recent, and heavily centered on 6.9, which alone accounts for 70.423% of sites reporting version data to WordPress.org. That likely gives plugin developers and hosts more freedom to target current capabilities sooner, even though WordPress 7.0 was only released on May 20, 2026 (W3Techs, Historical Trends in the Usage Statistics of WordPress Versions 2026; WordPress.org, Statistics API: WordPress Versions in Use 2026; WordPress.org, Version 7.0 2026).

Contextual source: WordPress 7.0 release documentation.

4. Ecosystem Scale: A Huge Plugin Library With Heavy Usage in a Few Winners

31.2% of live WordPress sites use Elementor, which is the number that best captures how concentrated the WordPress plugin economy has become. The official plugin directory is massive at 63,000+ free plugins, but real-world usage clusters around a much smaller set of builders, ecommerce layers, and editorial utilities. WooCommerce and WPBakery are still huge, yet both sit far behind Elementor’s live-site footprint. The WordPress ecosystem is enormous, but it is not evenly distributed (WordPress.org, Plugins Directory 2026; W3Techs, Usage Statistics and Market Share of WordPress 2026).

Contextual source: WordPress.org plugins directory.

5. Technical Stack and Global Footprint

PHP 8.2 leads the WordPress runtime mix at 25.804%, but the more important number may be PHP 7.4 at 19.288%. That is still a large enough installed base to keep backward-compatibility pressure on core, plugins, and hosts. On the language side, English (US) is still the biggest locale, but at 42.474% it is not a majority. That means WordPress remains global in practice, not just in branding, and localization still matters to product decisions (WordPress.org, Statistics API: PHP Versions in Use 2026; WordPress.org, Statistics API: Locales in Use 2026).

Contextual source: WordPress.org statistics overview.

6. Performance and Security: The Real Execution Layer

Market share explains WordPress reach. It does not explain WordPress quality. The numbers that matter most after adoption are field performance and ongoing vulnerability management, because WordPress’s flexibility creates both upside and variance at scale (HTTP Archive, Core Web Vitals Tech Report 2025; Wordfence, 2024 Annual WordPress Vulnerability and Threat 2025).

Performance

46% of WordPress origins pass mobile Core Web Vitals, which is solid for a platform this large but still leaves most sites below the full benchmark. The strongest field metric in the public HTTP Archive snapshot is INP at 88%, while LCP at 54% remains the clear bottleneck. That helps explain why recent WordPress core work has targeted editor and template efficiency, including up to 35% faster template loading in block-heavy setups (HTTP Archive, Core Web Vitals Tech Report 2025; HTTP Archive, Web Almanac CMS 2025).

Contextual source: HTTP Archive Core Web Vitals tech report for CMS platforms.

Security

8,233 distinct new WordPress vulnerabilities were published in 2024, which shows how much of WordPress risk lives in the extension layer and disclosure pipeline, not only in core. Wordfence had already added 4,534 distinct new WordPress vulnerabilities in 2025 as of April 28, 2025, and its weekly report for April 27 to May 3, 2026 logged 87 new disclosures. That does not mean 87 mass exploits in one week. It does mean WordPress site owners need disciplined update and inventory practices year-round (Wordfence, 2024 Annual WordPress Vulnerability and Threat 2025; Wordfence, Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report 2026).

Caveat: vulnerability disclosure counts are not the same thing as confirmed exploitation counts, but they are still a useful proxy for maintenance pressure in the WordPress ecosystem (Wordfence, 2024 Annual WordPress Vulnerability and Threat 2025; Wordfence, Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report 2026).

Contextual source: Wordfence weekly WordPress vulnerability report.

WordPress Usage Statistics: Summary Table

This is the cheat-sheet version of WordPress Usage Statistics 2026. Every row is designed to be screenshot-friendly and self-contained.

FAQs

What percentage of websites use WordPress in 2026?

W3Techs puts WordPress at 41.9% of all websites as of May 2026. The same source puts WordPress at 59.5% of websites with an identifiable CMS, which is why WordPress still dominates CMS market-share charts (W3Techs, Usage Statistics and Market Share of Content Management Systems 2026).

What share of the CMS market does WordPress control in 2026?

By W3Techs methodology, WordPress controls 59.5% of the CMS market in May 2026. HTTP Archive’s different methodology still reaches the same broad conclusion, putting WordPress at 64.3% of mobile CMS usage in its 2025 CMS chapter (W3Techs, Usage Statistics and Market Share of Content Management Systems 2026; HTTP Archive, Web Almanac CMS 2025).

Do most WordPress sites run the latest major version?

Most WordPress sites run version 6, not yet version 7. W3Techs says 92.0% of WordPress sites are on version 6, WordPress.org says version 6.9 alone accounts for 70.423% of reporting sites, and WordPress 7.0 was only released on May 20, 2026 (W3Techs, Historical Trends in the Usage Statistics of WordPress Versions 2026; WordPress.org, Statistics API: WordPress Versions in Use 2026; WordPress.org, Version 7.0 2026).

Is WordPress still used by large, high-traffic sites?

Yes. W3Techs puts WordPress at 49.2% of the top 1 million sites, 51.9% of the top 100,000, and 45.3% of the top 1,000, while HTTP Archive still sees WordPress at roughly 58% of CMS usage among the top 10,000 sites (W3Techs, Usage of WordPress as Content Management System Broken Down by Ranking 2026; HTTP Archive, Web Almanac CMS 2025).

Is WordPress secure in 2026?

WordPress can be secure, but the ecosystem creates constant maintenance pressure. Wordfence counted 8,233 distinct new WordPress vulnerabilities published in 2024 and logged 87 new disclosures in the week of April 27 to May 3, 2026, which is why plugin inventories, update cadence, and patching discipline matter so much (Wordfence, 2024 Annual WordPress Vulnerability and Threat 2025; Wordfence, Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report 2026).

WHAT CHANGED: 2025 VS 2026

The single biggest shift in WordPress from 2025 to 2026 was the continued concentration of the installed base around version 6. Version 6 grew from 88.0% of WordPress sites in May 2025 to 92.0% in May 2026, while version 5 fell from 8.6% to 5.6%. That sounds like a maintenance stat, but it changes the shape of the platform. A more concentrated installed base makes it easier for plugin vendors, hosts, and agencies to target newer capabilities, while older builder stacks lose room to hide (W3Techs, Historical Trends in the Usage Statistics of WordPress Versions 2026; W3Techs, Historical Trends in the Usage Statistics of WordPress Subtechnologies 2026).

Δ shows relative change versus the 2025 value, not percentage-point change.

accelerating Version 6 rose from 88.0% of WordPress sites in May 2025 to 92.0% in May 2026 (W3Techs, Historical Trends in the Usage Statistics of WordPress Versions 2026). The likely driver is branch consolidation around current releases before WordPress 7.0 landed on May 20, 2026 (WordPress.org, Version 7.0 2026). The directional signal for 2026 to 2027 is up.

decelerating Version 5 fell from 8.6% in May 2025 to 5.6% in May 2026 (W3Techs, Historical Trends in the Usage Statistics of WordPress Versions 2026). The likely driver is continued upgrade pressure from hosts, automatic updates, and plugin compatibility baselines, which makes older major branches harder to justify. The directional signal for 2026 to 2027 is down.

accelerating Elementor moved from 28.1% of WordPress sites in May 2025 to 31.2% in May 2026 (W3Techs, Historical Trends in the Usage Statistics of WordPress Subtechnologies 2026). The likely driver is builder standardization, where site owners choose a smaller number of widely supported visual editing stacks. The directional signal for 2026 to 2027 is up.

reversing WPBakery dropped from 9.3% of WordPress sites in May 2025 to 7.8% in May 2026 (W3Techs, Historical Trends in the Usage Statistics of WordPress Subtechnologies 2026). The likely driver is share transfer from older visual-builder workflows to newer editing stacks, especially Elementor and core block-based experiences. The directional signal for 2026 to 2027 is down.

stalled WooCommerce edged from 20.8% of WordPress sites in May 2025 to 19.9% in May 2026 (W3Techs, Historical Trends in the Usage Statistics of WordPress Subtechnologies 2026). The likely driver is that WordPress is still growing across many non-commerce use cases, which makes ecommerce a slightly smaller slice of the total WordPress base even while WooCommerce remains huge. The directional signal for 2026 to 2027 is flat to slightly down.

The shift to watch most closely heading into 2027 is the speed at which WordPress 7.x replaces 6.x, because that will reveal whether WordPress can turn release momentum into installed-base movement (W3Techs, Historical Trends in the Usage Statistics of WordPress Versions 2026; WordPress.org, Version 7.0 2026).

Methodology and Sources

This report prioritized primary sources, official telemetry, and methodology-backed datasets. Market-share figures were cross-checked between W3Techs and HTTP Archive because those systems measure different slices of the web and use different detection methods. Installed-base, PHP, and locale numbers came from WordPress.org’s own statistics endpoints and directory pages. Security counts came from Wordfence’s annual report and weekly disclosures, with partial-year figures labeled exactly as reported.

Where a public page was dynamic or updated daily, we used the latest May 2026 reading available in search or API-accessible output. Where source methods differed, such as W3Techs site detection versus HTTP Archive page and origin crawls, we treated the spread as a methodology caveat rather than a contradiction. All dates in this report are absolute so journalists, researchers, and AI systems can quote passages without ambiguity (W3Techs, Usage Statistics and Market Share of Content Management Systems 2026; HTTP Archive, Web Almanac CMS 2025; WordPress.org, Statistics 2026; Wordfence, 2024 Annual WordPress Vulnerability and Threat 2025).

• W3Techs, Usage Statistics and Market Share of Content Management Systems.
• W3Techs, Usage of WordPress as Content Management System Broken Down by Ranking.
• W3Techs, Historical Trends in the Usage Statistics of WordPress Versions.
• W3Techs, Usage Statistics and Market Share of WordPress.
• W3Techs, Historical Trends in the Usage Statistics of WordPress Subtechnologies.
• WordPress.org, Statistics and Statistics API endpoints for WordPress versions, PHP versions, and locales.
• WordPress.org, Plugins Directory.
• WordPress.org, Version 7.0.
• HTTP Archive, Web Almanac CMS 2025.
• HTTP Archive, Core Web Vitals Tech Report.
• Wordfence, 2024 Annual WordPress Vulnerability and Threat.
• Wordfence, Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (April 27, 2026 to May 3, 2026).

Last updated: May 2026.

We update this page quarterly with the latest data.