WordPress market share (May 2026): 43.2% of web, 60.4% of CMS — peaked at 65.2% in 2022

reference·Scope: business·Status: current

Created 2026-05-22

Claim: WordPress powers approximately 43.2-43.5% of all websites and holds roughly 60.4% of the CMS market as of May 2026. The CMS share peaked at 65.2% in 2022 — a sustained ~5 point decline over 4 years.

Sources: W3Techs May 2026 — https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-wordpress; Search Engine Journal citing W3Techs Oct 2025 — https://www.searchenginejournal.com/cms-market-share/454039/; CMS Knowledge Base Dec 2025 — https://cmsconf.com/knowledge/cms-market-share-2026/.

Confidence: Verified.

Nuance: Among the top 100,000 sites, WordPress runs roughly 30%. The dominance is concentrated in the small-to-mid market — exactly Candid's KW SMB target. The agency that says "WordPress is fine because it powers 43% of the web" is correct numerically and wrong strategically — the platform peaked and is in decline.

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