Content Management System (CMS) Statistics, Trends & Market Share Report

Content Management Systems (CMS) are tools that make website creation and management easier. But as technology progresses, the CMS industry also evolves along with it. 

So, to bring you the whole picture about CMSs, we compiled this report about the latest trends and statistics about CMS. We’ll also explore some of the challenges users face with CMS and what the future holds for this technology.

Key Content Management System Statistics

Among all the websites on the internet, 68.7% use a content management system. (W3Techs)

There are around 2 billion websites in the world and almost 70% of them use a CMS. That’s around 1.3 billion websites. 

Content management systems are this popular because they make website creation and management easier and faster.

There are around 922 CMS in the world you can use. (Themeisle)

Because of its popularity, you can find an abundance of content management systems to choose from based on what you need.

In 2011, 76% of all the websites were manually built. Now in 2024, only 30% of websites are. (WPBeginner)

You can clearly see that the number of hand-built sites has been decreasing. But in reality, it has decreased a lot more than it seems from the stat. 

According to Internet Live Stats, there were only around 346 million websites in 2011. In 2024, the number more than 2 billion. That means the number of non-CMS sites hasn’t really grown.

The most essential CMS features are collaboration, centralized content management, visual editing, and an easy integration process. (StoryBlok)

According to a survey conducted by StoryBlok, 58% of businesses think collaboration features are the most important, 53% of them think it’s centralized content management, and 52% think it’s visual editing and an easy integration process.

Most CMS users struggle with adding new technology, security issues, and time-consuming processes. (StoryBlok)

47% of organizations face issues with adding new technology, 40% of them have security concerns, and 36% of them believe that their CMS is inefficient. 

The most sought-after CMS features are content scaling, advanced digital asset management, collaboration tools, and AI-powered content creation. (StoryBlok)

43% of businesses want their CMS to include content scaling features, 42% of them want advanced digital asset management, 41% of them want more collaboration tools and 40% of them want AI-powered content creation. 

Since 2021, 63% of users have switched to a different CMS. (StoryBlok)

The main reason for switching to CMS was a lack of features and security issues.

While migrating, 52% of users had difficulties because of a lack of technical support. (StoryBlok)

40% of them felt a lack of templates, 38% of them had trouble with content structuring and 37% of them had a poor onboarding experience. 

CMS Usage Statistics

Over 78 million websites on the entire internet rely on a CMS. (BuiltWith)

Now, these numbers vary depending on the sources. However, according to BuiltWith, they have detected 78,347,354 websites that use a CMS as of 6th July 2024.

Among the top 1 million sites based on traffic, 773,849 websites use a CMS. (BuiltWith)

When we look at the top global websites, we see a similar pattern that most of them use a CMS. However, the CMS platforms varied.

The United States has the most websites that use a CMS. (BuiltWith)

Roughly 21 million CMS-based sites are from the US, Germany (4.5 million), UK (3.4 million), and Russia (2.2 million) are next in line.  

47% of companies that use CMS use 2-3 CMSs in their organization. (StoryBlok)

The main reason to use multiple CMSs is to achieve omnichannel capabilities that improve customer experience. 

However, 19% of organizations stick to using a single CMS. 

Among all the companies that use a CMS, 41% of them use a traditional CMS. (StoryBlok) 

Even though traditional CMSs like WordPress are still dominating the market, the usage of custom and headless CMSs is on the rise. 34% of users use custom CMS and 25% of users use headless CMSs.

Businesses that migrated to a headless CMS from a traditional one, had a positive experience. (StoryBlok)

61% of companies saw an increase in ROI, 58% believed it made them more productive, and 54% saw improvements in performance.

76% of CMS users utilize a CMS specifically for managing websites. (StoryBlok)

62% of users manage mobile apps and 57% of them use it for e-Commerce shops.

53% of CMS users publish content in 2-3 different languages. (StoryBlok)   

Only 17% of users publish content in a single language. On the other hand, 24% use 4-5 languages, and 7% use 6 or more. 

84% of CMS users believe that their CMS prevents their organization from fully realizing the value of its content. (Hygraph)  

According to a survey conducted by Hygraph with 400 tech leaders, the majority of them believe their CMS is not offering enough value.

CMS Market Share Statistics

72.8% of the CMS market is controlled by only three CMS platforms. (Themeisle)

These three top platforms are WordPress, Shopify, and Wix. 

Even though there are more than 900 content management systems in the world, most of them are not really popular among webmasters.

WordPress has a total 63.3% market share of the entire CMS market. (Search Logistics)

This makes WordPress the most popular CMS platform in the world. According to Search Logistics, more than 810 million websites are powered by WordPress. 

Among the top 1 million, 100k, and 10k sites, WordPress still has the most market share. (BuiltWith) 

Following a similar pattern, WordPress is loved by top websites on the internet. What’s surprising is that, except WordPress other popular platforms do not have a similar market share.

So, the summary is, that apart from WordPress, there are some CMS platforms that aren’t popular among general users but are popular with top websites. 

Most of the available CMS platforms have a market share of less than 0.1%. (W3Techs)

With the likes of WordPress, Shopify, and Wix dominating the market, most CMS platforms have only a few users. 

Only 10 CMS platforms have more than 1% market share. (W3Techs)

These platforms are WordPress (43.4%), Shopify (2.8%), Wix (4%), Squarespace (3%), Joomla (2.4%), Drupal (1.4%), Adobe Systems (1.3%), PrestaShop (1.1%), Webflow (1.1%), and Google Systems (1%).

Future CMS Trends

By 2025, the global market for content management software applications is projected to reach USD 45 billion. (Statista)

In 2019, it was approximately USD 42.5 billion. That’s almost a 6% increase in 6 years.

The Headless CMS market was valued at approximately USD 605 million in 2022 and is projected to expand to USD 3.8 billion by 2032. (Future Market Insights)

Even though headless CMS technology is comparatively new, it’s getting traction. We believe that headless CMS will be more and more popular in the near future.

From July 2023 to July 2024, CMS websites have increased by 0.6%. (W3Techs) 

On the other hand, non-CMS websites have decreased by 0.9%.

WordPress remains the dominant CMS, increasing its market share from 58.8% in 2016 to 63.7% in 2023.  (Themeisle)

Between 2016 and 2023, Wix was the fastest-growing CMS that showed an 800% market share growth rate. (Themeisle)

However, over the past year, Shopify has seen the most growth.

On the other hand, popular platforms like Joomla and Drupal have seen a significant decrease in growth. (Themeisle)

Joomla went down from 7.5% in 2016 to 2.7% in 2023 and Drupal has gone from 4.9% to 1.8% over the same period.

Final Thoughts

From our CMS statistics, trends, and market share report, one thing is certain: CMSs will keep getting popular for the next decade or so. However, while traditional CMSs like WordPress and Shopify currently dominate the market, in the future, headless CMSs will be popular.