Is WordPress Dying?

Whether you’re an experienced web designer or new to the field, chances are you’ve already heard of WordPress. WordPress is an open-source CMS, which stands for Content Management System. It’s a platform for creating and managing online content that has developed over time with the help of its extensive user community.

Despite WordPress’s immense popularity, every year, the same question is asked at multiple sites: Is it getting outdated?

What can we learn from the statistics about this tool? Is there cause for concern? We’ll answer these questions in this article and give you all the information you need to decide if WordPress is right for you.

Let’s start by exploring where this tool came from.

How WordPress was born

One reason for concern is its history. Every tool has a lifespan, and WordPress is no exception. The longer a tool is in use, the more likely it becomes outdated.

Some may question if this applies to the CMS WordPress, given its distant origin, dating back to May 27, 2003. This year, in fact, marks the celebration of the platform’s 20th anniversary, which continues to enjoy huge success and usage.

The history of WordPress has seen the release of more than 40 versions, each named after famous musicians, with an average of two updates annually. At the time of writing this article, the current version is ‘Lionel’, released on August 8, 2023.

Over time, WordPress has evolved significantly while staying true to its original mission. It is not only a free tool that can be improved by anyone but also a platform accessible to all that doesn’t require technical programming knowledge. With WordPress, anyone can create their own website.

To further expand its horizons, it is worth mentioning WooCommerce in the history of WordPress, which was first released on September 27, 2011. We are talking about a free WordPress plugin that allows you to introduce numerous features dedicated to buying and selling products and services within this platform, effectively transforming a traditional website into an eCommerce site.

If the history of WordPress is this impressive, what do today’s statistics tell us?

WordPress statistics

There are several parameters to determine the platform’s current success. While Google Trends is a popular metric, we will use it later in the article.

Let’s shift our attention to other statistics from organizations such as W3Techs and HubSpot.

First, it’s important to understand the current state of WordPress usage. Once upon a time, WordPress was the most popular resource on the web, but where does it stand in 2023?

Despite annual rumors suggesting otherwise, WordPress continues to hold impressive statistics compared to its competitors. Currently, there are over 850 million websites built on this CMS, with particular success in the realm of blogging as 97% of bloggers chose WordPress in 2023.

It’s incredible to think that every year, about 8 billion articles are published worldwide through WordPress.

This does not mean that WordPress is only useful for one type of website: 43% of all websites in the world are built on WordPress (an astonishing figure considering that in 2018, just 5 years ago, it was around 29%) and this percentage rises to 69% when considering only portals built through CMSs.

These numbers have continuously increased over time, despite the fact that the market has reached a certain level of saturation.

It is also possible to analyze the numbers of WooCommerce itself, which are clearly lower in proportion but still worthy of mention: over 5 million websites built with WooCommerce are online, generating a market of approximately $20 billion per year (as was the case in 2020).

In July 2023, WooCommerce maintained the largest market share with a percentage of 38.74%, making it the most successful plugin in the world.

Looking at the figures for WordPress, as mentioned above, we can see that WooCommerce has significant growth potential compared to other existing alternatives. It’s worth noting that currently, there are around 845 million websites that can transform into eCommerce platforms just by installing WooCommerce.

Now, despite WordPress’s success, why do some believe its downfall is around the corner? What are the threats WordPress needs to confront?

WordPress challenges

What warning signs suggest that the future of WordPress may be uncertain? Let’s explore them together.

Competition from new platforms such as Shopify and Squarespace

Despite being active in the industry for 20 years now, WordPress has faced competition from other solutions and CMS platforms that have emerged during this time. Many WordPress users wonder if it is capable of keeping up with this competition and what its current situation is.

To understand these concerns, we must consider the important factors. Two things are vital: how much users care about WordPress and similar solutions, and the number of installations currently active on each CMS.

Google Trends is a great tool for monitoring long-term search trends and user interest in the search engine. It helps effectively track search queries over time.

Let’s compare WordPress to other CMSs, beginning with Shopify and Wix:

Both Wix and Shopify were launched in 2006, one in Israel and the other in Canada. The latter, in particular, is gaining popularity over time and is considered the main competitor of WordPress.

Despite this, as you can see from the metrics used in our comparison (three CMSs, over the span of a year), WordPress remains the most popular on search engines, without showing any apparent decline over time.

Some users may be worried due to unfair comparisons. They compare WooCommerce with Shopify and Wix without recognizing that they are contrasting an eCommerce-specific tool with two CMS platforms used for all types of websites.

If we compare WooCommerce to two other platforms exclusively designed for eCommerce, such as Magento and PrestaShop, we can see that the WordPress plugin is still on top:

Certainly, some users choose the ease of using Shopify, particularly because of the support they get. However, this does not mean that interest in WordPress has decreased over time, quite the opposite.

Just think about the values we discussed earlier: WordPress is used on 43% of all websites worldwide, but this doesn’t mean that Shopify accounts for the remaining 57%. This number includes all other CMS platforms and websites built without using these technologies. In fact, Shopify currently represents about 4% of the total number of websites globally, which is more than 10 times less than WordPress.

Both CMS platforms have their place in eCommerce, with different uses depending on business traffic, profit margins, and other factors.

Security concerns and how WordPress is addressing these challenges

Security is a key concern in WordPress development. From time to time, backdoors and vulnerabilities are discovered on WordPress sites.

But what does this mean? Is WordPress by its nature more vulnerable than other alternatives?

In reality, most vulnerabilities are, as is often the case, the result of human error. Unlike other services that have upstream support teams, WordPress gives complete control to its webmasters, who are accountable for updating not only WordPress, but also the themes, plugins, and secure tools used on it.

Updating these resources only takes a few seconds and a simple click for webmasters. However, errors can occur, which is why software updates are regularly offered to prevent potential issues.

Of course, there are other types of vulnerabilities, sometimes related to the site’s PHP code or the ability to bypass certain rules for certain types of users. However, this is precisely why WordPress is constantly releasing new updates to address these issues.

Sure, a quick CVE Details analysis can show the presence of hundreds of vulnerabilities in the WordPress code, but the vast majority of them have been fixed with the many versions released. So yes, if you plan to build a WordPress website and never bother to update it, it will become less functional and more risky over the years, like anything else in the world that’s neglected.

Usability of WordPress compared to other platforms

Finally, the issue of usability is obviously very important to everyone. What does this term mean? Generally, it evaluates how functional the CMS is for its intended purpose, how easy it is to use, and how efficient and scalable it is. There may be other aspects, but these are the most important ones.

In order for usability to be considered a problem for WordPress, we should verify that each (or at least the majority) of these elements is missing in the use of this CMS, and this is obviously not true.

Just look at the hundreds of millions of installations to understand that WordPress works great, although there are aspects where one CMS can be better than another.

For example, WordPress stands out for its user-friendliness and flexibility, effectively giving you the ability to create any type of website in a short amount of time. On the other hand, Shopify focuses on support, with an easy-to-use system and excellent scalability, which is crucial for large-scale businesses.

In summary, we could say that with WordPress, there is more potential, savings, and freedom of movement. It is up to the webmaster to understand how to make the most of these resources.

So while these aspects justify the use of different CMSs by billions of users worldwide, they certainly do not highlight any apparent difficulty or downfall of WordPress.

What WordPress has in store for the future

Another way to predict the possible end of a service is by examining its update strategy and the roadmap for upcoming updates.

Regarding WordPress, the upcoming update (as of the time of writing this article) is scheduled for November 2023, under the name “Trac.”

WordPress updates follow the four phases of the Gutenberg project, prioritizing easy editing and customization, user collaboration, and multilingual capabilities. These features are already integrated into WordPress but will remain central to future updates.

Clearly, given the interest in this CMS, many speculate about what the future holds for this tool. This includes a greater focus on multilingual capabilities and an increased adoption of JavaScript.

It seems that WordPress is here to stay, so all we have to do is keep an eye on its future developments.

The importance of the WordPress community

We mentioned before that other CMSs allow for assistance with the purchased service. But don’t think that by using WordPress you’re on your own.

Despite the lack of real-time support from WordPress, you can benefit from a huge community that has grown over the years. Every day, millions of users share posts, guides, and tutorials, and work to create themes and plugins. As of now, there are over 60,000 plugins available.

There are two types of help available: on one hand, there are individual technicians you can hire when necessary from the pool of experienced WordPress developers; on the other hand, you can rely on the vast community the platform has. Most WordPress issues have already been encountered and solved thousands of times before you, so a quick online search is typically enough to find the answer you need.

The WordPress community is one of the most tightly-knit communities out there, not just online, but also through the WordCamp events that are organized every year all over the world.

This aspect is commonly considered one of the primary advantages of this online platform.

WordPress and eCommerce

We’ve talked about WooCommerce before, but let’s highlight just how useful this plugin can be. While creating a basic website is easy enough for most people, building an online store can feel like a challenging task.

WooCommerce makes it easy to create any kind of online store with the same simplicity as WordPress, while also offering flexibility and customization options.

With the use of plugins, a WooCommerce website can have many more features than just the basics needed for online product sales. These added features can turn a website into a booking platform for hotels and restaurants, a subscription-based eLearning portal, or even a marketplace where multiple sellers can sell their own products, similar to Amazon or eBay.

After twelve years of development, WooCommerce has become a vital tool for millions of stores worldwide.

Conclusion

It’s normal to be concerned when choosing a platform because nobody wants to spend time and money on a CMS that might disappear the next day. But there’s no need to worry here.

If WordPress does eventually come to an end, like everything else that begins, it’s not happening anytime soon. WordPress is still the leading CMS platform and enjoys a significant market share.

Not only that, but the community itself remains incredibly active and united, demonstrating it’s still the golden age for this platform.

For this reason, if you can choose based on your work requirements, do not let country-specific factors influence your decision.

What do you think? Let us know your thoughts by commenting and sharing the article to reach those who claim that WordPress is coming to an end.