2025’s Most Important Web Hosting Statistics

Web Hosting Statistics

If you’re lucky enough to remember the rise of the World Wide Web in the mid-1990s, you probably recall old relics like GeoCities, Angelfire, and Netscape. It’s hard to forget the overuse of Comic Sans typeface, WordArt on every page, and prolonged loading times. Ah, the good ol’ days before user experience was a thing.

The internet is as universal in 2025 as frosted tips and Beanie Babies were in the ‘90s. I mean, seriously, there are more than 1.13 billion websites in the world. It’s a number so high it’s hard to fathom. And how are these websites powered you may ask? It’s all made possible by web hosting.

This got me thinking about the hosting industry as a whole, so I scoured the web to bring you the most important web hosting statistics, from revenue to market share to cloud hosting, and everything in between.

1. There are More Than 330,000 Web Hosting Companies

The web hosting industry is a saturated market with more than 330,000 companies.1 If you’re planning to get into the biz, you’ve got your work cut out for you!

Infographic about the number of web hosting companies worldwide
The U.S. is home to major providers like Amazon and GoDaddy.

The industry is dominated by a handful of players that hold most of the market share, like AWS, Shopify, and GoDaddy — industry leaders that have found their respective niches and taken over.

However, the number of hosting companies is constantly growing. Perhaps in the next decade, these major players will have some competition from newcomers.

2. AWS Is the Largest Hosting Provider, With a 5.5% Market Share

Unless you live under a rock like Patrick Star from Spongebob, you’ve heard of Amazon. AWS is a subsidiary of the online retail giant that provides cloud computing services to 2.38 million businesses.2

In non-geek terms, AWS lets a whole lot of people and businesses host websites on its servers. If you think its number of customers is impressive, get this: AWS has a $2 trillion stock market value — an achievement only four other U.S. companies have earned.3

3. GoDaddy Has Registered More Than 84 Million Domain Names

Domain registrar and web hosting provider GoDaddy has registered an incredible 84 million domain names and has more than 20 million customers.4

The company got its start in 1994 and quickly became a household name thanks to its brazen (and often controversial) TV commercials starring celebrities like Danica Patrick. The web host and domain registrar has chilled out in recent years, opting for a less controversial marketing approach.

Coming behind GoDaddy are some other heavy hitters in the domain registrar space:

RegistrarNumber of Registered Domains
1. GoDaddy84 million
2. Tucows29 million
3. Onamae28 million
4. IONOS22 million
5. Namecheap17 million
6. OpenSRS17 million
7. Squarespace11 million
8. Network Solutions10 million
9. Key-Systems7 million
10. Enom6.5 million
11. NameBright6.3 million
Read more about the world’s largest domain registrars here.

GoDaddy’s second-closest competitor, Tucows, has just a fraction of the number of registered domains. I’m not one for gambling, but I’d place my bet on GoDaddy keeping its number-one spot for years to come.

4. WordPress Is Used by 43.4% of all Websites

Where would the internet be without WordPress? The content management system makes light work of creating websites with its site templates and plugins, which is why 43.4% of site owners use it.

Compared to the Drupals, Joomlas, and Magentos of the world, WordPress has an even higher share of the CMS market at 62.5%.6

The fact that WordPress is open source (and therefore free) sure doesn’t hurt its popularity. However, I personally love the software and think it earned its number one spot by merit.

5. The Web Hosting Market Is Expected to Generate $159.9B in 2024

To quote Tom Cruise in the 1996 film “Jerry Maguire” — “Show me the money!” The web hosting market answers this call and beyond. Experts predict the industry will generate an insane $159.9 billion in 2024.

Web hosting market revenue bar chart
The hosting market’s revenue will grow steadily through the next several years.

By 2029, revenue is expected to grow to $355.8 billion.5

6. About 44% of Websites Use The .Com Domain Extension

This statistic likely won’t come as such a surprise since .com feels like the default domain extension. About 44.4% of global websites use it as their TLD (top-level domain). Other popular TLDs include .org, .net, and ccTLDs (country-code TLDs) such as .ru and .de.8

The first TLD was .arpa for ARPANET, the network that evolved into what we now know as the internet. That was followed by .com, .org, .edu, .gov, .mil, and .net.9 Today, there are more than 1,600 fun (and odd) TLDs, including .pizza, .rocks, and .wtf.

7. Data Centers Will Consume 9% of Electricity Generated in the U.S. by 2030

Oof, talk about bad for the environment. The U.S. has 5,381 data centers — the most of any country. And so it’s no surprise these data centers consume a heck of a lot of electricity. Experts predict that data centers will consume 9% of electricity generation in the U.S. by 2030 — that’s more than twice the current usage.

Infographic of data center electricity consumption
Data centers require massive amounts of electricity to power their servers and cooling systems.

What’s even crazier is that one large data center consumes more electricity than 750,000 residential homes.7 That makes me feel a lot better about accidentally leaving my lights on.

Thankfully, the web hosting industry is investing in alternative energy sources, reducing carbon footprint, and innovating more efficient ways to cool their facilities.

8. Only 18% of the World’s Websites Are Active

A staggering 1.13 billion websites live on the World Wide Web, but only 18% of these websites are active. That means a whopping 82% of websites are just gathering virtual dust. That reminds me, I should probably take down my old websites from college.

Despite the number of websites collecting dust on the digital bookshelf, about 252,000 websites are created every day — that’s also three per second if you’re curious.10

9. The Web Hosting Industry Has a CAGR of 15.1%

Cloud hosting is the fastest growing segment of web hosting, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.3%. The second-fastest growing hosting type is shared hosting with a CAGR of 10.3% and dedicated hosting with a CAGR of 5.6%.11

Bar chart of web hosting industry CAGR by segment
It’s no surprise cloud hosting is the fastest growing segment.

With behemoths like AWS and Google Cloud Platform, it’s not surprising that cloud hosting is growing rapidly. Its market size is expected to reach $832.1 billion by 2025, up from $371.4 billion in 2020.12 Many people prefer cloud hosting because it’s cheaper than dedicated hosting and handles high traffic better than shared hosting.

The Future of the Web Hosting Industry

Web hosting is an ever-evolving industry with innovations like cloud computing, AI, and eco-friendly initiatives taking root. I think it’s pretty obvious the industry is thriving and will continue to generate a whole boatload of revenue for years to come.

That said, your journey doesn’t have to end here. There is a lot more to learn about web hosting, so check out the resources I’ve compiled to keep on learning.

Sources and Further Reading

  1. https://www.hostingadvice.com/how-to/how-many-web-hosting-companies-are-there
  2. https://hginsights.com/blog/aws-market-report-buyer-landscape
  3. https://www.npr.org/2024/06/27/g-s1-6525/amazon-2-trillion-stock-market-value
  4. https://www.godaddy.com/
  5. https://www.statista.com/outlook/tmo/it-services/it-outsourcing/web-hosting/worldwide
  6. https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-wordpress
  7. https://www.technology.org/2024/06/04/data-centers-predicted-to-consume-9-of-us-electricity-by-2030/
  8. https://www.statista.com/statistics/265677/number-of-internet-top-level-domains-worldwide/
  9. https://www.inwx.de/blog/en/first-top-level-domains
  10. https://siteefy.com/how-many-websites-are-there/
  11. https://financesonline.com/30-essential-web-hosting-statistics-2019-analysis-of-trends-data-and-market-share/
  12. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/08/21/2081841/0/en/Cloud-Computing-Industry-to-Grow-from-371-4-Billion-in-2020-to-832-1-Billion-by-2025-at-a-CAGR-of-17-5.html/