Today I embarked on a mission to figure out which WP.org themes are used the most and why.
As you likely know, “Top 5” lists, as a rule, are generally very opinionated and based on fuzzy assumptions and non-standard use cases. I want to assure you – this article is no exception to that rule.
I had to make some very subjective leaps of logic with data to come to my conclusions. I hope you’ll enjoy being part of this fun conversation.
Astra Is the Most Downloaded Theme but Doesn’t Have the Highest Usage Rate
The top themes in wp.org with a minimum of 5 million downloads ordered by WP Data Dashboard’s “usage rate” are Hello Elementor, GeneratePress, Astra, Storefront, and OceanWP (a higher “usage rate” is better):
- Hello Elementor: 6+ million downloads, 15% usage rate.
- GeneratePress: 5+ million downloads, 11% usage rate.
- Astra: 11+ million downloads, 9% usage rate.
- Storefront: 7+ million downloads, 1% usage rate.
- OceanWP: 7+ million downloads, 1% usage rate.
(How WP Data Dashboard’s “usage rate” metric is calculated.)
For additional context, “usage rate” is the holy grail for commercial theme developers. In ad speak, “usage rate” is similar to “conversion rate.”
A higher “usage rate” means the theme owner’s marketing team gets more mileage from each annoying banner ad they force to the top of your WP dashboard. It means, potentially, more money in the theme owners’ bank accounts with less effort.
And, more important to us in the greater WP community, a higher “usage rate” on the theme means more people might actually like it! (Imagine that!) So, based on that “usage rate” number, Hello Elementor is the most-popular theme in the wp.org repo.
Oh wait…
