21+ Stunning Drupal Stats Each Website Owner Should Know

Updated · Mar 06, 2023

These days, everybody wants to have a good website, and they want it quickly. Modern content management systems (CMS) can make this goal become a reality. They are so popular right now that more sites are using them than not.

WordPress is the dominant force in website creation, but Drupal stats show that Drupal is the best choice for huge projects. This is why many celebrities and big brands rely on it to keep their projects fresh.

Dive into the insightful statistics about Drupal to find out just how powerful it is.

Editor's Choice: The Most Telling Facts about Drupal

Before we venture deeper and explain why use Drupal, here are the most staggering Drupal statistics:

  • More than 1.7 million websites use Drupal.
  • Drupal sites make up 3,24% of the top 1 million websites.
  • Over 600,000 Drupal websites are active.
  • Drupal 9 has been installed live over 100,000 times.
  • Around 47,350 Drupal modules can be downloaded for free.
  • Chaos is the most commonly downloaded Drupal module, standing at around 11,584,746 downloads.
  • The official Drupal website has over 1.3 million registered users.

Insightful Drupal Stats for 2022

Whether or not you have prior experience with Drupal, you will certainly learn something useful from these Drupal statistics. It’s a pretty unique content management software, after all.

1. More than 1.7 million websites use Drupal in 2022.

(Source: BuiltWith)

What’s more, this number is even closer to 2 million now, as it is currently standing at 1,749,604. This is possibly the most important Drupal usage statistic, as, despite its somewhat particular niche, this number seems to keep getting bigger in more recent times. However, it has experienced a slight dip since 2021.

2. Over 600,000 Drupal websites are live.

(Source: BuiltWith)

These sites' stats just keep getting better, don’t they? As of 2022, there are 610,396 live websites that are using Drupal, with additional 1,020,726 domains that can redirect you to these. 1,143,225 sites used to actively use Drupal at its peak.

3. Drupal 7 is installed on over 290,755 live sites. That’s about 47.6% of all Drupal websites.

(Source: BuiltWith)

Even though it was released in 2011, Drupal 7 still seems to be the most popular version with nearly half of all live websites using Drupal running it. However, since its official end of life, announced for the end of November 2022, is nearing, the popularity of this version finally begins to tone down. The three-year Extended Support will, even though it is not free, keep Drupal 7 popularity high for now, but the time for the update is nigh. 

4. The shift toward Drupal 9 is already on the way.

(Source: Drupal)

Drupal 7 is still the most popular release, with somewhere above 500,000 websites still on it. The new 9.x stable release is gaining traction, though, with already 100,000+ users spread across different versions.

5. Is Drupal hard and does it require technical knowledge? 

(Source: Business Insider)

With site-building software, power and simplicity don’t always go hand in hand, Drupal being a good point in case. When it comes to Drupal vs WordPress usage, a common theme of discussion is whether Drupal is harder to use.

In brief, it is, but it is also way more powerful. It is fairly complex, but it can do more complex things. 

Drupal is not easy to use at all and it requires you to have prior technical knowledge. Naturally, an alternative is to hire a Drupal developer, but that can cost a lot of money. Speaking of costs…

6. How much does Drupal cost? $30,000-$40,000 on average.

(Source: Zesty)

It is important to differentiate the cost of Drupal, the cost of its modules, and, eventually, the time it takes to create a website with Drupal. Sure, it is a free, open-source content management software in its core, but implementation and customization costs for Drupal sites can make it expensive. The amount of time required to do all this is another thing to consider.

Generally speaking, the costs can go all the way from $15,000 to $100,000. An average cost of a Drupal project that requires moderate development ranges between $30,000 and $40,000, but more complex ones can reach the top price of $100,000. These do not include the scaling and maintenance costs, nor do they include the time and costs of migrating to a newer version of the Drupal framework.

This brings up the next question:

7. Is Drupal any good? 7% of the top 10k sites use it!

(Source: O8)

Although Drupal is harder to use than most of its competing CMS, it is a great choice for more complex projects and work environments. This is why enterprises, governments, and higher education lean heavily in its favor.

Drupal is known for its security and is also better for building web applications, being the go-to software for more complex integration and projects with multiple user roles.

The stats are clear as Drupal features heavily among the biggest and most visited websites.

8. Is Drupal worth learning in 2022? With an average salary of over $87,000 it definitely seems so!

(Source: Glassdoor)

If you have working PHP knowledge, Drupal really seems worth learning in 2022.

With the recent release of Drupal 9 (June 2020), a good grasp of the newest version can give you the edge. The Drupal community is very large and can help you grow your knowledge of the framework.

9. 97% of all Drupal users are satisfied with it.

(Source: FinancesOnline)

FinancesOnline has gathered user opinions and experiences with Drupal from various social media and came up with the conclusion that nearly everyone is satisfied with it.

An official Drupal graphic shows that even beginners call it modern, premium, and empowering, but they don’t think it’s user-friendly. Still, even though some of the previous Drupal stats touched upon this, it is nothing that gaining experience with Drupal won’t make more bearable.

Drupal Community and Module Stats

Besides its purpose, this CMS is also well known for its community and its modules. These go hand in hand, in a way, as some Drupal community modules are core modules that were made by ordinary users. Modules are Drupal extensions that help it become even more powerful, customizable, and accessible.

Because they are so important, this section is dedicated mainly to Drupal stats that concern them.

10. Drupal 8 is available in 100 languages.

(Source: Drupal)

This is another big indicator of the ever-growing body of Drupal usage stats. Not only does Drupal 8 have 100 languages you can choose for your projects, but you can also switch between them for each content entity.

But that’s not all.

11. Each Drupal user can use up to three languages simultaneously.

(Source: Drupal)

Each user can have up to three languages associated with them – one that they prefer, one for administration purposes, and one for profile data. This doesn’t even change the project’s default language.

Finally, there are four core modules made specifically to help handle language-related matters such as translation support.

12. The official Drupal website has over 1.3 million registered users.

(Source: Agiledrop)

Acquia’s Ricardo Amaro claims that the Drupal community counts 1.3 million people, as that’s the number of registered users on its official website, drupal.org. For an enterprise-class content management system, that is pretty impressive, but not at all surprising given its undeniable qualities. What’s possibly even more impressive is the fact that over 46,000 people are the site’s developers.

13. 48,166 Drupal modules can be downloaded for free.

(Source: Drupal)

The overall cost of creating and running a Drupal project can be high, but with 48,166 free modules, a thousand more than last year, that becomes much less of a nuisance.

14. There are also nearly 3,000 Drupal themes.

(Source: Drupal)

With such a selection, you can completely change how a Drupal site looks and make Drupal web design a more satisfying experience.

All modules have been downloaded a total of 250 million times, which means 6,500 downloads per module, on average.

15. Chaos is the most commonly downloaded Drupal module, with 11,584,746 downloads.

(Source: Drupal)

One of the top Drupal modules, Chaos improves the developer experience. It can be used to manage pages and is also necessary for many other modules to work.

But sheer downloads tell only half the story.

16. Over 788,000 Drupal sites run Chaos.

(Source: Drupal)

Currently, 750,302 sites have Chaos installed.

Drupal Market Share

As already stated, Drupal is not the most popular content management software, but it is the best at what it does. These Drupal statistics will pleasantly surprise you if you thought that Drupal is dead or dying.

17. 1.5% of all sites use Drupal.

(Source: W3Techs)

Globally, a significant number of websites rely on this powerful and versatile framework.

18. Drupal holds a 2.0% market share among the CMS.

(Source: W3Techs)

A W3Techs report shows that WordPress and Shopify keep on making their share of the market bigger, while the opposite happens with Joomla and Drupal. Still, there's a fair share of quality platforms for Joomla and Drupal hosting, so they are viable options.

Granted, this may be one of the least attractive CMS statistics of 2022 from a Drupal viewpoint, but one ought to note that Drupal can’t be compared to simpler CMS in popularity. It may be used for fewer projects and have fewer specialized hosting providers than WordPress, but most big projects use it, which is good for retaining Drupal popularity. 

19. Drupal sites make up 3.5% of the top million websites.

(Source: BuiltWith)

In other words, for every 30 big sites, there is one Drupal-based website. In BuiltWith’s top 100k and top 10k site sections, these statistics become even better, as Drupal is responsible for 7.87% and 13.01% of those, respectively.

20. 321,540 Drupal projects use Google analytics.

(Source: Drupal)

Of all Drupal trends, Google Analytics usage is the most prevalent. Fortunately, there is a Drupal module thanks to which setting up Google Analytics on Drupal 8 or Drupal 7 becomes a walk in the park.

21. Drupal Developers in the US earn $35 per hour.

(Source: Payscale)

If you’ve thought about becoming a Drupal developer, perhaps this will motivate you to do so. Based on recent data from Payscale, Drupal developers usually make anywhere between $50,000 and $101,000 per year.

This is a bigger average than devs working solely with PHP, C++, or Java make!

Wrap Up

That’s it for this set of statistics. We at HostingTribunal hope that we have answered at least some of your Drupal questions, as it’s a pretty big and complex environment.

One of the main takeaways from these Drupal stats is that it requires prior technical knowledge but is very rewarding. As you keep using Drupal and learning more about it, you will see that you will become fond of it yourself.

Share:
Branko Krstic
Branko Krstic

Branko is a round-the-clock tech geek and loving it. His ideal vacation destination is the Akihabara District (or really any place he can take his computer). If there’s a server out there, count on him to find out what it’s made of… and tell you all about it.