Last updated: September 30, 2026
Web hosting is the infrastructure behind the modern web, but the industry is much broader than traditional shared hosting. Websites now rely on a combination of hosting providers, cloud infrastructure, data centers, web servers, content delivery networks, domain registries and security services.
This report brings together the latest available web hosting statistics for 2026, covering the size of the hosting market, hosting provider market share, web server usage, WordPress, PHP, website performance, CDN adoption, SSL certificates, domain registrations, infrastructure outages and DDoS activity.
Where possible, SoftwareSynced uses primary or industry-recognized datasets, including W3Techs, Netcraft, HTTP Archive, Verisign, Cloudflare and Uptime Institute. Because these organizations measure different parts of the internet using different methodologies, the figures in this report should not be treated as interchangeable.
Important: Not every statistic is a September 2026 measurement. Some of the latest available datasets were published earlier in 2026, such as Verisign’s Q2 2026 domain report and the HTTP Archive’s 2025 Web Almanac.
Web Hosting Statistics at a Glance
The following figures provide a snapshot of the web hosting ecosystem using the latest available data.
| Statistic | Latest figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Global web hosting market estimate | $178.4B–$182.28B in 2026 | Grand View Research, Fortune Business Insights, Mordor Intelligence |
| Websites in Netcraft’s July 2026 survey | 1.495 billion | Netcraft |
| Domains in Netcraft’s July 2026 survey | 305.3 million | Netcraft |
| Web-facing computers in Netcraft’s July 2026 survey | 14.77 million | Netcraft |
| Global domain registrations | 401.6 million | Verisign |
| .com domains | 166.6 million | Verisign |
| Largest hosting provider by website share | Shopify, 5.4% | W3Techs |
| Hostinger website share | 5.1% | W3Techs |
| Amazon website share | 4.4% | W3Techs |
| Most-used web server | Cloudflare Server, 31.1% | W3Techs |
| Nginx share | 30.8% | W3Techs |
| Apache share | 21.9% | W3Techs |
| WordPress share of all websites | 40.2% | W3Techs |
| WordPress CMS market share | 58.7% | W3Techs |
| PHP share among sites with known server-side language | 69.8% | W3Techs |
| Let’s Encrypt share of websites | 64.2% | W3Techs |
| Mobile websites with good TTFB | 44% | HTTP Archive |
| Desktop websites with good TTFB | 55% | HTTP Archive |
| Mobile websites with good Core Web Vitals | 48% | HTTP Archive |
| Desktop websites with good Core Web Vitals | 56% | HTTP Archive |
1. How Big Is the Web Hosting Market in 2026?
There is no single universally accepted figure for the size of the global web hosting market.
That is partly because research companies use different definitions and segmentation when measuring the hosting industry. Some estimates include cloud hosting and related infrastructure more broadly, while others define the market around commercial web hosting services.
Current 2026 estimates from three major market-research firms are relatively close at the headline level but diverge substantially in their long-term forecasts.
| Research firm | 2026 market estimate | Longer-term forecast |
|---|---|---|
| Grand View Research | $178.4 billion | $506.0 billion by 2033 |
| Fortune Business Insights | $178.76 billion | $661 billion by 2034 |
| Mordor Intelligence | $182.28 billion | $300.21 billion by 2031 |
Grand View Research estimates the global web hosting services market at approximately $178.4 billion in 2026, following an estimated $150.2 billion in 2025.
Fortune Business Insights estimates a very similar $178.76 billion market for 2026, but forecasts a significantly larger $661 billion market by 2034.
Mordor Intelligence estimates the 2026 market at $182.28 billion, with a projected compound annual growth rate of 10.49% from 2026 through 2031.
Why do market estimates differ?
The important takeaway is not that one company has necessarily found the “correct” number.
Market research firms can apply different definitions to:
- shared hosting
- VPS hosting
- dedicated hosting
- managed hosting
- cloud hosting
- colocation
- infrastructure services
- enterprise hosting
- application hosting
For this reason, market-size statistics should always be cited together with their source and methodology rather than presented as a single definitive measurement of the entire hosting ecosystem.
Key statistic: Current 2026 market-research estimates place the global web hosting market at roughly $178 billion to $182 billion, depending on the research methodology.
2. How Many Websites Are There?
One of the most frequently cited statistics about the internet is the number of websites, but measuring it is more complicated than it might appear.
Netcraft’s July 2026 Web Server Survey reported:
- 1,494,915,628 sites
- 305,348,459 domains
- 14,772,048 web-facing computers
Netcraft’s survey therefore contained approximately 1.495 billion sites.
However, this number should not be interpreted as 1.495 billion active businesses or unique, regularly updated websites.
Netcraft’s survey is a measurement of sites responding within its Web Server Survey methodology. Different services can produce different totals because “website,” “domain,” “host” and “web server” are not synonymous.
Website vs. domain vs. web-facing computer
A domain is a registered name such as example.com.
A website is the web content associated with one or more domains or hostnames.
A web-facing computer is an internet-accessible machine identified in the survey.
One domain can host multiple websites, while multiple domains can be hosted on the same infrastructure.
Key statistic: Netcraft’s July 2026 survey measured approximately 1.495 billion sites across 305.3 million domains.
View the Netcraft Web Server Survey
3. How Many Domains Are Registered?
According to Verisign’s Q2 2026 Domain Name Industry Brief, there were 401.6 million domain name registrations across all top-level domains at the end of Q2 2026.
The total increased by:
- 9.1 million registrations, or 2.3%, compared with Q1 2026
- 29.9 million registrations, or 8.1%, compared with Q2 2025
The .com domain remains one of the largest components of the global domain ecosystem.
At the end of June 2026:
- .com: 166.6 million registrations
- .net: 12.5 million registrations
- .com + .net combined: 179.1 million registrations
Country-code top-level domains represented another 148.6 million registrations at the end of Q2 2026.
Domain registrations are not the same as websites
A domain registration does not necessarily mean that the domain hosts an active website.
Domains can be:
- parked
- redirected
- held for future use
- configured for email
- used for applications or APIs
- registered defensively
- associated with websites hosted elsewhere
As a result, domain-registration statistics should be used as a measure of the size of the domain-name ecosystem rather than a direct count of active websites.
4. Web Hosting Provider Market Share
W3Techs currently identifies more than 1,400 web hosting providers in its web-hosting technology reports.
As of September 2026, the leading providers by percentage of websites were:
| Hosting provider | Share of websites |
|---|---|
| Shopify | 5.4% |
| Hostinger | 5.1% |
| Amazon | 4.4% |
| Wix | 4.2% |
| United Internet | 2.5% |
| GoDaddy Group | 2.5% |
| Squarespace | 2.5% |
| OVH | 2.4% |
| Newfold Digital Group | 2.4% |
| team.blue | 2.2% |
| Hetzner | 2.1% |
| Vercel | 2.1% |
| SiteGround | 2.0% |
| 1.7% | |
| DigitalOcean Group | 1.5% |
| XServer | 1.4% |
| WP Engine Group | 1.3% |
According to W3Techs, Shopify is used as the web hosting provider by 5.4% of websites, followed by Hostinger at 5.1%, Amazon at 4.4% and Wix at 4.2%.
A note about these market-share numbers
These percentages should not be interpreted as revenue market share.
W3Techs is measuring the percentage of websites associated with each hosting provider in its technology survey.
That makes the figures useful for questions such as:
“What hosting providers are most commonly detected across websites?”
It does not directly answer:
“Which hosting company generates the most revenue?”
The two measurements can be very different.
W3Techs also distinguishes web hosting providers from data-center providers and CDN or reverse-proxy services.
View W3Techs web hosting statistics
5. Which Hosting Providers Are Used by the Largest Websites?
The distribution changes significantly when websites are segmented by popularity.
Amazon’s share is much higher among the world’s highest-ranked websites than it is across the broader web.
According to W3Techs’ hosting-provider ranking data, Amazon is used by:
| Website group | Amazon hosting share |
|---|---|
| All websites | 4.4% |
| Top 1 million | 11.2% |
| Top 100,000 | 17.4% |
| Top 10,000 | 21.7% |
| Top 1,000 | 22.2% |
By comparison, Hostinger’s share falls from 5.1% across all websites to 2.8% among the top 1 million and 1.3% among the top 100,000.
This shows why overall hosting-provider market share can be misleading when used to describe the infrastructure powering the largest websites.
A provider can have a substantial presence across millions of smaller websites while having a much smaller presence among high-traffic sites. Conversely, infrastructure providers with a smaller overall site count can become disproportionately represented among larger websites.
Key statistic: Amazon is used by 22.2% of the top 1,000 websites tracked by W3Techs, compared with 4.4% across all websites.
View W3Techs hosting provider rankings
6. Hosting Provider vs. Data Center Provider
A major source of confusion in hosting statistics is treating hosting providers and data-center providers as the same thing.
They are not necessarily the same.
A web hosting provider is generally the company that provides the website owner with hosting services.
A data-center provider supplies the physical infrastructure and networking environment used to operate those services.
W3Techs explains the distinction here.
This distinction matters because a hosting company may operate infrastructure rented from another cloud or data-center provider.
The result is that a website could be:
Website owner → hosting company → cloud/data-center infrastructure → internet
rather than being directly hosted on infrastructure owned by the company the customer pays.
7. Web Server Market Share in 2026
The web server layer provides another view of how the web is built.
As of September 2026, W3Techs reports:
| Web server | Share of websites with known web server |
|---|---|
| Cloudflare Server | 31.1% |
| Nginx | 30.8% |
| Apache | 21.9% |
| LiteSpeed | 14.4% |
| Node.js | 7.2% |
| Microsoft IIS | 3.0% |
| Google Servers | 1.0% |
One of the biggest developments in the current dataset is the rise of Cloudflare Server.
According to W3Techs’ web-server ranking data, Cloudflare Server has moved ahead of Nginx in the current dataset.
The historical data shows how significant this change has been.
In September 2025:
- Nginx: 33.6%
- Cloudflare Server: 24.3%
- Apache: 25.7%
By September 2026:
- Nginx: 30.8%
- Cloudflare Server: 31.1%
- Apache: 21.9%
Cloudflare Server therefore gained roughly 6.8 percentage points over the year.
Web server use is not mutually exclusive
W3Techs notes that a website may use more than one web server.
Consequently, these percentages should not be added together to produce a 100% market-share figure.
Key statistic: Cloudflare Server currently accounts for 31.1% of websites whose web server is known, narrowly ahead of Nginx at 30.8%.
8. Web Server Trends Over the Last Year
The September 2025 to September 2026 data shows a clear change in the web-server landscape.
| Web server | Sep. 2025 | Sep. 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare Server | 24.3% | 31.1% | +6.8 pp |
| Nginx | 33.6% | 30.8% | -2.8 pp |
| Apache | 25.7% | 21.9% | -3.8 pp |
| LiteSpeed | 14.8% | 14.4% | -0.4 pp |
| Node.js | 4.9% | 7.2% | +2.3 pp |
| Microsoft IIS | 3.8% | 3.0% | -0.8 pp |
Source: W3Techs web-server historical data.
The data shows two notable patterns.
First, Cloudflare’s web-serving infrastructure has expanded considerably within W3Techs’ measured ecosystem.
Second, Node.js has continued to gain usage, increasing from 4.9% to 7.2% over the same period.
These changes illustrate how web delivery is moving beyond the traditional Apache-versus-Nginx comparison toward a broader mix of edge, proxy and application-serving technologies.
9. WordPress Still Powers a Large Portion of the Web
WordPress remains one of the defining technologies in the hosting industry.
W3Techs reports that as of September 2026:
- 40.2% of all websites use WordPress
- WordPress has a 58.7% share among websites whose CMS is known
WordPress remains particularly important to the hosting market because many traditional hosting companies build their services around the CMS.
This has contributed to a large ecosystem of:
- managed WordPress hosting
- WordPress-specific caching
- LiteSpeed-based hosting
- automated backups
- staging environments
- WordPress security services
- CDN integrations
- automatic updates
WordPress usage does not mean that 40.2% of websites necessarily use the same type of hosting. WordPress sites can run on shared hosting, VPS infrastructure, dedicated servers, cloud infrastructure and specialized managed platforms.
WordPress usage among high-ranking websites
The WordPress share changes across website popularity tiers.
Among websites whose CMS is known, WordPress is used by:
- 58.7% overall
- 48.7% of the top 1 million
- 51.1% of the top 100,000
- 51.6% of the top 10,000
- 49.8% of the top 1,000
10. PHP Remains the Dominant Server-Side Language
PHP continues to be deeply connected to the traditional web-hosting ecosystem.
According to W3Techs, 69.8% of websites whose server-side programming language is known use PHP.
Among the top 1 million websites in that same dataset, PHP has a 64.8% share.
| Website group | PHP usage |
|---|---|
| All known server-side languages | 69.8% |
| Top 1 million | 64.8% |
| Top 100,000 | 61.3% |
| Top 10,000 | 60.1% |
| Top 1,000 | 58.6% |
This is significant for hosting because PHP remains a core part of the technical stack behind WordPress and many other popular content-management systems.
11. How Fast Are Websites?
Hosting infrastructure is only one component of website performance, but server response time provides an important connection between hosting and the user experience.
The 2025 Web Almanac from HTTP Archive analyzed web performance using HTTP Archive measurements and Chrome UX Report data.
Its 2025 performance analysis found that:
- 48% of mobile websites achieved good overall Core Web Vitals
- 56% of desktop websites achieved good overall Core Web Vitals
HTTP Archive — Performance chapter
Core Web Vitals in 2025
| Device | Good Core Web Vitals |
|---|---|
| Mobile | 48% |
| Desktop | 56% |
Core Web Vitals include:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
- Interaction to Next Paint (INP)
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
These metrics measure loading performance, responsiveness and visual stability.
Hosting performance can influence some aspects of these metrics, but it is not the only factor.
Images, JavaScript, third-party scripts, page structure, fonts, caching and network conditions can all affect the final result.
12. Time to First Byte Statistics
Time to First Byte, or TTFB, is particularly relevant to hosting because it measures how quickly the browser begins receiving a response.
The HTTP Archive’s 2025 data classified TTFB as:
- Good: under 0.8 seconds
- Needs improvement: 0.8–1.8 seconds
- Poor: above 1.8 seconds
In 2025:
| Device | Good TTFB | Needs improvement | Poor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mobile | 44% | 40% | 17% |
| Desktop | 55% | 33% | 12% |
This means 56% of mobile websites did not achieve a good TTFB classification, while 45% of desktop websites fell outside the “good” category.
TTFB can be influenced by:
- server processing time
- database queries
- hosting infrastructure
- geographic distance
- DNS and connection setup
- caching
- CDNs
- redirects
- application complexity
For that reason, TTFB should not be interpreted as a direct measure of hosting-company quality.
13. CDN Usage Across the Web
Content delivery networks have become an important part of modern hosting architecture.
The HTTP Archive’s 2025 CDN analysis found that CDN adoption varies significantly depending on the type of content being delivered.
For mobile websites:
| Resource type | Served through CDN |
|---|---|
| Third-party resources | 71% |
| Subdomain resources | 52% |
| HTML | 35% |
Third-party content has particularly high CDN adoption because assets such as fonts, advertising resources, analytics scripts and other externally hosted resources are frequently delivered through distributed infrastructure.
HTML has lower CDN adoption because dynamic pages are more likely to depend on an origin server.
CDN adoption rises among popular websites
The 2025 Web Almanac also found that CDN adoption varied significantly by website popularity.
Among mobile websites:
- Top 1,000: 71%
- Top 10,000: 70%
- Top 100,000: 62%
- Top 1 million: 49%
- Top 10 million: 35%
This suggests that CDN infrastructure is particularly common among higher-traffic websites.
14. CDN vs. Origin DNS Performance
The HTTP Archive’s 2025 CDN analysis also measured DNS resolution performance for CDN and origin infrastructure.
Median DNS resolution times were:
| Mobile | Desktop | |
|---|---|---|
| CDN | 176 ms | 52 ms |
| Origin | 217 ms | 129 ms |
The resulting median difference was approximately:
- 19% faster for CDN infrastructure on mobile
- 60% faster on desktop
These figures should not be interpreted as a universal guarantee that a CDN will make every website faster. The HTTP Archive notes that performance differs between CDN providers and that website owners should conduct controlled testing for their own sites.
15. SSL Certificate Market Share
HTTPS is now a standard component of website infrastructure, and Let’s Encrypt is by far the most widely detected certificate authority in the current W3Techs dataset.
As of September 2026:
| Certificate authority | Share of websites |
|---|---|
| Let’s Encrypt | 64.2% |
| GlobalSign | 20.9% |
| Sectigo | 4.6% |
| GoDaddy Group | 3.5% |
| DigiCert Group | 1.6% |
W3Techs SSL certificate statistics
Let’s Encrypt’s share increased from 59.8% in September 2025 to 64.2% in September 2026.
The growth illustrates the continued importance of automated certificate issuance and free publicly trusted TLS certificates.
SSL certificates are not themselves a measure of website security, however. HTTPS protects data in transit and authenticates the server, but it does not guarantee that a website is safe, free of malware or securely configured.
16. How Many Websites Use Cloud Infrastructure?
Cloud infrastructure plays a major role in modern hosting, although “cloud hosting” is difficult to measure as a single category.
The W3Techs hosting dataset shows Amazon as a hosting provider for 4.4% of all websites, while Amazon is also detected as a data-center provider across a substantially larger share of websites.
According to W3Techs’ data-center statistics, Amazon is detected as a data-center provider for 11.3% of websites.
This difference is another demonstration of why hosting-provider and infrastructure-provider statistics should not be combined.
A website can have one company as its customer-facing hosting provider while relying on infrastructure from another company behind the scenes.
17. Infrastructure Reliability and Outage Statistics
Website availability depends on much more than the hosting plan displayed on a pricing page.
Data-center power, networking, hardware, software, procedures and third-party dependencies can all contribute to outages.
According to Uptime Institute’s 2026 outage analysis:
- approximately 1 in 10 respondents said their most recent outage had serious or severe impacts;
- 57% of respondents said their most recent major outage cost more than $100,000;
- approximately 1 in 5 reported costs exceeding $1 million.
These statistics should not be interpreted as typical downtime or costs for ordinary shared web hosting.
Uptime Institute’s dataset covers IT services and data-center outages, including cloud, telecommunications and colocation infrastructure.
Uptime Institute — Annual Outage Analysis 2026
18. DDoS Attack Activity Reached New Levels in 2026
Distributed denial-of-service attacks remain an important infrastructure risk for websites and online services.
According to Cloudflare’s H1 2026 DDoS Threat Report, Cloudflare mitigated 935 network-layer DDoS attacks exceeding 1 Tbps during the first half of 2026.
Cloudflare also reported a 519% quarter-over-quarter increase in attacks exceeding 1 Tbps between Q1 and Q2 2026.
These statistics come from Cloudflare’s network rather than the entire internet, so they should not be interpreted as a census of all DDoS attacks worldwide.
Nevertheless, the scale of the attacks demonstrates why modern hosting infrastructure increasingly incorporates:
- DDoS mitigation
- traffic filtering
- rate limiting
- edge networks
- automated detection
- distributed routing
19. Hosting Technology Used by High-Traffic Websites
The current data shows a noticeable difference between the technologies used across the web as a whole and those found among the largest websites.
For example, W3Techs reports Cloudflare Server usage at:
- 31.1% overall
- 47.2% among the top 1 million
- 53.6% among the top 100,000
- 55.4% among the top 10,000
- 54.0% among the top 1,000
Apache shows the opposite pattern:
- 21.9% overall
- 16.8% among the top 1 million
- 14.2% among the top 100,000
- 11.9% among the top 10,000
- 9.8% among the top 1,000
This does not mean that one web server is inherently better than another.
Instead, it shows that the infrastructure architecture of high-traffic websites differs from the infrastructure found across the much larger population of smaller websites.
20. What the 2026 Hosting Data Shows
Taken together, the statistics point to several broad changes in the web hosting ecosystem.
Hosting is increasingly connected to cloud and edge infrastructure
Traditional hosting remains important, but modern website delivery increasingly involves cloud platforms, distributed networks and edge infrastructure.
The growth of Cloudflare Server in W3Techs’ data provides one visible indicator of this shift.
The largest websites use a different infrastructure mix
Amazon’s share rises from 4.4% across all websites to 22.2% among the top 1,000 websites tracked by W3Techs.
Similarly, Cloudflare Server has a substantially higher usage rate among high-ranking websites than across the broader web.
WordPress remains a major hosting ecosystem
WordPress powers 40.2% of all websites and accounts for 58.7% of the CMS market among sites where the CMS is known.
That means traditional PHP-based hosting remains highly relevant even as newer architectures gain ground.
Website performance remains inconsistent
Only 48% of mobile websites and 56% of desktop websites achieved good overall Core Web Vitals performance in the 2025 Web Almanac.
TTFB performance was lower, with 44% of mobile websites and 55% of desktop websites achieving a good classification.
CDNs are increasingly embedded in website infrastructure
CDNs serve 71% of third-party resources measured in the HTTP Archive’s 2025 mobile dataset, while CDN adoption among HTML resources remains substantially lower at 35%.
21. Web Hosting Statistics by Category
For researchers, journalists and website owners looking for individual figures to reference, the most useful statistics from this report can be grouped as follows.
Market size
Major research firms estimate the global web hosting market at approximately $178 billion to $182 billion in 2026, depending on methodology.
Sources: Grand View Research, Fortune Business Insights, Mordor Intelligence.
Websites
Netcraft measured approximately 1.495 billion sites across 305.3 million domains in its July 2026 survey.
Source: Netcraft Web Server Survey.
Domains
There were 401.6 million domain registrations across all TLDs at the end of Q2 2026.
Source: Verisign Q2 2026 Domain Name Industry Brief.
Hosting providers
Shopify had the largest detected share at 5.4%, followed by Hostinger at 5.1% and Amazon at 4.4%.
Source: W3Techs Web Hosting Statistics.
Web servers
Cloudflare Server accounted for 31.1%, Nginx 30.8% and Apache 21.9% of websites with a known web server.
Source: W3Techs Web Server Statistics.
WordPress
WordPress powers 40.2% of all websites and has a 58.7% CMS market share among sites with a known CMS.
Source: W3Techs WordPress Statistics.
PHP
PHP is used by 69.8% of websites whose server-side language is known.
Source: W3Techs PHP Statistics.
SSL
Let’s Encrypt accounts for 64.2% of websites in the current W3Techs SSL certificate dataset.
Source: W3Techs SSL Certificate Statistics.
Performance
44% of mobile websites achieved good TTFB performance in the 2025 Web Almanac, compared with 55% of desktop websites.
Source: HTTP Archive — Performance.
CDN
71% of third-party resources on mobile websites were served through CDNs in HTTP Archive’s 2025 dataset.
Source: HTTP Archive — CDN.
Outages
Uptime Institute reported that 57% of respondents said their most recent major outage cost more than $100,000.
Source: Uptime Institute — Annual Outage Analysis 2026.
DDoS
Cloudflare reported mitigating 935 network-layer DDoS attacks exceeding 1 Tbps during the first half of 2026.
Source: Cloudflare — DDoS Threat Report H1 2026.
22. Frequently Asked Questions
How big is the web hosting market in 2026?
Major market-research firms estimate the global web hosting services market at roughly $178 billion to $182 billion in 2026. Exact estimates differ because market researchers use different definitions and categories when measuring hosting services.
Sources: Grand View Research, Fortune Business Insights, Mordor Intelligence.
What is the largest web hosting provider?
According to W3Techs’ September 2026 website-usage data, Shopify has the largest detected share at 5.4% of websites, followed by Hostinger at 5.1% and Amazon at 4.4%.
This represents website usage share, not revenue market share.
W3Techs Web Hosting Statistics
What percentage of websites use Hostinger?
W3Techs reports that Hostinger is used as the web hosting provider by 5.1% of websites in its September 2026 dataset.
What percentage of websites use WordPress?
WordPress is used by 40.2% of all websites according to W3Techs’ September 2026 data. Its CMS market share among websites where the CMS is known is 58.7%.
What is the most popular web server?
W3Techs currently reports Cloudflare Server as the most-used web server among websites with a known web server, with 31.1%, narrowly ahead of Nginx at 30.8%.
How many websites are there in the world?
There is no single universal number because different services define and measure websites differently.
Netcraft’s July 2026 Web Server Survey measured approximately 1.495 billion sites across 305.3 million domains.
How many domains are registered worldwide?
Verisign’s Q2 2026 Domain Name Industry Brief reported 401.6 million registered domain names across all TLDs at the end of June 2026.
What percentage of websites use PHP?
PHP is used by 69.8% of websites whose server-side programming language is known, according to W3Techs.
What percentage of websites use Let’s Encrypt?
W3Techs reports Let’s Encrypt at 64.2% of websites in its September 2026 SSL certificate authority dataset.
W3Techs SSL Certificate Statistics
How many websites have good Core Web Vitals?
The 2025 Web Almanac found that 48% of mobile websites and 56% of desktop websites achieved good overall Core Web Vitals performance.
What percentage of websites use a CDN?
CDN usage varies depending on the content being delivered.
In the HTTP Archive’s 2025 mobile dataset, 71% of third-party resources, 52% of subdomain resources and 35% of HTML resources were served through CDNs.
Methodology
SoftwareSynced compiled this report using the latest publicly available data located during the September 2026 research period.
Priority was given to primary datasets and established industry measurement organizations.
Primary and industry datasets used
W3Techs — hosting providers, web servers, WordPress, PHP and SSL certificate usage.
Netcraft — websites, domains and web-facing computers measured through the Web Server Survey.
HTTP Archive — website performance, Core Web Vitals, TTFB and CDN adoption.
Verisign / DNIB — global domain registration statistics.
Cloudflare — DDoS activity observed across Cloudflare’s network.
Uptime Institute — IT and data-center outage research.
Grand View Research, Fortune Business Insights and Mordor Intelligence — third-party estimates of the global web hosting market.
Important limitations
These datasets should not be combined as though they measure exactly the same population.
W3Techs measures technology usage across a large sample of websites. Netcraft’s Web Server Survey uses its own methodology for measuring sites, domains and web-facing computers. Verisign measures domain registrations rather than websites. HTTP Archive measures web performance using its own crawling and Chrome UX datasets. Cloudflare’s DDoS statistics represent activity observed across Cloudflare’s network, rather than all DDoS attacks worldwide.
Market-research companies also use different definitions when estimating the value of the hosting industry.
For these reasons, this report identifies the source and measurement date for individual statistics wherever possible.
Sources & Further Reading
For readers who want to explore the underlying datasets, the primary sources used throughout this report are:
- W3Techs — Web Hosting Usage Statistics
- W3Techs — Web Server Usage Statistics
- W3Techs — Web Server Historical Data
- W3Techs — WordPress Usage Statistics
- W3Techs — PHP Usage Statistics
- W3Techs — SSL Certificate Statistics
- Netcraft — Web Server Survey
- Verisign — Q2 2026 Domain Name Industry Brief
- Verisign — Q2 2026 Registration Data
- HTTP Archive — 2025 Web Almanac
- HTTP Archive — Performance
- HTTP Archive — CDN
- Cloudflare — DDoS Threat Report H1 2026
- Uptime Institute — Annual Outage Analysis 2026
- Grand View Research — Web Hosting Services Market
- Fortune Business Insights — Web Hosting Services Market
- Mordor Intelligence — Web Hosting Market
Citation-Friendly Statistics
The following figures are designed to be easy to reference in other articles:
Web hosting market size: Major research firms estimate the global web hosting market at approximately $178 billion to $182 billion in 2026, depending on methodology.
Sources: Grand View Research, Fortune Business Insights, Mordor Intelligence
Websites: Netcraft’s July 2026 Web Server Survey measured 1.495 billion sites across 305.3 million domains.
Source: Netcraft
Hosting providers: W3Techs reports that Shopify is used by 5.4% of websites, Hostinger by 5.1% and Amazon by 4.4%.
Source: W3Techs
Web servers: W3Techs reports that Cloudflare Server is used by 31.1% of websites with a known web server, compared with 30.8% for Nginx.
Source: W3Techs
WordPress: WordPress powers 40.2% of all websites and has a 58.7% CMS market share among sites with a known CMS.
Source: W3Techs
PHP: PHP is used by 69.8% of websites whose server-side language is known.
Source: W3Techs
SSL: Let’s Encrypt is used by 64.2% of websites in W3Techs’ September 2026 dataset.
Source: W3Techs
Performance: HTTP Archive found that 44% of mobile websites had good TTFB in 2025, compared with 55% of desktop websites.
Source: HTTP Archive
CDNs: 71% of third-party resources on mobile websites were served through CDNs in HTTP Archive’s 2025 dataset.
Source: HTTP Archive
Domains: There were 401.6 million domain registrations worldwide at the end of Q2 2026, according to Verisign.
Source: Verisign
DDoS: Cloudflare reported mitigating 935 network-layer DDoS attacks exceeding 1 Tbps during the first half of 2026.
Source: Cloudflare
Recommended citation: SoftwareSynced, Web Hosting Statistics 2026: Market Share, Performance & Industry Trends, updated September 30, 2026.