General statistics on the web hosting industry
When did the web hosting industry start? How many hostnames are registered online? What is the size of the market in this sector and what is its expected growth rate? Find the answers to all these questions and discover the most popular web hosting providers, the number of websites hosted per provider, and more.
1. As of 2021, there are over 1.21 billion registered hostnames online.
However, not all of these sites are active. In fact, out of 1.21 billion registered hostnames, only about 200.8 million are online and active. Active websites represent only 15.5% of all registered hostnames.
2. What started with 4 hosts is now an industry of 126 million hosts.
The beginnings of the web hosting industry were quite modest. It all started in 1969 with only 4 hosts. Over the next five decades, the industry jumped to a staggering 126 million hosts, 30 million domains, and 28.2 million websites. Learn more about the details, which are conveniently presented in the table below.
The number of hosts, domains, and websites at the start.
3. In 2019, the size of the web hosting market was valued at 56.7 billion dollars
The size of the global web hosting services market is still growing. In 2019, its size was valued at 56.7 billion dollars. Projections tell us that it is expected to develop at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.5% from 2020 to 2027.
Not all web hosting services (including shared, colocation, dedicated, and virtual private servers) contribute to size and growth projections by the same factor:
- In terms of revenue, shared hosting services are absolutely dominant, with a revenue share of 37.64% in 2019.
- Looking at global web hosting service revenue per end user, the business segment had a market share of 90.46% in 2019.
- The revenue share of the North American market was 35.28% in 2019.
- Looking at the growth rate by region, we can see that Germany and the United Kingdom contribute the most. Indeed, Germany had more than 7 million domains on all websites hosted online in 2018.
(Source: grandviewresearch.com)
4. By 2027, the size of the web hosting market is expected to reach 171.4 billion dollars.
At the same time, these forecasts reveal that the industry is expected to expand at a CAGR of 15.5% from 2020 to 2027.
- Europe is the region with the highest average annual growth rate, 16%, over the given projection period.
- As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Internet activity has spiked. Businesses have seen a solution in online services, and there has been a trend of more and more businesses moving their processes online. (Source: grandviewresearch.com)
- The virtual private server subsector is expected to grow at a CAGR of 16.2% from 2019 to 2026, and its market size is expected to reach $8.2 billion in 2026. (Source: alliedmarketresearch.com)
- Among all subsectors, managed VPS is expected to see the largest expansion with a CAGR of 16.5% from 2019 to 2026. (Source: alliedmarketresearch.com)
- We expect to see an upward trend in integrating machine learning and AI with VPS.
- Businesses will also be more concerned about cybersecurity.
5. Web hosting providers with the largest number of websites hosted on the entire Internet.
It makes sense to see the companies that sell data storage space in larger volumes in the list of hosting providers with the most websites hosted online. This list includes all companies that provide web hosting services, sell server space, and data center space, including Cloudflare, Amazon, Google, Unified Layer, OVH, and many more.
6. The top 5 web hosting and data center providers
Data center locations. There are currently 269 providers and 2923 data centers around the world. This includes 2,832 colocation facilities, 2,301 cloud nodes, 634 internet exchanges (IX), and 924 disaster recovery and business continuity (DRBC) sites. (Source: datacenters.com)
GoDaddy
The network of GoDaddy consists of over 37,000 servers located around the world. These servers are located in nine GoDaddy facilities. The company only owns one of these facilities and the others are leased to wholesale suppliers.
The GoDaddy owned facility is located in Phoenix, Arizona. Its size is impressive, covering over 270,000 square feet.
The company's headquarters are in Scottsdale, Arizona, with another leased site in Mesa, in the same state. The other 6 facilities are located in Singapore, Amsterdam, Ashburn, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Virginia. (Source: datacenterknowledge.com)
Cloudflare hosting
Cloudflare's network is vast. The company has servers on every continent. Currently, they are located in over 200 cities, based in over 90 countries. Thanks to its huge network, the company is able to offer multiple layers of cybersecurity and increased performance.
The success of Cloudflare hosting services lies in the size of its network. The company is constantly developing and optimizing itself to make the Internet safer for end users and to offer reliable services. (Source: cloudflare.com)
Thanks to its global server network, industrial-grade services, and enhanced security, Google quickly became a leading provider of web hosting and data centers. The company currently operates 21 data centers. 13 of them are in the United States, 1 in South America, 5 in Europe, and 2 in Asia.
Google is constantly investing in innovation, data and security, efficiency, and renewable energy to make its data centers more energy efficient, more secure, and more efficient. (Source: google)
IONOS (by 1and1)
IONOS currently manages 15 installations. Its vast network consists of over 90,000 servers located in 9 countries around the world.
The high performance, the security, the great coverage and the fact that the company has 8 million customer contracts worldwide make this company one of the best web hosting and data center providers. (Source: ionos.com)
amazon
AWS Amazon has one of the fastest growing networks in the world. It now has servers in 24 geographic regions and offers its services in 77 availability zones. The company plans to expand its network to other availability zones and geographic regions, including Spain, Japan, and Indonesia. (Source: aws.amazon.com)
7. The most popular shared web hosting providers globally
This list includes selected web hosting providers that offer shared web hosting services and more.
To summarize, there are 4 major web hosting providers (and domain registrars): GoDaddy, 1and1, Endurance International Group, and Namecheap.
GoDaddy
GoDaddy is the undisputed champion and the owner of the title of the most popular shared web hosting provider in the world. It currently has over 44 million subscribers.
1 and 1
1and1 one comes in second with over 9 million active subscribers, 10 data centers in 5 countries, and 90,000 servers.
Endurance International Group
The Endurance International group brings together more than 80 brands. The total number of subscribers across all companies as of March 31, 2020 was approximately 4.8 million. The number of active subscribers places it slightly above Namecheap. (Source: Globenewswire)
Namecheap
Finally, with 4.4 million subscribers, Namecheap comes in fourth position. The company's shared hosting servers, dedicated servers, and virtual servers are located in its data center in Phoenix, Arizona. (Source: Namecheap)
8. The size of the virtual private server market is expected to reach $8.3 billion by 2026.
The size of the virtual private server market was valued at $2.6 billion in 2018 and is expected to reach $8.3 billion by 2026, with a compound annual growth rate of 16.2% from 2019 to 2026.
The market is dominated by global virtual private server players such as Amazon Web Services Inc., DreamHost LLC, Endurance International Group, GoDaddy Operating Company LLC, IBM, InMotion Hosting, Liquid Web, OVH, Rackspace US Inc. and United Internet AG.
(Source: AlliedMarket Research)
9. The most popular VPS web hosting providers
GoDaddy dominates the market forVPS web hosting. With a market share of 23.33%, GoDaddy is light years ahead of its closest competitor, the DreamHost web host, which currently has a market share of 1.46%. Other popular VPS web hosting providers are Digital Ocean and 123-Reg, with a market share of 1.23% and 1.20% respectively.
10. The most popular WordPress hosting providers
When it comes to content management systems (CMS), WordPress is certainly the most popular. WordPress owns 44% of the market share CMS. Joomla, another popular CMS, is fifth on the list, but with a non-threatening market share of 2.6%.
WordPress is not only used for blogging, it is also popular in other sectors, such as e-commerce. Of all websites on the Internet, WordPress powers 42%. (Source: W3techs)
The most popular WordPress hosting provider is BlueHost, with nearly 2 million WordPress websites hosted.
It is followed by Automattic, DreamHost, SiteGround and HostGator, with less than half the number of websites hosted by BlueHost.
11. Most Popular Hosted Website Solutions
Hosted website solutions are also growing in popularity. The website builder market was worth $1.65 billion in 2019. Projections tell us that this market will reach $2.16 billion in value by 2025 at a CAGR of 7%. (Source: DecisionDatabases)
In the market for website builders, the distribution remains the same as in the last two years. Wix dominates the market with a market share of 31.05%, followed by Squarespace and Shopify with a Market share 18.92 per cent and 13.34 per cent respectively.
On this list are the website creation tools the most popular hosted, with the largest number of hosted websites.
12. The 5 best solutions for creating hosted websites
Because website creation solutions are so popular, we needed to take a closer look at them. Below you'll find basic information and key statistics for each of the most popular website creation solutions.
Wix
Wix was founded by Giora Kaplan, Nadav Abrahami, and Avishai Abrahami. After seeing how difficult and expensive it can be to build a website from scratch, the trio decided to create a website builder that was easy to use. The company as we know it was founded in 2006.
Key statistics:
- Number of websites in the world - 3,800,881
- Number of websites in the United States - 27,111
- Market share - 31.05
Squarespace
Squarespace was born from Anthony Casalena's project in his student bedroom at the University of Maryland in 2003. Today, Anthony is the CEO of Squarespace, one of the most popular website creation platforms in the world.
Key statistics:
- Number of websites in the world - 2 270 402
- Number of websites in the United States - 1,788,627
- Market share - 18.92%.
Shopify
The story of Shopify dates back to 2006, when a young German living in Canada decided to create an e-commerce platform to sell snowboards online. He discovered that his platform could be modified so that others could also use it to sell products online.
Key statistics:
- Number of websites in the world - 1 481 590
- Number of websites in the United States - 1,201,572
- Market share - 13.34%.
Automattic (WordPress.com)
WordPress.com is the property of Automattic. It was founded in 2005 in the hope of allowing people with no technical or coding knowledge to comfortably use the WordPress CMS. Today, it is one of the favorite hosted website creators for people across the world.
Key statistics:
- Number of websites in the world - 1 057 001
- Number of websites in the United States - 845,610
- Market share - 8.63
Weebly
Founded in 2007, Weebly is a website and e-commerce builder. Weebly is based in San Francisco, California. While the company was acquired by Square in May 2018, its scope of action has only expanded, bringing more enjoyable site building tools to end users.
Key statistics:
- Number of websites in the world - 935,216
- Number of websites in the United States - 758,640
- Market share - 7.72%.
Conclusion
To say that the web hosting industry is booming is an understatement. As you can see, its market size is currently valued at $56.7 billion and is expected to continue to grow at a CAGR of 15.5% through 2027. This CAGR places the overall market value at $171.4 billion in 2027.
We hope that all of these numbers give a clear picture of the solid state of the website hosting industry. Stay tuned as we will be continually updating these statistics as part of our efforts to be your first resource for reliable and accurate information.
