Why WordPress is so popular

Abhi

50 % of the internet. What is the secret of this success story ? If you are here, in a webmaster forum, I am sure that you have tried WordPress at some point. I hope there was a reason you chose it, tell us why.

phenomlab

Abhi WordPress is so popular because of it's ease of use, and the vast amount of plugins available for it. I've been using WordPress for years and will continue to do do. There are other CMS platforms out there - the closest being Drupal for example, but they are nowhere near as flexible as WordPress is.

In fact, I'd consider myself a WordPress guru. I have written a ton of custom functions which I still use today. Now sure about the 50% of the internet (probably 50% of the CMS market) - more like around 35%. The reason behind this success is the unparalleled versatility that allows WordPress to be deployed everywhere from small personal blogs, small business websites to powering Fortune 500s like Sony Music and the Forbes blog. Some fun stats

WORDPRESS IS POWERING 35% OF THE WEB
USERS MAKE 70 MILLION NEW POSTS AND 77 MILLION NEW COMMENTS EACH MONTH
WORDPRESS GETS 487 BILLION SPAM MESSAGES EVERY MONTH
MORE THAN 1.1 MILLION NEW REGISTERED WORDPRESS DOMAINS EVERY 6 MONTHS
WORDPRESS IS SEARCHED FOR 2,940,000 TIMES EVERY MONTH
WORDPRESS DOMINATES GOOGLE’S SERP WITH 2.28 BILLION RESULTS
WORDPRESS IS, BY FAR, THE MOST USED CMS
WORDPRESS IS AVAILABLE IN 196 LANGUAGES
WORDPRESS IS MORE VISITED THAN TWITTER
WORDPRESS HAS 501 TIMES FEWER EMPLOYEES THAN AMAZON

Many more facts courtesy of https://digital.com/blog/wordpress-stats/

Abhi

phenomlab WORDPRESS IS AVAILABLE IN 196 LANGUAGES

That is as much the no. of countries in the world.

phenomlab the closest being Drupal for example, but they are nowhere near as flexible as WordPress is.

How good is Drupal ? They too have page builders.

phenomlab but they are nowhere near as flexible as WordPress is.

I tried OctoberCMS once. Switched back to WordPress in no time. Now I appreciate how simple WordPress is.

phenomlab

And as a side point, simply installing WordPress and expecting the journey to be over is not the case. It's only the beginning. There are more vulnerabilities leveraged daily thanks to outdated versions of WordPress than anything else.

Abhi

phenomlab There are more vulnerabilities leveraged daily thanks to outdated versions of WordPress than anything else.

To be honest, those frequent updates breaks a lot of plugins. They don't get updated with the core.

phenomlab

Abhi How good is Drupal ? They too have page builders.

Yes, but they've also had their fair share of security issues, too. Drupal isn't necessarily bad - I just prefer WordPress.