We recently ran a survey to which 2000-odd of you responded (thanks for that by the way). We wanted to figure out how you were using WordPress and how we could potentially improve that experience in 2012.
Some of the interesting facts that we managed to extract from the survey:
- 74% of you regard yourself as a designer or a developer and rate yourself a 3 or 4 (out of 5) in terms of your technical ability with WordPress. We like this!
- Most of you have worked with WordPress for more than a year and almost 50% of the respondents have worked with WordPress for more than 3 years.
- A whopping 90% of you believe that WP is a fully-fledged CMS already. (We’d like to believe that we’ve helped to show what WP is capable of through some of the extensive features that we have included in our themes in the past.)
- 26% of you said that WP Menu’s (which we contributed to the WP core) was the best recent feature addition to WordPress. Muchos!
Even better than a few “boring” numbers & percentages, we designed an awesome infographic, thanks to the talented Studio Muti, to showcase our findings from the survey:
58 Responses to “WordPress in 2012”
wow, another ego driven post by woothemes… no surprise there.
I’m struggling to see how an infographic of survey results is ego driven?
Another stupid comment in the intertubes. No surprise here either…
When you’re proud of something I’m sure you’d want to hang it on the fridge right? Consider this our fridge then.
an excellent reply to a non-excellent comment. *tip of the hat*
Thanks Matt, my best analogy for the situation.
How about the prize winners already!
Here’s how it looked in 2011: http://secunia.com/advisories/search/?search=wordpress
Sigh. There are more vulnerabilities and exploits in WordPress because there are more people looking for them. That is in fact exactly what makes open source systems more secure than proprietary systems. On proprietary systems, exploits can lay undetected for ages, even from the few programmers that are privy to the code base.
Nothing to do with PHP’s low barrier to entry and “exploitable by default” nature then? Why don’t other open source environments like Rails and Django contain so many security flaws?
Don’t fret I’m not here to criticise, just care and nurture.
No, I hear ya and you do have a point. However, I would argue that for one, Rails or Django aren’t languages. They’re frameworks. And PHP has similar frameworks (see Codeigniter). Thus, Django running on Python and Rails usually used with Ruby, only seem more secure because their communities of expert developers are tiny compared to the PHP world. Not enough eyeballs is what I would argue. But like I said, I do grant you that there is some overall issues with just how PHP works that lends itself to being more problematic. Couple that with a VERY popular Open Source CMS that WordPress has become and you got people finding exploits all over the place. But that actually makes the final product more secure, not less, if you think about it.
When you don’t know the difference between a framework and a programming language. You seriously have no idea what you are talking about. So please stop.
And this is coming from a developer who uses RoR to develop most of my apps.
Ernesto said everything else I wanted to say.
you must be PC user
It’s a little like government, right? Do you want an open, transparent government that everyone at least has a chance to see what’s happening as decisions are made (Open Source) …or do you want a secret, closed government that seems pretty “secure” with only a few knowing what’s going on and very likely never including you?
Not sure if this was a response to my original comment, if not then please disregard, but otherwise you’re preaching to the choir dude. For some background, I spend several hours a day running open source projects with communities of 100s of developers.
I guess the main point here is that open source and secure development aren’t mutually exclusive and serves as a false argument when describing software like WP.
Cheers Mike.
OSX at work and Linux at home, so about a 50/50 split between those. In the past I’ve had OSX on generic hardware and Linux on Apple hardware too, so I’m not sure what a PC user is in that context.
Hope this helps.
I just looked at the first couple of hundred entries in the secunia link above and they were all
vulnerabilities in plugins, not the wordpress core itself. I did not look at every entry, so I don’t know if the list compiled at secunia has any entries for WordPress itself or just plugins, but I think is significant to the discussion. Security issues in (mostly) free open source plugins
are to be expected, and don’t really say a lot about about the security of PHP specifically,
though that may be an issue as well.
I didn’t look long but most of what was listed is 3rd party plugins and themes.
Our post was about the use of WordPress and how our community is using WordPress, we didn’t do anything that involved security necessarily so it just feels like a troll comment to me. Not necessarily adding anything.
Would have been nice to see a comment pointing to similar information on WordPress use in 2011.
Also just to point out, searching Drupal on the site you shared results in more security advisories than WordPress. – http://secunia.com/advisories/search/?search=drupal
good point Ryan, I think it was a trolling as well…
Nice job on the infographic, keep up the good work.
“Found: 427 Secunia Security Advisories, displaying 1-25″ where those first 25 are all on a plugin or theme. There are 17,595 plugins and 1,464 themes.
Raw and rough math says that a WP plugin or theme has a 2 % chance of having a security advisory posted in there. I’d venture that most used plugins have a smaller chance of new vulnerabilities found as they’re likely more professionally coded and have been reviewed more times.
Security vulnerabilities are more likely to be found in new and unpolished plugins. Many plugins start as a personal hobby project and the authors learn to code better partly by getting feedback after publishing their work.
I consider using WP and available plugins and themes rather secure as long as common sense is employed and everything is kept up-to-date. For the more security-minded there are many security plugins, including but not limited to the following which I’ve used and can recommend:
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bulletproof-security/
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/plugin-check/
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/theme-check/
And these which I’m less familiar with:
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ultimate-security-checker/
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-plugin-security-check/
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/websitedefender-wordpress-security/
There’s more, but those probably suffice for all your WP-specific security needs
The results that I find most encouraging are the ones related to WordPress being a CMS and how people are using the software. It shows that WordPress is maturing as a platform and is slowly but surely getting rid of the notion that the only thing it’s good for is blogging. Great survey questions.
By the way, this inforgraphic was nicely designed and it was very easy for me to disseminate the information.
It pays to be familiar with both WordPress and Drupal. Drupal suits some of the more complex use cases better. With WP 3 I’ve been surprised time and again how easy things have been made for both developers and end-users. There are more and more use cases for which WP is the most suitable solution.
Just out of curiosity, what case would you prefer Drupal over WordPress? I’m not familiar with Drupal as am with WordPress.
You would use Drupal in cases where WordPress doesn’t cut it. Such cases where you’re looking to make more of a custom web app vs a website. Drupal might also be a better fit if you’re looking to make complex user generated/social media type of site.
Drupal use to call itself “community plumbing” and that’s roughly the early ethos of it. Of course if it’s too much of a web app, then one might just be better off with a framework.
There is a trend that’s keep Drupal alive that’s coming from the “enterprise level” folks as they are looking for more cost effective platforms vs their proprietary systems. The conventional wisdom there seems like Drupal is a more “mature” (a.k.a. complex) platform over WordPress the blogging software. But that’s just enterprise level BS. It’s the same silly thinking that certain people use (or used to) in choosing to a Blackberry over an iPhone that it feels like more a business like platform.
WordPress is kicking butt to be frank.
It’s interesting isn’t it, how much history affects your approach to something. I consider WordPress in a similar way to how you speak of Drupal here.
For me, WordPress is an application framework that happens to do blogging and basic CMS functionality out of the box. When you start approaching things from that angle, there’s not much you can’t do with it
The three that peek out the most, and say good things for the new year are:
Purchases from multiple vendors – which states that there is room for everyone to put their skills on the market.
Reason for purchasing premium – states that skills need to be polished and sharp to play in the game of %lsquo;premium%rsquo;.
Importance of upcoming WP versions – WP users are very detailed oriented and also picky
Here%rsquo;s to a great 2012 start!
thanks for the post and infographic, nice work!.
WPcrutch
Thanks guys, glad you highlight that specific information.
The WordPress market is indeed vast and growing.
Great infographic, WooTeam! Beautifully designed and presents the information clearly.
I’m pretty excited to see what’s in store for us in 2012. Even just the number of respondents to the survey is really encouraging. I’m hoping to see some really interesting uses of WordPress and boundaries being pushed in the new year
Very nice report! I’m really impressed. Thanks for sharing it to us.
Hey WooTeam,
Not sure I can *add* anything to this already great post (and the interesting side commentary about security), but just wanted to chime in and say thanks for such great products. They’re really beautiful to use, allow for a great degree of flexibility and make me proud to be an affiliate. Thanks for all your hard work making beautiful sites! (great infographic too!)
Thanks for the comment and kind words Morgan, do really appreciate it.
Hope our affiliate program is treating you well!
A great 2011 and thank to Woothemes for delivering canvas my favourite tool. thanks to the forum contributors and ninjas too, you make our lives easier, and make Woothemes a joy to use.
Predictions for 2012? Please listen to the user forums and integrate many of the canvas queries into the next product release.
Also, how about some full blown canvas child themes with navigation variations. These only need be simplistic but saves hunting and sucking around the forums – and we’d also save buckets of time (which is a luxury we all don’t have).
By the way, buff up canvas and I’d gladly pay you $$$ more for it – it’s exceptional.
Woo commerce looks incredible and lately I’ve been trying out Shopify. Shopify is very cool, but adding plugins (or apps) costs a fortune as you have to pay per month. Woo commerce has the opportunity to bang it in the mouth so let’s see some Shopify inspired stores themes appearing.
All in all, a cracking end to 2011 so hats off to everyone in SA for delivering what they promised.
Ps. Re above slagging off woo, go to hell and get your themes and support elsewhere. I’m totally fed up off smarty pants comments whilst the rest of us want to make WordPress a heck of a thrill ride.
Ken doughty
Sorry shoud have said ‘pecking’ not sucking – flipping iPad!!!
Great bit of feedback here surrounding Canvas and we really appreciate it! We do listen as best we can when it comes to feature suggestions for our themes, i.e. – Canvas will be responsive in the very near future.
A couple of guys on the WooTeam have suggested an idea like a Canvas Child Theme marketplace, so is definitely an interesting idea and one I’m behind.
As always thanks for the support!
Canvas Child Theme Marketplace – OMG – what a brilliant idea guys! SIGN ME UP!!
That’s great. I like it.
I found the answers to “Why did you purchase a premium theme/plugin?” most interesting. Only 8% purchased for support. While 88% purchased to basically gain access to the theme or plugin.
Not sure what this says for our model with Paid Memberships Pro, which is give away the plugin and charge for support and services.
I’m sure a lot of those 88% need/want/appreciate the support part of what they buy, but it seems like selling the plugin itself (as much as possible with GPL) might be a better business than selling support right now.
I like that , too
I’m a big fan of yours and I am committed to developing only with your product as you can see here; http://e1evation.com/tools/2012/01/how-to-design-your-blog/. My question is are you as committed to me? You guys did a great job of stepping up in 2011, however, there are still nagging problems like updating themes automatically through the standard wordpress process that must be addressed. If I’m going to continue to rely on you in the future, you must become even more reliable…
Nice post and graphic. Thanks.
Nice me two linkkei.com
Thank you for this evaluation. We are very happy with working in this area in conjunction with your WordPress Themes
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