The traditional open-source Content Management System (CMS) landscape experienced a seismic shift between 2022 and 2025, with Joomla suffering a catastrophic 31% decline while Drupal stagnated in complete obscurity. Dataprovider.com tracking data reveals the stark reality facing legacy CMS platforms as they struggle to compete in an evolving web development ecosystem.
Joomla’s Steep Decline
Joomla’s domain count dropped from 890,349 in January 2022 to just 609,962 by December 2025, representing a loss of 280,387 domains. This 31% decline marks one of the most dramatic collapses among major CMS platforms tracked over the four-year period.
The decline was not gradual but accelerated over time. From its peak of 893,133 domains in December 2022, Joomla lost nearly 300,000 domains in just three years. The steepest drops occurred between 2023 and 2024, when the platform shed approximately 100,000 domains annually.
Drupal’s Stagnation
While Joomla suffered active decline, Drupal faced an equally troubling scenario of complete stagnation. The platform maintained virtually identical domain counts throughout the tracking period, fluctuating between 271,000 and 274,000 domains with no meaningful growth trajectory.
Drupal peaked at 274,238 domains in January 2024 but ended 2025 with exactly the same count, demonstrating zero net growth over two full years. This stagnation represents a failure to attract new users while existing sites potentially migrated to other platforms without replacement.
WordPress Dominance Persists
While traditional open-source alternatives crumbled, WordPress maintained its commanding market position with 29.4 million domains by December 2025. Starting from 22.2 million domains in January 2022, WordPress grew by 7.1 million domains, a 32% increase that dwarfs the combined user bases of Joomla and Drupal.
The geographic distribution data reveals WordPress’s global reach, with strong adoption across the United States (7.7 million domains), Germany (2.0 million), Japan (1.6 million), France (1.3 million), and the United Kingdom (1.3 million). This international presence contrasts sharply with the limited scope of Joomla and Drupal deployments.
Rise of Modern Alternatives
As traditional open-source platforms declined, modern proprietary solutions gained significant traction. Squarespace grew from 2.2 million domains in early 2022 to 5.4 million by late 2025, a 145% increase. Shopify expanded from 2.2 million to 2.6 million domains over the same period.
GoDaddy’s Website Builder emerged as a major force, reaching 5.4 million domains by 2025, while newer entrants like Hostinger Website Builder captured 649,000 domains and Webflow secured 484,000 domains by year-end.
Developer Community Implications
The collapse of Joomla and stagnation of Drupal reflects broader shifts in web development preferences. Modern developers increasingly favor platforms offering integrated hosting, automated updates, built-in security, and streamlined deployment processes over traditional self-hosted solutions requiring extensive technical maintenance.
The data suggests traditional open-source CMS platforms struggle with user experience complexity, security management burdens, and the technical expertise required for optimal deployment. Modern alternatives provide turnkey solutions that eliminate these friction points for small businesses and individual users.
Migration Patterns and Abandonment
The 280,000 domain loss for Joomla represents either active migration to other platforms or complete website abandonment. Given WordPress’s continued growth and the expansion of modern website builders, many former Joomla users likely migrated to more user-friendly alternatives.
Drupal’s stagnation suggests the platform retained existing enterprise users but failed to attract new adopters. The technical complexity and steep learning curve associated with Drupal development likely limited its appeal to organizations requiring specialized functionality.
Future Outlook
Current trends indicate traditional open-source CMS platforms face an increasingly difficult competitive landscape. WordPress’s success stems from its balance of flexibility and usability, while newer platforms prioritize user experience over customization depth.
The four-year tracking period from Dataprovider.com demonstrates that technical sophistication alone cannot sustain market position. Platforms requiring extensive developer resources and ongoing maintenance face displacement by solutions offering comparable functionality with reduced complexity.
This dramatic reshaping of the CMS landscape signals the end of an era for traditional open-source platforms, with only WordPress successfully adapting to modern web development demands while maintaining its open-source heritage.