Automattic's CMS empire shows cracks as WordPress share falls

After months of lawsuits, injunctions, plugin disputes, and public sparring between Automattic and WP Engine, WordPress is showing its first sustained market share decline in years. As first reported by Search Engine Journal, new data from web technology tracker W3Techs puts WordPress at 41.9 percent of all websites, down from 43.2 percent six months earlier and extending a losing streak that stretches back into 2025. The numbers are hardly catastrophic for software that still powers more than two-fifths of the web, but they represent a notable shift for a platform whose market share had remained stable for years. For years, the W3Techs charts were about as exciting as watching paint dry. WordPress sat at roughly 43 percent of the web and rarely moved very far in either direction. Last year, the line started bending downward, and by January 2026, it had slipped to 43.0 percent from 43.6 percent a year earlier. By the end of May, it was sitting at 41.9 percent. Not everyone is heading south. Wix, Shopify, Squarespace, and Webflow all posted small gains in the W3Techs data, while Duda sat exactly where it was a year ago. The obvious question is why. Some observers point to increasingly capable competitors, while others have noted a more recent development: WordPress's prolonged, high-profile conflict with hosting provider WP Engine. The decline in market share began shortly after Automattic chief executive Matt Mullenweg launched a campaign against WP Engine that escalated into lawsuits, injunctions, contributor disputes, plugin controversies, and a steady stream of public recriminations. The W3Techs data shows correlation, not causation. There is currently no evidence that website owners are abandoning WordPress specifically because of the WP Engine dispute. Plenty of other factors could be at play, including growing competition from hosted platforms and newer web frameworks. The WP Engine dispute may ultimately prove unrelated. But either way, Automattic now has a problem it did not have a couple of years ago: the numbers are no longer moving in its favor. (R)