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CMS Market Share: Top trends and usage statistics

A CMS (Content Management System) is used to create, modify, and manage, enterprise-grade content or web content. To simplify, CMS platforms can help you create and run websites. The popularity of CMS platforms has grown massively over the year (continue reading for precise stats).

More and more coders, developers and website owners are opting for either open-source or proprietary CMS platforms. Just like code-free DIY app maker tools, CMS platforms are also gaining popularity and becoming the go-to solution for those want to create a website, run an online store, and so on.

Let us discover some significant statistics and facts related to the market share and overall presence and influence of CMS platforms. Read till the end and get answers to all your queries related to the market dominance of CMS platforms.

CMS Market Share: An overview

CMS platforms can enable you to build and maintain premium websites and even add the most advanced functionalities with ease. This makes Content Management Software extremely popular among coders, developers, and even non-tech savvy individuals.

Let us go through some facts and numbers and understand the overall hold of CMS platforms on the web.

Market share of websites with and without a CMS

In 2011, less than 24% percent websites were using a CMS. Now in the year 2022, there are around 67% websites that have opted for a CMS platform.

Now, at the time of writing this, the Internet Live Stats counter shows the number of websites at around 1,965,460,000 (1.9 billion approx.). This implies that around 1.2 billion websites are already using a CMS.

This change did not occur in a day. In fact, CMS usage trends show that every year the number of websites without a CMS decreases by around 2 to 5%, thereby showing a gradual and steady increase in the usage of CMS platforms.The data for websites not using a CMS since the last ten years are as follows:

Decline of non CMS websites

As evident, more and more websites are being created using a CMS platform. This trend goes on to emphasize the popularity and usefulness of Content Management Software around the globe.

Market share of websites without CMS and with WordPress

WordPress is the most popular CMS platform with the biggest market share. In fact, a huge number of websites that run on a CMS are actually powered by WordPress. To be more precise, WordPress powers 43% of all the websites on the internet, and 65.2% of the websites using CMS.

It may not be an exaggeration to say that as the number of websites without a CMS started decreasing and people started exploring the options of CMS platforms, most of them went for WordPress.

If you checkout the graph below, you can see that in the last decade or so, the number of websites without CMS has been constantly decreasing, whereas the number of websites using WordPress CMS has been constantly decreasing.

no CMS vs WordPress

Source

While there are several other players in the CMS industry like Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, etc., it only makes sense to study WordPress separately as it has an unparalleled dominance and share over the market.

One can arguably say that rest of the CMS platforms compete for the second position while WordPress stand unrivaled at the top. However, despite having a small share, most of the other platforms have gained a decent customer base and are popular in their own way.

Open-source CMS vs proprietary CMS market share

As evident by the name, an open-source CMS platform has code that is public and is free to use by anyone. This of course depends on the license type and other nuances, but the code essentially is open for usage and modifications.

Other developers and programmers often contribute to the code of such platforms and help it grow and expand. Some examples of open-source CMS platforms include WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, etc.

On the other hand, proprietary CMS is a software that remains the legal property of an organization, group, or individual that created it. The source code of such platforms is not public, and only some buyers with special license key may get access to the same. This includes examples like Adobe Experience Manager, Sitecore, Episerver, etc.

As far as their market share is concerned, Open-source platforms outshine proprietary CMS platforms in terms of popularity and usage.

open source CMS market share

Source

As we read above, WordPress eats up a huge share of the market and its popularity is constantly expanding. This goes on to show that more people are opting for open-source CMS platforms as compared to proprietary CMS.

CMS Market Share: Key statistics & facts

Now that you have gained the understanding of the CMS market in general, you can crunch some numbers with us. In this section we will go through some facts and statistics at a glance and get a statistical grasp of the CMS industry.

  • Google yields around six hundred fifty-five million results for the search query “CMS”.
  • Out of all the websites in the world, around 67% are using a CMS.
  • In the year 2012, less than 30% websites were using a CMS platform.
  • WordPress rules the CMS market with 64.2% share among the websites with a CMS. It is the most popular CMS platform in the world.
  • Shopify is the second most popular CMS platform. It has a share of 6.3% which is far less than the top contender WordPress.
  • Wix holds the third and Squarespace holds the fourth rank in the CMS market with 3.4% and 3% shares respectively.
  • Open-source CMS platforms have become more popular than closed source with time. Around 77% of all CMS websites were open source in 2017.
  • In 2020, the top 10 Content Management Software accounted for nearly 89.7% of the global CMS market.
  • In 2025, the global content management software application market is expected to reach USD 45 billion. This was valued at around USD 42.5 billion in the year 2019.
  • As per the predictions by Statista, the global economic value of CMS platforms will likely cross USD 44 million this year (2022).

These were some of the key statistics that give you an overview of the CMS market share. Stay tuned and learn more about the market share and distribution of the top CMS platforms.

Market share distribution of top CMS platforms

Popular CMS platforms

Source

The combined list of open and closed-source CMS platforms is quite long. There are dozens of players in the industry, and it is not possible to explore all of them together. So, we have picked the most popular ones that command most of the CMS market share.

Those omitted from the list are the ones that have less than 1% share in the current CMS market. So, let’s explore some statistics related to the most powerful CMS platforms and understand their distribution and share in the CMS industry.

WordPress

Overall market share in percentage: 43%

CMS market share in percentage: 64.2

No. of live websites around the world: 36,208,331

Percentage share among the Top 1 million sites by traffic: 29.32%

Percentage share among the Top 100 thousand sites by traffic: 30.2%

Percentage share among the Top 10 thousand sites by traffic: 29.5%

Suggested Read: Latest WordPress market share data & statistics

Shopify 

Overall market share in percentage: 4.2%

CMS market share in percentage: 6.3%

No. of live websites around the world: 3,947,260

Percentage share among the Top 1 million sites by traffic: 2.04%

Percentage share among the Top 100 thousand sites by traffic: 2.55%

Percentage share among the Top 10 thousand sites by traffic: 4%

Suggested Read: Must-know Shopify market share statistics and facts

Wix

Overall market share in percentage: 2.3%

CMS market share in percentage: 3.4%

No. of live websites around the world: 8,025,506

Percentage share among the Top 1 million sites by traffic: 0.47%

Percentage share among the Top 100 thousand sites by traffic: 0.66%

Percentage share among the Top 10 thousand sites by traffic: 0.79%

Squarespace 

Overall market share in percentage: 2%

CMS market share in percentage: 3%

No. of live websites around the world: 2,940,189

Percentage share among the Top 1 million sites by traffic: 0.72%

Percentage share among the Top 100 thousand sites by traffic: 1.42%

Percentage share among the Top 10 thousand sites by traffic: 3.21%

Joomla

Overall market share in percentage: 1.6%

CMS market share in percentage: 2.5%

No. of live websites around the world: 1,410,970

Percentage share among the Top 1 million sites by traffic: 1.41%

Percentage share among the Top 100 thousand sites by traffic: 2.17%

Percentage share among the Top 10 thousand sites by traffic: 2.14%

Drupal 

Overall market share in percentage: 1.2%

CMS market share in percentage: 1.8%

No. of live websites around the world: 578,566

Percentage share among the Top 1 million sites by traffic: 2.95%

Percentage share among the Top 100 thousand sites by traffic: 6.91%

Percentage share among the Top 10 thousand sites by traffic: 10.65%

Adobe Systems 

Overall market share in percentage: 1.1%

CMS market share in percentage: 1.6%

No. of live websites around the world: 39,657

Percentage share among the Top 1 million sites by traffic: 0.41%

Percentage share among the Top 100 thousand sites by traffic: 1.41

Percentage share among the Top 10 thousand sites by traffic: 3.61%

Most widely used CMS
Other CMS

Source

These were the top seven CMS platforms for the year 2022 and critical statistics related to these platforms. While WordPress enjoys a huge share of the market alone (more than half), others also have a decent consumer-base. There growth or fall over the period of time can be understood as depicted in the graph above.

You can also explore our other blogs suggested above and read about the market share of the top CMS platforms in detail.

Wrapping up!

Intrigued? Well, so we were when we were doing our research and compiling these statistics. As evident, the popularity of CMS platforms is growing day by day. It is also recommended to use a CMS like WordPress or Shopify if you wish to create a website with minimal effort.

You can also explore the other blogs on our platform and learn more about the market share of top CMS platforms, WordPress website building and maintenance, WordPress app development, code-free app development & marketing, and much more.

If you want us to write on a topic of your choice, then let us know in the comments. While you are at it, you can also explore AppMySite’s app maker for free and experience an all-new app development technology that is easy, affordable and quick.

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