Writer: Jordan Sprogis
Editor: Lillian Castro
Reviewer: Cristian Lopez
Key Takeaways
- Market share data show WordPress adoption has stalled while players like Hostinger, Shopify, and Wix are gaining ground.
- At WordCamp Europe 2025, Matt Mullenweg admitted WordPress is losing ground to SaaS but has plans to double down on WooCommerce and AI to stay competitive.
- Managed WordPress providers should lean into the AI-first, intuitive experience other major non-CMS players are already capitalizing on.
WordPress’s growth has officially plateaued: Its share grew just 0.4% (43.2% to 43.6%) from 2022 to 2025. It’s a stark contrast with the two-year period from 2019 to 2021, when its share surged by more than 6%.
These market changes only confirm the trends the industry has been seeing: SaaS and AI-native platforms are taking over from traditional web hosting and CMS solutions. That means traditional hosts will be pressured to modernize their product stack or risk becoming irrelevant.
Meanwhile, competitors like Shopify, Wix, and Hostinger continue climbing, and it’s because they’re following the market trends and leaning into AI-first, CMS-free, intuitive drag-and-drop web building experiences.
“How Can We Compete?”
Despite the numbers, WordPress’s founder, Matt Mullenweg, seems to remain optimistic.
In fact, he acknowledged that SaaS competitors are pulling WP users away during a Q&A at this year’s WordCamp Europe.
An agency owner from France shared that many of her clients are shifting to SaaS options like Shopify. Her question to Mullenweg was How can we compete?
Mullenweg confirmed WooCommerce is now the biggest business within the WP ecosystem. He’s confident it will always beat out other hosting/CMS customizations.
But he also admitted limitations. Getting data into WordPress is easy, but getting data out remains a pain point.
While WordPress is easy to start with, integrating other tools can require some tech know-how.
It’s just not what the majority of consumers are looking for these days, which is exactly why managed WordPress providers are so popular: short learning curve, easy customization.
But Mullenweg isn’t too pleased with those companies, either, referring to WP Engine as “a cancer to WordPress.”
Mullenweg shared a few reasons for this, but the main one is that WP Engine automatically disables the post-revision system, which is a key WordPress feature that tracks changes to your content.
So managed WordPress hosts (or WP Engine itself) should probably take note of where WordPress’s strengths are and keep them in their service offerings.
And then there’s the elephant in the room: Plugins are crazy susceptible to security issues.
- 90% of known WordPress vulnerabilities stem from plugins
- 52% of security issues are due to outdated plugins
- WordPress faces 90,000 attacks per minute
Even so, WordPress isn’t standing still.
In an interview with Search Engine Journal, Mullenweg laid out a road map that includes securing plugins and themes, deeper AI integration, and meeting compliance frameworks.
Mullenweg also admitted what many in the ecosystem have long felt, and it’s that some parts of WordPress are way overdue for a cleanup.
“There are some parts that we haven’t looked at in a little while that we need to get around to. And it’s our big focus for us this year, is actually going back to basics, back to core,” Mullenweg said.
He added: “We’ve just launched a lot of stuff over the past 21 years that isn’t as relevant today or doesn’t need to be there.”
It’s smart. Mullenweg isn’t overly braggy about WordPress; just as he knows where it can excel, he also knows where it falls short.
As consumers move to SaaS builders and AI-first platforms, managed WordPress providers will need to adapt.
Looking at what’s popular now, it’d be wise to start by bundling with AI tools, WooCommerce, vertical-specific stacks, and security-focused solutions.
