The latest statistics from W3Techs clearly show that WordPress is losing market share while other platforms are stable or experiencing strong interest. Still, there is reason to believe that WordPress could turn around.
Quarterly decline since January 2025
Quarterly statistics from W3Techs show that WordPress usage remained stable at around 43.0% in 2022, followed by a slight increase to around 43.2% in 2023. This modest level of growth continued into 2024, after which WordPress’ market share began to decline slightly in 2025, only to accelerate by the end of the year.
W3Techs statistics then show six consecutive quarters of market share decline starting in 2025 and continuing through today.
WordPress Quarterly Declines
- January 2025 43.6%
- 2025 April 43.5%
- 2025 July 43.4%
- 2025 October 43.3%
- January 2026 43.0%
The quarterly declines above, looked at year-over-year from January 2025 to January 2026, show a slight decline of 0.60 percentage points:
- January 2025: 43.60%
- January 2026: 43.00%
However, when you look at the monthly statistics starting in December 2025 (43.20% market share) and continuing until May 2026 (41.90% market share), W3Techs data shows a decline of 1.1 percentage points. This is almost four times the year-over-year decline of 0.60 percentage points in January 2025-26.
Six-month decline in WordPress market share
WordPress was already losing market share at a modest rate in 2025. But the rate of decline further accelerated from December 2025.
Here is the steady decline in market share over six months from December 2025
- Dec 2025: 43.20%
- January 2026: 43.00%
- February 2026: 42.80%
- March 2026: 42.70%
- April 2026: 42.50%
- May 27, 2026: 41.90%
This represents six consecutive months of decline. The tragedy of this negative turn in WordPress’s market share is that WordPress has just released a major release of its software that puts in place all the necessary elements for plugin and theme developers to integrate AI features into WordPress, placing it on the cusp of major innovations that could overtake the rest of the CMS industry due to the relative size of the WordPress community.
Why is WordPress losing market share?
W3Tech statistics show that WordPress’s market share decline began in the quarter after Mullenweg launched his public attacks on WP Engine.
Mullenweg’s actions included:
- Created an anti-WP Engine website encouraging their users to abandon WPE and sign up with other web hosts
- Temporarily prevent tens of thousands of WPE-hosted WordPress users from updating their websites
- Require all contributors logging into their WordPress.org account to check a box confirming that they were “not affiliated with WP Engine in any way, financial or otherwise.”
- Clone premium plugins owned by WP Engine and publish them for free.
- Block WP Engine employees from accessing their WordPress.org accounts.
Sentiment was not in favor of Mullenweg, 8% of employees at the for-profit company Automattic in Mullenweg have resigned. Among those who resigned were Josepha Haden Chomphosy, the executive director of the WordPress project itself.
WP Engine responded to Mullenweg’s attacks with a federal lawsuit in October 2024, leading to a preliminary injunction against Mullenweg and Automattic in December 2024.
Matt Mullenweg has many fans on his side, but there is clearly a negative sentiment that still lingers today. A recent tweet about X brought out many supporters but just as many detractors.
Mullen Street wrote:
“I’ve been silent for 15 months, but I can no longer tolerate or normalize the legal violence @wpengine is inflicting.”
@danielhayesmith quoted the “I held my tongue” part, reminding Mullenweg that he was quite vocal:
“‘held my tongue’
Bro, I hope you don’t really believe that, because there are literally multiple interviews, blog posts, and tweets showing that you really don’t do that.
To which Matt replied that there was more he hadn’t said:
“Oh, the things I could have said! I was trying to stay as factual and conciliatory as possible. I still am.
I want what’s best for @WordPress, and that doesn’t mean two of the biggest companies are wasting so many resources on this.
Among the supporters, @MattMickiewicz offered:
“…sorry to have to go through this legal war. Devastating.”
Yet @davidtsolheim explained how the negative sentiment generated by Mullenweg’s attacks on WP Engine led him to stop recommending WordPress.
He wrote:
“Honestly, your stance on the WP issue has turned me away from WordPress and I haven’t recommended it for about 2 years because as a vendor I have to trust the people running the software I recommend.”
Only WordPress is losing market share
This phenomenon of declining market share is largely a WordPress problem, it is not an industry-wide problem. For 2026, as of today, virtually all other major content management platforms remain stable and growing. Only Joomla shows a slight decrease, of only 0.1 percentage point.
This drop in WordPress market share is not an anomaly at W3Techs. Real data from HTTPArchive confirms that WordPress is losing users.
The HTTPArchive Adoption metric tracks the number of unique websites that use a specific website framework or CMS over a given period of time.
Screenshot of HttpArchive adoption rate
Shopify, Wix and Squarespace all show modest increases in market share.
Shopify: increase of 0.20 points
- January 2026: 5.00%
- February 2026: 5.10%
- March 2026: 5.10%
- April 2026: 5.10%
- May 2026: 5.20%
Wix: increase of 0.10 points
- January 2026: 4.20%
- February 2026: 4.20%
- March 2026: 4.20%
- April 2026: 4.30%
- May 2026: 4.30%
Square space: increase by 0.10
- January 2026: 2.40%
- February 2026: 2.50%
- March 2026: 2.50%
- April 2026: 2.50%
- May 2026: 2.50%
Webflow: staying stable
- January 2026: 0.90%
- February 2026: 0.90%
- March 2026: 0.90%
- April 2026: 0.90%
- May 2026: 0.90%
Duda: Hold on
- January 2026: 0.70%
- February 2026: 0.70%
- March 2026: 0.70%
- April 2026: 0.70%
- May 2026: 0.70%
Astro is growing exponentially
Meanwhile, the Astro website framework is growing exponentially month by month, according to statistics on BestJS. Astro started the year with 4.59 million downloads in January and ended April with 9.24 million downloads. At this rate of growth, it is fair to call the Astro framework fast growing.
Astro download rate
- January 4.59 million
- February 5.36M
- 7.72 M March
- April 9.24
WordPress could bounce back again
THE statistics published by W3Techs are difficult to ignore. It is quite clear that WordPress’ market share is eroding. Nonetheless, WordPress recently released a major update that could renew user interest, especially once plugin, theme, and page builder developers start releasing more AI-powered solutions. The community around WordPress is strong and many people depend on it for their business. It’s hard to imagine a world without WordPress.
Featured image by Shutterstock/LOVE YOU
