With there being over 2 billion websites on the web, there are a lot of potential websites that could be running a CMS (Content Management System). With even a tiny market share overall still offering the possibility of being ran on millions of websites.
As a website owner, you know the need of building the website on a good base, and a good base starts with finding the right CMS for your needs, and as a rule, the more popular it is, the better it is likely to be, as if even if the base isn’t as good as other content management systems around, the level of documentation and support online will be far, far better.
So What IS The Most Popular CMS?
Well, using data we compiled from BuiltWith, we were able to compile this table below…
WordPress is by far the most popular CMS, but that doesn’t mean that the other ones are not immensely popular!
WordPress, with a whopping market share of 59.9%, practically owns the market when talking about websites built with a CMS! The reason for its immense popularity is just how capable WordPress is, as while it may have had a noble beginning as a blogging CMS, it has evolved (although some would say bloated) into a fully capable CMS that still keeps its blogging roots close, but allows for options to make full websites, with custom php within the theme or WordPress plugins allowing you to make anything from a forum all the way to a full on social media site with WordPress!
Sites built with WordPress Include:
- http://www.bbcamerica.com/
- http://www.beyonce.com/
- http://time.com/
- https://techcrunch.com/
- http://www.rollingstones.com/
- http://www.justinbiebermusic.com/
As you can see from the list above, lots of very varied sites, some being closer to the original, like BBC America which is a news/blog site, while other sites like the Justin Bieber one being very multi purpose, with a mailing list and blog to help keep you updated, as well as having eCommerce functionality.
Joomla is the second most popular CMS on the web, with a much lower market share of 6.6%, which STILL equates to around 2 million active sites. Joomla was built from the ground up to be a dedicated CMS, which means it is a lot more capable out of the box, but is also known to be a lot more complex than WordPress and similar CMS platforms, which is why it was quickly superseded by WordPress as WordPress added more base features and had a community that filled in the gaps with custom themes and plugins.
Sites Built with Joomla include:
- https://www.expressbath.co.uk/
- http://www.highcharts.com/
- https://openvpn.net/
- http://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/
Drupal – the third most popular CMS with a market share of 4.6% and just under 1 million websites running it, this CMS is more complex than WordPress, but arguable less complex than Joomla, all while offering improved performance when compared to other content management systems. Drupal is also highly customisation, and is built around being able to edit the root files easily enough if no theme/plugin has what you are looking for.
Sites Built with Drupal include:
- http://www.getransportation.com/
- https://gsas.harvard.edu/
- https://www.linux.com/
Magneto, which is the fourth most popular CMS platform, with a market share of 2.4% and just under 1 million sites running, it a relatively newer CMS, that is built with the idea if it doing one thing, and doing it really well.
To this end, magneto is one of the most powerful CMS platforms out there for eCommerce, thanks to its flexibility and scalability. Sites that run Magneto include:
- https://www.bulgari.com/en-de/
- https://www.g2a.com/
- https://www.kinguin.net/
- https://shop.landrover.com/
- https://ymeuniverse.com/
Blogger, the blogging cms that was, has a market share of 1.9%, which equates to around 750,000 websites running it, Blogger is purely for blogging, and doesn’t do much else, its support starts and ends with custom themes, that are fairly limited, making Blogger only really useful for people who want basic blogs.
A decent portion of websites built with Blogger, were used by affiliate marketers to sell their product while leveraging the domain authority that the Blogger site had on the “site.blogspot.com” domain. Sites running Blogger include:
- https://blogger.googleblog.com/
- http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/
- http://www.webupd8.org/
Any CMS below the 5 point starts to have far lower market share overall, with these being the platforms:
- Shopify – 1.8% Market Share equating to around 600,000 sites.
- Bitrix – 1.5% Market Share equating to around 200,000 sites.
- TYPO3 – 1.5% Market Share equating to around 500,000 sites.
- SquareSpace – 1.8% Market Share equating to around 1000,000 sites.
- PrestaShop – 1.3% Market Share equating to around 300,000 sites.
So overall, if you are a blogger looking for an easy to use CMS platform then, on the basis of its ease of use and sheer popularity, we strongly suggest that you use WordPress.
