Web hosting statistics can be hard to compare, because each tracker counts something different and the numbers change often.
The global web hosting market is worth an estimated $178.76 billion in 2026, according to Fortune Business Insights.
Netcraft’s survey counted 1.49 billion live websites in July 2026, while W3Techs reports that Shopify powers 5.4% of all websites as of October 2026.
In this report, you’ll find the latest figures on market size, provider market share, web servers, domains, and hosting prices. Each tracker measures something different, so we explain what every number counts before you compare it.
How Big Is the Web Hosting Market in 2026?
The global web hosting market is worth $178.76 billion in 2026, up from $149.30 billion in 2025, according to Fortune Business Insights.
- Future growth: Fortune Business Insights projects the market will reach $661 billion by 2034, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.80%.
- Different market estimates: Mordor Intelligence estimates the 2026 market at $182.28 billion and forecasts growth to $300.21 billion by 2031, at a CAGR of 10.49%.
- Largest regional market: North America accounts for 41% of the global web hosting market, according to Fortune Business Insights.
Overall, estimates vary, with projected CAGRs ranging from 10.49% to 17.80%, but both point to continued growth in the global web hosting market.
For more on this topic, please see our guide to the latest internet usage statistics and trends.
Who Hosts the Web? Market Share by Provider (W3Techs, October 2026)
The W3Techs October report shows that Shopify hosts more websites than any other provider at 5.4%.
The table below shows the top 15 providers measured the same way, as a percentage of all websites.
| Rank | Provider | % of all websites |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shopify | 5.4% |
| 2 | Hostinger | 5.1% |
| 3 | Amazon | 4.5% |
| 4 | Wix | 4.2% |
| 5 | United Internet | 2.5% |
| 6 | GoDaddy Group | 2.5% |
| 7 | Squarespace | 2.5% |
| 8 | OVH | 2.4% |
| 9 | Newfold Digital Group | 2.4% |
| 10 | team.blue | 2.2% |
| 11 | Hetzner | 2.1% |
| 12 | Vercel | 2.1% |
| 13 | SiteGround | 2.0% |
| 14 | 1.7% | |
| 15 | DigitalOcean Group | 1.5% |
The biggest recent change is Hostinger moving past Amazon into second place, which W3Techs noted in February 2026.
HostAdvice offers a different view of the market because it ranks providers by the number of clients rather than their share of all websites.
Its rankings put Google Cloud Platform first at 8.37%, followed by Amazon Web Services at 5.87% and GoDaddy at 5.14%.
How Many Websites and Internet Users Are There?
Netcraft’s July 2026 Web Server Survey counted 1.49 billion+ websites across 30 million domains.
The gap between those two numbers is normal, since a single domain can run many separate sites on subdomains.
But how does that compare with the number of people online? DataReportal recorded 6.12 billion internet users at the start of April 2026, representing 73.8% of the world’s population.
Among all those websites, WordPress remains the leading content management system. According to W3Techs in October 2026 WordPress powered 40.1% of all websites. Looking only at websites that use a content management system (CMS), its share rises to 58.6%.
You can see our WordPress market share report for the full picture.
Domain Name Statistics
Domain Name Industry Brief reported that registrations across all top-level domains (TLDs) reached 401.6 million by the end of the second quarter of 2026. TLDs are the endings of web addresses, such as .com, .org, and .uk.
The total grew by 9.1 million registrations in the second quarter, a 2.3% increase. Compared with the same period last year, registrations were up by 29.9 million, or 8.1%.
Here’s how those registrations break down by domain category:
- .com and .net: 179.1 million registrations combined.
- Country-code TLDs: 148.6 million registrations. These use country-specific endings, such as .uk and .de.
- Newer TLDs: 52.9 million registrations.
- Other TLDs: 21.0 million registrations, including endings such as .org and .info.
Domain registrations don’t necessarily represent active websites, so registration totals tell only part of the story. Looking at websites instead, .com is the clear leader.
According to W3Techs in October 2026, 43.6% of all websites use a .com domain. The .org and .de extensions tie for second place, each accounting for 3.9% of websites.
GoDaddy is the largest domain registrar with 98,930,014 domains, which is 11.11% of all the domains DomainNameStat tracks. Namecheap is second with 36,531,090 domains, or 4.10%.
Both figures are shares of the domains DomainNameStat tracks, not of every domain in existence, so treat them as a ranking rather than an exact market share.
Web Server Software Statistics
The W3Techs October 2026 report shows Cloudflare Server as the most used web server software, with 31.3% of sites with a known server, just ahead of Nginx at 30.8%.
A web server is the software that receives a visitor’s request and sends back your page, so it sits between your hosting account and the person browsing.
Apache follows at 21.9% and LiteSpeed at 14.3%, then Node.js at 7.2% and Microsoft IIS at 3.0%. These figures aren’t mutually exclusive, as a website can use more than one web server, so the percentages don’t add up to 100%.
To see what a WordPress site costs to run, see our guides on why WordPress is free and how much it really costs to build a WordPress website.
Hosting Types and What They Cost
Shared hosting is the largest segment of the web hosting market, accounting for Fortune Business Insights. The type of hosting you choose affects your site’s performance, the resources available to it, and how much you pay.
The table below shows the cheapest advertised starting price for each type, checked on the providers’ own pages in October 2026.
| Hosting type | Typical intro price | Example host |
|---|---|---|
| Shared (Multiple websites share the same server and its resources) | $2.28 to $3.99 a month on a long term, renewing at $5.88 to $17.99 | Namecheap, Hostinger, SiteGround |
| VPS (It divides a physical server into separate virtual environments) | $4.69 to $6.49 a month on a long term, renewing at $5.69 to $11.99 | Bluehost, Hostinger |
| Dedicated (You rent an entire physical server for your website) | $144.19 a month on a 36-month term, renewing at $191.79 | Bluehost |
Every introductory price in that table depends on paying for a long term upfront.
On shared plans, the renewal price is often two to four times the starting price, so the first-year figure is not what the plan costs you over time.
To work out which type fits your site, see our guide on the real truth about the best shared web hosting services and our pick of the best VPS hosting.
If you would rather not manage any of it, our managed WordPress hosting guide covers that route.
Web Hosting Provider Profiles
The profiles below are ranked by each provider’s share of all websites, as measured by W3Techs in October 2026.
We also use BuiltWith to compare how often each provider appears among the top 1 million, 100,000, and 10,000 websites by traffic.
Shopify Hosting Stats
5.4% of all websites run on Shopify, which makes it the most used hosting provider on the web.
BuiltWith records 6 million live Shopify sites in October 2026, and 5.77% of the top 1 million sites by traffic run on it.
Shopify is a fully hosted eCommerce platform, so it bundles the hosting with the store software rather than selling it separately.
Its cheapest plan, Basic, costs $19 a month on annual billing or $25 a month billed monthly, according to Shopify’s pricing page in October 2026.
If you use a payment provider other than Shopify Payments, Shopify charges an extra transaction fee on every sale.
That running cost is one reason some stores look at Shopify alternatives.
Hostinger Web Hosting Market Share
5.1% of all websites run on Hostinger, which moved it past Amazon into second place.
BuiltWith records 10,268,396 live Hostinger sites, though only 3.13% of the top 1 million sites by traffic use it, so its strength is in the wider web rather than the busiest sites.
Hostinger is also one of only three hosts recommended by WordPress.org, alongside Pressable and Bluehost.
For a detailed look at where Hostinger is strong and where it isn’t, see our expert Hostinger review.
AWS Web Hosting Market Share
4.5% of all websites run on Amazon, and BuiltWith records 58,902,751 live sites on it in October 2026.
Amazon’s position strengthens as traffic rises, since it covers 23.25% of the top 1 million sites, 31.44% of the top 100,000, and 39.78% of the top 10,000.
That pattern matches the kind of customer Amazon serves. Netflix runs its streaming, database, and email infrastructure on AWS, according to Amazon’s own case study.
Amazon Web Services sells cloud infrastructure rather than a simple hosting plan, so pricing follows usage.
Wix Web Hosting Stats
4.2% of all websites run on Wix, which places it fourth overall.
Wix is a website builder with hosting included, so there is no separate hosting plan to buy.
It offers a free tier, and its cheapest paid plan, Light, costs $17.77 a month, as listed on Wix’s pricing page in October 2026.
GoDaddy Hosting Market Share
2.5% of all websites run on a GoDaddy Group brand.
The group owns several of them, and the GoDaddy brand itself accounts for 83.8% of the group’s sites, followed by Host Europe at 12.2% and Domainfactory at 3.8%.
GoDaddy is better known as a registrar than as a host, and the numbers back that up.
It is the largest domain registrar in the world, yet BuiltWith records only 4,110,800 live sites using its hosting, and 1.39% of the top 1 million sites by traffic.
Squarespace Web Hosting Stats
2.5% of all websites run on Squarespace, and BuiltWith records 6,558,927 live Squarespace sites in October 2026.
Despite those 6.5 million sites, only 3,569 of the top 1 million sites by traffic run on Squarespace, which is 0.36%.
For a closer comparison, see our guide on Squarespace vs. WordPress.
Newfold Digital Group (Bluehost and HostGator) Web Hosting Statistics
2.4% of all websites run on a Newfold Digital Group brand, and the group owns two hosts.
Bluehost accounts for 26.4% of the group’s sites and HostGator for 11.8%, with the Newfold Digital brand itself making up 45.2%.
Across the whole web, 0.6% of websites run on Bluehost and 0.3% run on HostGator. BuiltWith records 1,380,742 live Bluehost sites and 530,646 live HostGator sites in October 2026.
Bluehost is also WordPress.org’s longest running recommended host.
To see whether either one fits your site, read our Bluehost review and our HostGator review.
WP Engine Group (Managed WordPress Usage Statistics)
1.3% of all websites run on a WP Engine Group brand, with WP Engine itself making up 86.3% of the group’s sites and Flywheel the remaining 13.7%.
Like Amazon, WP Engine’s share grows as traffic grows.
It covers 2.03% of the top 1 million sites by traffic, 2.30% of the top 100,000, and 3.39% of the top 10,000, according to BuiltWith in October 2026.
That’s the opposite of the pattern at the budget hosts. Managed hosting exists for busy sites, which benefit most from having someone else handle updates, security, and caching.
For more detail, see our expert review of WP Engine.
Namecheap Pricing and Web Hosting Statistics
0.6% of all websites run on Namecheap, and BuiltWith records 9 million+ live sites on it in October 2026.
Namecheap is best known as the second largest domain registrar, which makes it a natural choice for people who want their domain and hosting in one account.
On its pricing page, the cheapest shared plan, Stellar, starts at $2.28 a month and renews at $5.88 a month.
Our web hosting guide explains which one suits different kinds of websites.
Sources
- W3Techs, web hosting, web server, content management and top-level domain surveys, fetched October 2026
- Fortune Business Insights, web hosting services market, fetched October 2026
- Mordor Intelligence, web hosting market, fetched October 2026
- Netcraft, Web Server Survey, July 2026
- DataReportal, Digital Around the World, April 2026
- Domain Name Industry Brief, Q2 2026
- DomainNameStat, registrar list, fetched October 2026
- HostAdvice, global web hosting market share, October 2026
- BuiltWith, web hosting providers trends, fetched October 2026
- Provider pricing pages for Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, WP Engine, Hostinger, Bluehost, SiteGround, Namecheap and Amazon Lightsail, fetched October 2026
We hope this ultimate web hosting statistics and market share report will help you find the best hosting provider for your website. You may also want to see our research on the latest blogging statistics as well as new marketing trends and stats.
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kzain
The insights on market growth and trends are intriguing. The market share breakdown is beneficial for those choosing a web hosting provider. Understanding the different hosting types (shared, dedicated, VPS) is also valuable for making an informed decision. Thanks for putting together such a comprehensive post!
Moinuddin Waheed
well researched and indepth analysis of web hosting and related stats.
Given the stats and market share of the hosting business, it feels like one must start online business aspa without wasting time any further.
I really appreciate the efforts for making such an insightful research article on this topic, I am curious to know what all the research tools and sources you use for this carrying out such research?
WPBeginner Support
We list our sources at the end of the article
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