Reports · Report 2026-09 · Edition 2
WordPress in Europe: hosts, versions and plugins
- Published:
- 10 October 2026
- Updated:
- 12 October 2026 (edition 2)
- Data:
- Common Crawl CC-MAIN-2026-39 (September 2026)
- Author:
- Nettingale
- Licence:
- CC BY 4.0
Disclosure: Nettingale is a WordPress hosting company. We used the same method for all hosts. The method and the data are public, so anyone can examine the results.
Key findings
- 47.4% of the homepages in the 19 countries use WordPress. This is 1,811,412 of 3,824,219 homepages.
- The share is highest in Italy (57.2%) and lowest in Czechia (34.5%).
- In Bulgaria, one host serves 64.4% of the WordPress sites. In the Netherlands, the largest host serves only 8.8%.
- 21.1% of the WordPress sites use a version older than 6.9. The share is from 16.3% in Switzerland to 28.7% in Czechia.
- 22.6% of the sites that show a PHP version use PHP 7. The share is from 7.9% in Denmark to 41.7% in Portugal.
- WooCommerce shops are 5.9% of the WordPress sites in Germany and 26.5% in Bulgaria.
You can examine each country in the interactive explorer.
1 Scope
This report describes the WordPress sites in 19 European countries. It shows the share of WordPress, the hosting companies, the WordPress and PHP versions and the plugins in each country.
The countries are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom are not in the European Union, but the report includes them.
For each country, the data set contains the homepages of all domains on the country domain, for example .de or .it, in one Common Crawl crawl. All numbers are for the time of the crawl, September 2026.
2 WordPress share by country
The share of WordPress is different in each country. It is highest in Italy and Finland. It is lowest in Norway and Czechia. In each country, between 34% and 58% of the homepages use WordPress.
Use this chart
You can use this chart under CC BY 4.0. Download Figure 1 as PNG or Figure 1 as SVG, or copy this code into your page. Keep the link to the report.
Use this chart
You can use this chart under CC BY 4.0. Download Figure 2 as PNG or Figure 2 as SVG, or copy this code into your page. Keep the link to the report.
| Country | Homepages | WordPress sites | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Italy (.it) | 276,698 | 158,174 | 57.2% |
| Finland (.fi) | 64,009 | 36,569 | 57.1% |
| Spain (.es) | 128,620 | 73,236 | 56.9% |
| Romania (.ro) | 54,985 | 30,652 | 55.7% |
| Denmark (.dk) | 104,483 | 55,916 | 53.5% |
| Poland (.pl) | 223,713 | 119,529 | 53.4% |
| Bulgaria (.bg) | 10,557 | 5,414 | 51.3% |
| Ireland (.ie) | 25,381 | 12,729 | 50.2% |
| Sweden (.se) | 133,517 | 66,786 | 50.0% |
| France (.fr) | 383,407 | 191,112 | 49.8% |
| Portugal (.pt) | 34,232 | 16,475 | 48.1% |
| Germany (.de) | 996,727 | 470,097 | 47.2% |
| Netherlands (.nl) | 318,413 | 150,057 | 47.1% |
| Austria (.at) | 109,388 | 48,811 | 44.6% |
| Switzerland (.ch) | 166,491 | 69,219 | 41.6% |
| Belgium (.be) | 111,232 | 45,865 | 41.2% |
| United Kingdom (.uk) | 509,126 | 198,732 | 39.0% |
| Norway (.no) | 65,215 | 24,768 | 38.0% |
| Czechia (.cz) | 108,025 | 37,271 | 34.5% |
| All 19 countries | 3,824,219 | 1,811,412 | 47.4% |
3 Hosting companies
Each country has a different hosting market. In Bulgaria, SuperHosting.BG serves 64.4% of the WordPress sites. In the Netherlands, no host serves more than 8.8%.
Some companies sell web hosting and also rent servers. The report shows these products as two hosts, for example "Hetzner (web hosting)" and "Hetzner (rented servers)". The shares are percentages of all WordPress sites in the country.
| Country | Largest | Second | Third | Top 3 together |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Italy | Aruba 42.4% | Netsons 6.7% | Serverplan 5.5% | 54.6% |
| Finland | Planeetta 18.9% | Hetzner (rented servers) 13.7% | Zoner 11.6% | 44.2% |
| Spain | IONOS 24.8% | Hostinger 7.8% | Dinahosting 7.5% | 40.1% |
| Romania | GTS Telecom 17.1% | Claus Web 11.3% | cyber_Folks 10.3% | 38.7% |
| Denmark | team.blue 47.3% | one.com 17.4% | Hetzner (rented servers) 9.2% | 73.9% |
| Poland | cyber_Folks 22.7% | home.pl 11.3% | Dataspace 6.4% | 40.5% |
| Bulgaria | SuperHosting.BG 64.4% | OVHcloud 2.3% | Hetzner (rented servers) 2.1% | 68.8% |
| Ireland | team.blue 15.4% | Google Cloud 7.5% | Hostinger 6.1% | 29.0% |
| Sweden | Loopia 23.1% | one.com 18.7% | Oderland 10.3% | 52.2% |
| France | OVHcloud (web hosting) 31.1% | o2switch 18.0% | IONOS 9.6% | 58.7% |
| Portugal | Dominios 14.6% | Almouroltec 13.6% | Combell 12.4% | 40.7% |
| Germany | IONOS 22.7% | ALL-INKL 15.1% | Strato 14.5% | 52.2% |
| Netherlands | Your Hosting 8.8% | Combell 8.8% | TransIP 8.7% | 26.3% |
| Austria | ALL-INKL 12.9% | Hetzner (rented servers) 12.5% | Nessus 7.7% | 33.0% |
| Switzerland | Infomaniak 31.7% | Hostpoint 22.2% | cyon 10.2% | 64.1% |
| Belgium | Combell 27.3% | OVHcloud (web hosting) 11.8% | one.com 11.5% | 50.6% |
| United Kingdom | IONOS 14.4% | Krystal 9.1% | Hostinger 7.5% | 31.0% |
| Norway | one.com 22.1% | Domeneshop 17.6% | Hetzner 5.3% | 45.1% |
| Czechia | WEDOS 20.6% | Websupport 16.0% | INTERNET CZ (Forpsi) 9.5% | 46.1% |
Most WordPress sites use the platform of a hosting company. Other sites use a rented server or a cloud machine. Usually, an agency or the site owner manages this type of server. A CDN hides the real host of 7.5% of the sites. The share is highest in Ireland (18.8%) and the United Kingdom (18.7%).
| Country | Hosting company | Rented server or cloud | Other network | Behind a CDN | No DNS address |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Italy | 70.9% | 16.9% | 6.5% | 5.5% | 0.3% |
| Finland | 48.0% | 36.5% | 8.9% | 6.2% | 0.4% |
| Spain | 65.7% | 16.6% | 10.9% | 6.4% | 0.4% |
| Romania | 37.0% | 30.2% | 22.6% | 9.4% | 0.8% |
| Denmark | 67.9% | 15.9% | 5.4% | 10.1% | 0.6% |
| Poland | 60.2% | 22.6% | 7.1% | 9.3% | 0.8% |
| Bulgaria | 70.9% | 10.1% | 9.9% | 8.7% | 0.4% |
| Ireland | 45.3% | 28.5% | 7.2% | 18.8% | 0.2% |
| Sweden | 66.9% | 15.7% | 7.8% | 9.1% | 0.5% |
| France | 73.8% | 12.7% | 5.2% | 7.8% | 0.5% |
| Portugal | 65.1% | 16.3% | 9.0% | 9.1% | 0.5% |
| Germany | 81.4% | 10.5% | 5.1% | 2.8% | 0.1% |
| Netherlands | 57.3% | 26.1% | 8.4% | 7.8% | 0.4% |
| Austria | 59.1% | 17.5% | 18.2% | 5.1% | 0.2% |
| Switzerland | 81.4% | 5.5% | 8.4% | 4.4% | 0.3% |
| Belgium | 71.9% | 15.1% | 6.4% | 6.3% | 0.4% |
| United Kingdom | 52.9% | 16.9% | 11.1% | 18.7% | 0.3% |
| Norway | 57.5% | 20.0% | 11.4% | 10.9% | 0.2% |
| Czechia | 64.1% | 16.0% | 15.3% | 4.4% | 0.3% |
"Other network" means that no rule identifies the host. For these sites, the data shows the name of the network owner. The hosts CSV file contains the 30 largest hosts in each country.
4 WordPress and PHP versions
21.1% of the WordPress sites use a version older than 6.9. 19.4% of the sites do not show a version. Thus, the real share of old versions can be higher.
Only 32.5% of the sites show a PHP version. Of these sites, 22.6% use PHP 7. PHP 7 gets no security fixes after November 2022.
| Country | WordPress older than 6.9 | Version not shown | PHP version shown | PHP 7, of sites that show PHP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Czechia | 28.7% | 19.5% | 13.7% | 35.7% |
| Poland | 28.5% | 18.7% | 18.7% | 31.7% |
| Italy | 27.4% | 16.6% | 24.5% | 32.2% |
| Bulgaria | 26.4% | 24.6% | 10.3% | 37.7% |
| Romania | 26.3% | 18.4% | 25.6% | 37.8% |
| Portugal | 24.9% | 17.7% | 48.9% | 41.7% |
| Spain | 23.9% | 18.7% | 41.5% | 24.7% |
| Finland | 20.9% | 19.8% | 29.7% | 16.6% |
| Sweden | 20.8% | 17.1% | 54.7% | 9.1% |
| Belgium | 20.4% | 20.6% | 38.8% | 21.5% |
| Germany | 20.0% | 15.9% | 33.5% | 17.5% |
| Austria | 19.6% | 20.3% | 23.5% | 21.3% |
| France | 19.3% | 26.3% | 44.8% | 33.0% |
| United Kingdom | 18.6% | 21.3% | 30.4% | 22.7% |
| Denmark | 18.2% | 24.0% | 27.0% | 7.9% |
| Netherlands | 18.1% | 21.7% | 40.2% | 19.9% |
| Norway | 17.4% | 17.5% | 39.6% | 13.0% |
| Ireland | 16.4% | 25.8% | 22.0% | 21.8% |
| Switzerland | 16.3% | 19.1% | 11.8% | 20.4% |
5 Plugins
WooCommerce shops are 10.6% of the WordPress sites. 26.1% of the sites load a cookie consent plugin. Both shares are very different between the countries.
The counts include only plugins that load files on the homepage. Plugins that work only in the background do not appear. Thus, the real use of most plugins is higher.
| Country | WooCommerce | Cookie plugin |
|---|---|---|
| Bulgaria | 26.5% | 21.8% |
| Ireland | 19.6% | 25.2% |
| Romania | 19.6% | 24.8% |
| Portugal | 17.5% | 24.2% |
| Spain | 15.7% | 39.6% |
| Italy | 13.4% | 27.5% |
| Norway | 13.2% | 14.0% |
| United Kingdom | 12.6% | 17.0% |
| Poland | 12.4% | 22.7% |
| Belgium | 12.2% | 24.3% |
| Denmark | 12.1% | 13.6% |
| Netherlands | 11.9% | 14.0% |
| France | 10.7% | 26.4% |
| Finland | 10.6% | 16.3% |
| Switzerland | 9.9% | 18.4% |
| Sweden | 9.2% | 12.5% |
| Austria | 9.0% | 36.6% |
| Czechia | 8.7% | 26.6% |
| Germany | 5.9% | 37.1% |
| Plugin slug | Sites | Share |
|---|---|---|
elementor | 495,645 | 27.4% |
contact-form-7 | 452,755 | 25.0% |
elementor-pro | 290,246 | 16.0% |
woocommerce | 177,784 | 9.8% |
revslider | 168,024 | 9.3% |
complianz-gdpr | 154,471 | 8.5% |
js_composer | 122,609 | 6.8% |
cookie-law-info | 104,161 | 5.8% |
cookie-notice | 76,956 | 4.2% |
google-site-kit | 74,621 | 4.1% |
borlabs-cookie | 68,738 | 3.8% |
wp-rocket | 65,124 | 3.6% |
6 Method
6.1 Source
The source is Common Crawl, a public archive of the web. We used the crawl CC-MAIN-2026-39 from September 2026. We used the stored copy of each homepage. We did not send requests to the sites.
6.2 WordPress detection
A site counts as WordPress when its homepage shows one or more WordPress markers. The markers are the api.w.org link, the WordPress generator tag and the site's own wp-content or wp-includes paths. Links to WordPress files on other domains do not count. The method is the same as in the report WordPress in Germany.
6.3 Host identification
We identified the host from public DNS and network records in October 2026. The records are the IP address, the network owner of the address, the reverse name of the server and the CNAME records. A list of rules connects these records to a host. When no rule applies, the report uses the name of the network owner.
6.4 Quality check
We examined random samples from the new countries of each edition against the live sites.
Edition 1, seven new countries: all 102 sampled WordPress sites that answered were WordPress sites. Of 68 sampled non-WordPress sites that answered, 5 were WordPress sites at the time of the check. Two of these sites changed after the crawl, and the crawl stored an access check page for one site. Two sites have WordPress in a subfolder, for example /wp/.
Edition 2, eight new countries: 100 of 102 sampled WordPress sites that answered were WordPress sites. The stored copies of the other 2 sites had all WordPress markers, thus these sites changed after the crawl. Of 67 sampled non-WordPress sites that answered, 3 were WordPress sites at the time of the check. The stored copies of these 3 sites had no WordPress markers. Section 7 gives the effect on the shares.
7 Limits
- One crawl does not contain all sites of a country. New sites and sites with few links are less frequent in the data. Thus, the totals are lower than the real numbers.
- The shares are more reliable than the totals, because the crawl includes sites from all hosts.
- The report includes only country domains. Sites of a country on
.com,.euor other domains are not in the data. The size of this effect is different in each country. - The detection did not find WordPress installations in a subfolder. In our samples, 0.2% to 0.4% of the non-WordPress pages had this type of installation. Thus, the WordPress shares can be approximately 0.2 percentage points too low.
- Many sites hide their WordPress or PHP version. Table 4 shows the share of sites that show a version.
- A CDN hides the real host of some sites. The share is highest in Ireland and the United Kingdom (Section 3).
- The DNS records are from October 2026. Some sites changed their host after the crawl.
8 Data and citation
The data is available in two CSV files: one row per country and the 30 largest hosts in each country. The files contain totals only. They contain no domain names. You can use the report and the data under the CC BY 4.0 licence. Give credit to Nettingale and link to this page.
Suggested citation:
Nettingale (2026). WordPress in Europe: hosts, versions and plugins. Report 2026-09, based on Common Crawl CC-MAIN-2026-39. https://nettingale.com/reports/wordpress-europe-2026-09/
To report an error, write to hello@nettingale.com. We will correct the report and record the change below.
Changes
- 10 October 2026: Edition 1: 11 countries.
- 12 October 2026: Edition 2: added Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Portugal, Romania and Switzerland, Added host rules for these countries.