Here's a number that surprised me. According to W3Techs, WordPress ran 43.0% of all websites on 1 January 2026. Today it's 38.7%. That's after a decade of almost nonstop growth, from 23.3% in 2015.
Shopify, Wix and Squarespace didn't take all of it. Most of the gap shows up in sites W3Techs can't match to any CMS at all, which I read as more custom builds and AI-generated sites. I could be wrong about that.
Either way, it made me ask a question I hadn't asked in a while: if a small business came to me today for a new site, would I still pick WordPress?
Why I'd still say yes, most of the time:
- The client can edit their own pages without calling me. That still matters more to most owners than anything technical.
- Hosting is cheap and everywhere, and no single company can raise the price on them.
- WooCommerce, forms, SEO plugins: almost anything a small business asks for already exists.
- When I disappear, another developer can pick it up tomorrow.
Why I hesitate more than I used to:
- Plugin sprawl. A "simple" site with 25 plugins is 25 things that can break or get hacked.
- Updates are the client's problem until they suddenly become yours.
- For a five-page brochure site, a static site or a hosted builder is faster and has almost nothing to maintain.
- Page builders make sites easy to edit and easy to make slow.
Where I've landed for now: WordPress for anything the client will update often or sell through, something lighter for sites that barely change. But I keep changing my mind on the middle ground.
So, be honest:
- If you build sites for clients, what's your default in 2026, and why?
- Have you moved a client off WordPress recently? What made you do it, and was it worth it?
- If you still use it, what's your rule for keeping plugins under control?
I'd especially like to hear from people who switched and regret it, and from people who switched and never looked back.
