WordPress is not dying, but its lead is shrinking slowly. W3Techs shows it on 39.7% of all websites and 58.5% of sites with a known CMS in October 2026. That is still about seven times the share of Shopify, its closest rival.
We checked every figure here against W3Techs, Patchstack and court reporting in October 2026. “Is WordPress dying?” is really three questions with three answers, about the software, the market share and the community around it.
In this post, we cover what the data shows and what the Automattic vs. WP Engine case means for your site. We also look at where WordPress struggles in 2026 and who should worry.
New users still struggle, and we counted the steps to explain why WordPress is so hard to use.
What Does WordPress Dying Mean?
Before looking at the numbers, it helps to separate the question into its parts.
- WordPress, the software, is an open-source CMS released under the GNU General Public License. That license means anyone can use, modify, and redistribute the code freely. No single company can “kill” it. Even if Automattic shut down tomorrow, the code would live on.
- WordPress’s market share is what W3Techs and similar trackers measure. As of October 2026, it shows WordPress on 39.7% of all websites and 58.5% of sites with a known CMS. The share of all websites climbed for over a decade and stood at 43.6% in January 2025. It has slipped since.
- WordPress, the ecosystem, is where things get more interesting. This covers the commercial hosting providers, the plugin marketplace, the developer community, the WordCamp network, and the control structure around WordPress.org. This is the layer where real tensions exist and the layer most “is WordPress dying” headlines are really about, even when they don’t say so directly.
Keeping these three layers separate is the only way to answer the question honestly. The software is fine. The market share is dominant. The community has some real friction right now.
Popular WordPress Stats: The Real Story Behind the Numbers
The most repeated stat in this debate is that WordPress powers 43% of all websites. That was true in January 2026, and the W3Techs monthly history shows it slipping every month since.
According to W3Techs, WordPress holds 39.7% of all websites and 58.5% of the CMS market as of October 2026. Its closest CMS competitor is Shopify at 5.3% of all websites. Wix sits at 4.2% and Squarespace is at 2.4%.
That gap is not closed. It’s not even in the same conversation.
Worth knowing: W3Techs counts any site where WordPress code is detectable, including abandoned installs, half-finished test sites, and domains that were never launched. The real number of actively maintained WordPress sites is lower. Nobody knows exactly how much lower, but the headline share likely overstates active usage.
That said, even if you cut it in half, WordPress would still beat every competitor. The platform’s dominance isn’t an illusion.
There is a more telling stat that gets less attention. Cloudflare’s 2025 Year in Review scanned sites tied to the top 5,000 domains in the world. WordPress was still the most popular CMS among them at 47%, even though its share dropped. These are active, high-traffic websites and not abandoned installs.
That’s the number that matters most. WordPress isn’t just popular because it’s free and easy to install. It’s the default choice for serious publishers and businesses at scale.
For store owners, the WooCommerce picture is still strong. W3Techs lists WooCommerce on 19.8% of WordPress sites as of October 2026. That works out to roughly one in every thirteen websites on the internet.
Shopify’s transaction fees, monthly costs, and closed codebase are the reasons many businesses stay on WooCommerce. Full ownership of your store data and no revenue cut on every sale still matter, especially at volume.
Why People Keep Asking This Question?
The “WordPress is dying” narrative keeps coming back. Here’s what’s driving it.
- Slow, broken sites get blamed on the platform: Someone builds a site with 50 plugins on shared hosting, it loads in seven seconds, and the conclusion is “WordPress is slow.” That’s like blaming your car brand because someone never changed the oil. Poor setup creates performance problems. The platform itself, on a properly configured server with a sensible plugin stack, is not the bottleneck.
- Competing platforms market aggressively: Wix and Squarespace spend heavily on advertising. Webflow, Framer, and Shopify are constantly positioned as “WordPress killers” in tech circles. Aggressive marketing creates the impression of displacement, even when the underlying numbers don’t support it.
- The Gutenberg transition frustrated developers: WordPress’s shift to the block editor (Gutenberg) starting in 2018 was disruptive. Developers who had built workflows around the Classic Editor were annoyed. Some left. That friction created real negative sentiment in developer communities, some of which hasn’t faded. The transition is mostly settled now. Block themes and full site editing have matured, and WordPress’s version history shows consistent improvement through each release.
- The CMS share is sliding: W3Techs shows WordPress at 65.2% of the CMS market on 1 January 2022 and 58.5% on 15 October 2026. Its share of all websites also fell from 43.0% to 39.7% during 2026 alone. Over the same months, sites with no detectable CMS grew from 28.6% to 32.1%.
For context on how WordPress compares to the newer alternatives gaining attention, our Ghost vs WordPress breakdown goes deeper into the specifics.
The Automattic vs. WP Engine Situation
This is the story most “is WordPress dying” articles either skip or handle badly. Here’s a plain-English summary.
In September 2024, Matt Mullenweg, WordPress co-founder and CEO of Automattic, criticized WP Engine at WordCamp US. His post on WordPress.org News then called the host “a cancer to WordPress”. His core argument: WP Engine profits from WordPress while giving little back to core development.
Things escalated fast. Automattic blocked WP Engine’s access to WordPress.org resources, including plugin and theme updates. WP Engine sued Automattic and Mullenweg, alleging threats, defamation, and unfair competition. In December 2024, a federal court granted WP Engine a preliminary injunction that restored its access. Automattic filed counterclaims, accusing WP Engine of trademark misuse and misleading marketing. As of October 2026, the case is still in pretrial work, and The Repository reports a jury trial set for October 19, 2027.
For WP Engine customers, the injunction means the practical disruption has been resolved. Plugin and theme updates work normally.
For everyone else, the question is what this says about WordPress governance. And the honest answer is: it exposed a real structural tension. Mullenweg controls WordPress.org as a personal project. That gives one person a lot of control over infrastructure that millions of sites depend on. That’s a legitimate concern.
What it doesn’t change: the WordPress software itself is protected under the GPL. The code is released under the GPL license and cannot be locked away, regardless of who controls WordPress.org. Forks of the project are possible. Several community members have already discussed shared governance models.
Automattic resumed its contributions to WordPress core and Gutenberg in May 2025, according to the same report. Development carried on as normal. The drama was real. The platform kept running. These are both true.
What’s Still Strong in 2026?
Some parts of WordPress still work very well. Here is where the platform does best.
- Publishing and content: WordPress remains the default choice for publishers, bloggers and media companies. Cloudflare’s top domain scan above shows how many large sites still pick it. The block editor’s maturity, combined with a deep theme and plugin ecosystem, means content teams can move fast without touching code.
- WooCommerce for independent eCommerce: If you’re building or running a store and you want to keep 100% of every transaction, own your customer data, and extend your store’s behavior without being locked into a platform’s feature roadmap, WooCommerce is still the strongest option available. Setting up WooCommerce on WordPress is well documented, and the tooling has matured. Stores that need custom checkout flows, loyalty systems or wallet payments can add them with plugins. On Shopify, the same features often need paid apps.
- The developer and agency ecosystem: The WordPress.org plugin directory lists over 71,000 free plugins as of October 2026. With the largest CMS share, WordPress also has a large pool of developers. When something breaks at 2 am, finding someone who knows WordPress is rarely hard.
DevDiggers builds WooCommerce plugins for stores that need features the standard toolkit does not cover. That work depends on the open plugin system that WordPress gives every store.
For store owners considering WooCommerce development to extend what’s already built, the platform’s open architecture makes that easier than closed platforms allow.
The Real Challenges WordPress Faces Right Now
WordPress isn’t perfect. Here’s what’s worth paying attention to.
Security is the first worry. Patchstack’s 2026 security report counted 11,334 new vulnerabilities across WordPress plugins, themes and core in 2025. 91% were in plugins and 9% in themes, while WordPress core had only 6.
What this means in practice: a WordPress site run on reputable plugins on quality hosting and kept up to date is not especially vulnerable. A site built on abandoned plugins from 2019 and running on shared hosting with no updates is a different story. This is a maintenance and configuration problem rather than a fundamental platform flaw.
This is the split trend that most “is WordPress dying” articles miss. WordPress’s share of all websites is slipping slowly, as the W3Techs numbers above show. At the same time, developer communities increasingly choose React-based frameworks, headless CMS solutions, or dedicated tools like Next.js for new builds.
These are not the same thing. A huge existing install base does not shrink overnight. But the first choice for new developer-led projects is slowly moving away from WordPress.
Headless WordPress setups, where WordPress manages content on the backend while a modern JavaScript frontend handles the display layer, are increasingly popular as a middle path. You get WordPress’s content tools and the plugin ecosystem’s breadth, with a modern frontend’s speed and flexibility. This isn’t WordPress dying. It’s WordPress adapting.
Speed follows the hosting more than the platform. A default install on cheap shared hosting is often slow, and managed hosting with caching closes most of that gap. Either way, you cannot install WordPress and walk away.
A store with 40 or more active plugins on shared hosting has a setup problem. Switching platforms will not fix it. Cleaning up the plugins and the hosting will.
Should You Still Use WordPress in 2026?
Here’s a practical framework instead of a generic answer.
- You run a WooCommerce store with proper maintenance: No reason to move. Your investment is sound, and your data is yours.
- You’re starting a new content site or blog: WordPress is still the best default choice by a large margin. The tooling, the theme ecosystem, the SEO infrastructure, nothing else comes close at this price point.
- You’re starting a new project with a developer team that prefers modern JavaScript stacks: WordPress might genuinely not be the right fit. That’s fine. React-based frameworks and headless CMSs are excellent for the right project. The keyword is the right project. It does not replace WordPress across the board.
- You had a slow, broken WordPress site and blamed the platform: The platform probably wasn’t the problem. Hosting quality, plugin bloat, and lack of maintenance are behind most bad WordPress experiences. A clean build on good hosting performs well.
- You’re worried about the Automattic/WP Engine situation affecting your site: If you’re not hosted on WP Engine, the dispute has had no practical impact on you. If you are on WP Engine, the court injunction restored normal access. Either way, the software itself is protected under the GPL and is not going anywhere.
Conclusion
Is WordPress dying? Not by the numbers. It still powers 39.7% of the web as of October 2026, about seven times more than Shopify. It remains the default for publishers and businesses at every scale.
What is true is that the WordPress community had a rough 2024 and 2025. Its share is slipping slowly and developers try other tools for new builds. The platform also needs real maintenance to perform well. None of that is dying. That’s just maturity.
If your WordPress site is built well and kept up to date, you have nothing to panic about. If you’re running a WooCommerce store and thinking about the future, the platform’s open-source foundations and the depth of the plugin ecosystem still make it the strongest independent eCommerce option available.
Need help making sure your WordPress or WooCommerce setup is solid? Our custom WordPress development services are built specifically for that.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q1. Is WordPress still worth using in 2026 for a new website?
Yes, for most use cases. WordPress remains the most widely supported CMS on the web, with the largest plugin ecosystem and the deepest pool of developers. If you’re building a blog, a business site, or an eCommerce store, it’s still the most practical default choice. Developer teams building complex applications with modern JavaScript stacks may find alternatives better suited to their workflow.
Q2. Did the Automattic vs. WP Engine lawsuit hurt WordPress?
It created real uncertainty in the community and exposed governance tensions that are worth watching. In practical terms, though, the WordPress software kept running normally throughout the dispute. The court restored WP Engine’s access to WordPress.org resources. Automattic resumed its contributions to WordPress core in May 2025. The lawsuit is still ongoing, with a jury trial set for October 2027. It has not disrupted the platform for most users.
Q3. Why is my WordPress site slow if the platform is so popular?
Popularity doesn’t guarantee performance, but setup does. Most slow WordPress sites share the same root causes: too many poorly coded plugins, shared hosting with limited resources, no caching layer, and images that were never optimized. A well-configured WordPress site on managed hosting with a lean plugin stack loads fast. The platform isn’t the bottleneck in most cases.
Q4. Is WooCommerce still better than Shopify in 2026?
It depends on your priorities. WooCommerce gives you full ownership, no transaction fees, and complete control over your store’s data and functionality. Shopify is easier to set up and manage with less technical knowledge. Some stores need custom checkout flows, loyalty programs or wallet systems. WooCommerce’s open code handles that work, where Shopify often needs paid apps or custom development. For a small store that wants a simple hosted shop with little maintenance, Shopify is a fair choice.
Q5. What is headless WordPress and does it solve the performance problem?
Headless WordPress uses WordPress to manage content on the backend while a modern frontend framework, typically Next.js or Nuxt, handles what visitors see. It solves the performance gap because the frontend can be pre-rendered and served from a CDN, delivering sub-second load times. The trade-off is added complexity and development cost. It’s a good fit for high-traffic sites where performance is a priority and developer resources are available. For most small and medium sites, a well-optimized traditional WordPress setup is a more practical route.
Q6. Is the WordPress market share figure accurate?
Roughly, yes. W3Techs put WordPress at 39.7% of all websites in October 2026, but the figure has a caveat. W3Techs counts any site where WordPress code is detectable, including abandoned installs and sites that were never fully launched. The real number of actively maintained WordPress sites is lower. Even accounting for that, WordPress’s lead is not in serious doubt. The Cloudflare data showing WordPress on 47% of the top 5,000 active domains in the world provides a better picture of real-world usage.
