Surely no one loves technology and surfing the internet who has not entered the digital space of WordPress - the most widely used CMS platform - at least once.
In this article, we present to you the 21 funniest facts about WordPress that we think you'll find both interesting and useful. The occasion is WordPress' 21st birthday, which we will celebrate together by giving it the attention it deserves.
Yes, WordPress is a content management system, but one of the key elements that sets it apart is its open-source GPLv2 license and the ability for anyone to use it for free.
Aside from the ease of accessibility, we can not help but notice that its use is not a lecture on nuclear physics, but quite the opposite. WordPress is an extremely accessible system that anyone who wants to work with it can learn quickly and easily.
These factors in no way diminish the quality of the work, quite the contrary. It is perhaps one of the most widespread myths about WordPress that a service offered for free or at a low and competitive price on the market does not offer the quality that all professionals strive for. This is best illustrated in the following facts, as nothing speaks better than human experience and accumulated statistics.
Fact №1: 41% of All Websites Are Based on the WordPress Platform.
That's right, you read that correctly. Almost half of websites use WordPress as their content management system.
Fact №2: WordPress Was Officially Launched on May 27, 2003, With Version 0.7.
And so we have been creating, developing, and conquering innovations in the technological world together for 21 years.
Fact №3: The Number of Free WordPress plugins Is Around 60 Thousand.
Plugins are applications that allow us to add different functions and options to our WordPress website, significantly improving its efficiency and practicality.
Fact №4: There Are Over 12,000 free WordPress themes.
The theme is the first thing a user sees when opening a website. That's why we can also call it the "window to our website" because by choosing a specific theme, we set the boundaries of the style and vision with which we want our website to be identified and associated. You have the opportunity to choose from 12,000 free themes. You are sure to find what you are looking for.
Fact №5: There Are Over 43 WordPress Updates, Each Named After Popular Jazz Artists, Such As Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Billy Strayhorn, Ella Fitzgerald, and Oscar Peterson.
Updating WordPress versions is important for several reasons. The most important are: Protecting the website from hacker attacks and maintaining a high speed. Therefore, now is the time to announce that the next update is scheduled for July 2024, and the well-known names of jazz artists can only contribute to the good mood at work.
Fact №6: Over 28% of all online stores are based on WooCommerce.
WooCommerce is undoubtedly one of the most widespread and used WordPress plugins for online stores. Its main advantages are the large international team of developers who take care of constant maintenance and frequent updates, which guarantees flawless operation, as well as the fact that its users have full control over their online store. This means that they can add/remove extensions, and change the design and settings at any time.
Fact №7: WordPress was founded with the idea of being an analog to print media and allowing bloggers to write about topics that are important to them.
Of course, some users still use WordPress to create their blogs where they can share the topics that interest them and thus reach their audience.
Fact №8: The block editor is named after Johannes Gutenberg, who invented letterpress printing in the 15th century, to honor his contributions to humanity, technology, and reading.
It's always exciting and inspiring when we're grateful to the inventors who keep us alive today, and Gutenberg is definitely a notable person who it's nice to give the significant attention that WordPress has done.
Fact №9: WordCamp is a WordPress event organized by the local user community, bringing fans, enthusiasts, and contributors together in one place.
The first WordCamp was organized by Matt Mullenweg in San Francisco in August 2006. In his blog, he defined the WordCamp concept as: “A one-day free BarCamp-style conference with a party in the evening. There's a free BBQ lunch, WordPress t-shirts, and a full day of discussions with users and developers”.
Fact №10: The most commonly used WordPress plugins are Yoast SEO, WooCommerce, Contact Form 7, Elementor, and Google Site Kit.
Let's also look at the data from the official site of the WordPress platform and check how many times each of their most used plugins have been downloaded. Yoast SEO, WooCommerce, Contact Form 7, and Elementor have been downloaded over 5 million times, and Google Site Kit over 4 million times.
Fact №11: Currently over 50% of users are using WordPress version 6.5
The version of WordPress 6.5 has been active since March 2024. The updates that the developers have focused on in this version are the following: the font library, the plugin requirements, and improvements in the block editor, they have also added a drop shadow effect, a smart overlap color, the ability to rename all blocks in the listing menu and the rest of the improvements you can read in our article on the Jump.BG blog that describes all the changes in detail: "WordPress 6.5 - what changes and new features does it bring?"
Fact №12: Websites created with WordPress include the White House, the Economist, Mercedes, Walt Disney, NASA… and even Beyoncé!
What else can we say when even pop diva Beyoncé has chosen and trusted our faithful friend WordPress lol.
Fact №13: WordPress Has a Mascot Named Wapuu.
In 2009, Matt Mullenweg asked users in Japan for ideas on how to promote WordPress in their country. This gave rise to the idea for the WAPUU mascot. The name of the mascot comes from the word wappy which means "cheerful" or happy.
Fact №14: WordPress has a market share of over 60% compared to the most widely used CMS systems today.
WordPress' market share has grown over the years and is now over 60%, underlining the fact that WordPress is indeed the preferred CMS for content management.
Fact №15: WordPress appeared 13 years before TikTok (2016)...
… 4 years before Tumblr (2007) and the first iPhone, which was also released in 2007. It is also less than a year older than Facebook and about 5 weeks older than Tesla (July 2003)
Fact №16: Every year, the WordPress community provides a new theme named after the year.
Every calendar year, the WordPress community develops a new, lightweight theme that WordPress enthusiasts can use for free. The current one is: Twenty Twenty Four
Fact №17: The name of the platform is derived from: Written press + blogging = WordPress (or “Word Press” if you want to spell it correctly)
As already mentioned, the original idea of WordPress was to create blogs, hence the name.
Fact №18: The plugins most frequently used by our customers are: Akismet, Litespeed-cache, SEO plugins, Contact-form-7, Classic-editor, Elementor/pro, Woocommerce, Revslider, Loco-translate.
If you need help with your WordPress website, you should use our service - WordPress Support! A team of professionals with extensive experience will take care of your project around the clock, monitor it, and react in critical situations.
Fact №19: At the very beginning - the first steps towards WordPress are connected with the need to create a platform - a dictionary to store the Corsican language.
In 2000, at the beginning of the 21st century, Michel Valdrighi, a thirty-year-old self-taught webmaster, became a member of an association dedicated to the preservation of the Corsican language. In this context, he needed a suitable platform to create a dictionary.
After Michele Valdrighi already had a blog on Blogger, he looked for a better solution and created his first project with PHP and MySQL - Blogger 2. A year later, in 2001, b2/cafelog appeared - an open-source software for publishing blogs written in PHP and combined with a database (MySQL). The abbreviation b2 comes precisely from Blog 2.
10 years later, at WordCamp Paris 2011, he said that b2 was born out of his "desire to create my own blogger" and was related to "listening to Blur's 'Song 2'".
His project was successfully launched and there is no shortage of enthusiasts. One of them is Matt Mullenweg, a young American saxophonist with the nickname "saxmatt".
Fact №20: wordpress.com and wordpress.org are not the same thing.
Exactly. Many people don't realize that there is a difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org.
WordPress.org, also called “the real WordPress”, is the popular platform to which all the facts we share in this article apply
WordPress.org is open-source software and 100% free for everyone. You have full access and full control over your website. You can do absolutely anything as long as you don't break the law. All you need for a website is hosting and a domain.
Fact №21: In 2024, over 3,000 events were organized by the WordPress community in 108 countries with over 500,000 participants by the month of May
The WordPress community is definitely large and international. There are regular monthly events where WordPress enthusiasts from beginners to experienced developers come together to share ideas and experiences.
The events in Bulgaria are some of the most attended and supported by us. We share the footage from them:
If you are interested in starting your own online business or just want to create a blog where you can discuss topics that interest you but do not know anything about programming, WordPress is for you.
Our WordPress hosting plans are optimized for the platform's requirements and have significantly more CPU and RAM than standard shared hosting plans.
To load your website at lightning speed, we use a LiteSpeed web server with integrated caching at the server level. A free plugin has been developed for this purpose, which you can install for an even better display of your website on the Internet.
We have created an article with detailed instructions on how to set it up, but if you have any questions, please contact us so we can help you.
Read, develop, and be brave enough to realize your dreams, and believe us, they are very close to you.
