7 Interesting WordPress Facts You Might Not Know

WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS) in the world. But whether you’re new to the software or you’ve been building WordPress websites for years, there are likely things you don’t yet know. Given its extraordinary reach, some fascinating WordPress facts and trends have emerged over the years.

Here are seven interesting WordPress facts you might not already know.

There is More Than One “WordPress”

When people talk about “WordPress,” did you know they could be talking about two different things? They might mean WordPress.org or WordPress.com.

What’s the difference?

WordPress.org is the self-hosted version of WordPress. This is where you can download the open source software and install it in your web hosting account. You have complete access to modify files and use any themes or plugins you’d like with this version.

WordPress.com is a website hosting service from Automattic powered by the WordPress CMS. You don’t need a separate hosting account here. But you’ll be more limited in what kinds of themes and plugins you can use. You also might have to pay for certain features not available to free accounts.

WordPress is Over 16 Years Old

WordPress has been around a while, but did you know it’s more than 16 years old already? How time flies when you’re having fun!

WordPress launched back in May 2003 when it was created as a fork of the b2/cafelog blog software.

More Than 60 Million People Use WordPress

You’re not the only one who loves WordPress. According to WordPress.org it’s used by over 60 million people to build blogs and other types of websites.

WordPress Powers Over 34% of the Web

While 60 million people is certainly a lot, those are just the number of users. Many WordPress users have multiple sites, meaning there’s an even more impressive number of sites hosted on the platform. How many? WordPress sites make up over 34% of sites on the web. That’s more than one-third of all websites!

You Can Pick from Over 7k Free WordPress Themes

Worried you won’t find a web design you like for a new WordPress site? Don’t be. There are thousands of premium themes available to buy no matter what your needs are (over 12,000 in the Theme Forest marketplace alone). But there are also over 7000 free themes in the WordPress theme repository.

There Are Over 54k Free WordPress Plugins

Are you concerned WordPress can’t do everything you need your site to do (e-commerce, job boards, directories, or other advanced features)? After all, WordPress is so much more than just a blogging platform. Again, no need to worry. You can find over 54 thousand free plugins to extend the capabilities of WordPress.

Most WordPress Websites are Out of Date

Here’s an interesting fact you hopefully aren’t included in: the majority of WordPress installations are out of date. According to WordPress.org, only 14.8% of WordPress sites have been upgraded to the latest release (5.3 as of the time of writing). And over half of sites are at least two versions behind on upgrades. If yours is one of them, don’t forget to update soon to avoid any compatibility issues or future security risks.

WordPress is an amazing piece of software that can be used to build just about any kind of website you can imagine. And with over 60 million fellow WordPress users trusting the platform, you’ll be in good company if you choose to join them.