Web Hosting Statistics (How Many Web Hosts Are There?)
Are you trying to find the most comprehensive web hosting statistics?
The internet is more important than ever for increasing business, personal, and social needs. Thus, the demand for reliable web hosting services has grown beyond expectations.
You must know and understand the current web hosting industry situation, whether you’re a small or large business owner, blogger, eCommerce entrepreneur or run an enterprise.
Our carefully curated roundup consists of the most interesting stats and facts, including the number of web hosts worldwide. (Hint: There are more than 200K!)
We also touch on the latest trends and look at the most popular web hosts, helping you decide when selecting the ideal hosting provider for your project(s).
Let’s dive into the world of web hosting stats and explore some jaw-dropping numbers about this ever-growing and evolving industry.
This post covers:
Web Hosting Statistics (Our Top Picks)
- There are 330,000+ web hosting providers globally
- North America has around 5,000 web hosting services
- GoDaddy hosts a whopping 15.6% of websites
- Web hosting services market is expected to reach $252 billion by 2030
- Wix is the favorite hosted solution
- Newfold Digital controls 80+ hosting brands
- GoDaddy is the most popular domain registrar
- The most expensive domain sold for – wait for it – $872 million
How Many Web Hosts Are There?
1. There are over 338,000 web hosting providers globally
Unfortunately, there’s no exact number of how many web hosting services are there because different resources provide different stats, but according to WebTribunal, there are over 338,000.
And because this data is from 2019, today’s number is likely much higher because the web is expanding over and beyond.
From small to larger and niche-specific, there’s a hosting provider for everyone and every budget, including free (although we don’t recommend those).
Source: WebTribunal
2. North America has around 5,000 web hosting services
The United States has the largest network of web hosting services worldwide, at approximately 5,000. In second place is Europe, with 3,000 and Asia in third, with 2,000 providers.
Source: ThriveMyWay
3. Out of approximately 1.2 billion websites, only 200 million are active
According to website stats that we wrote about, there are 1.19 billion websites globally, but “only” 199.7 million are considered active sites.
In a decade, the number of active websites increased for around 13 million, which isn’t as much as you would think. The website count has plateaued over the last few years but is likely to increase in the future.
Source: Colorlib
4. The ten largest web hosting companies host 58.8% of the top 35 million websites
Even though hundreds of thousands of web hosting services exist globally, the ten biggest ones host WAY more than half of the websites. See below which are the ten largest hosts in the world.
Source: HostingAdvice
5. GoDaddy hosts a whopping 15.6% of websites, absolutely dominating the space
GoDaddy has been in the business for over two decades and has become the leading web hosting service worldwide, supporting over 15% of the top 35 million websites.
| Web hosting provider | Percentage of the top 35 million sites |
| GoDaddy | 15.6% |
| Amazon Web Services | 11.1% |
| Google Cloud Platform | 7.9% |
| 1&1 IONOS | 6.5% |
| Hostgator | 5.3% |
| Bluehost | 3.2% |
| Hetzner Online | 2.7% |
| Liquid Web | 2.5% |
| Digital Ocean | 2.2% |
| WP Engine | 1.8% |
Source: HostingAdvice
6. Hostgator is the fastest-growing web hosting service
According to W3Tech, Hostinger became the fastest-growing web host in 2023, followed by Webempresa in second place and GMO Internet Group in third.
Hostinger is also the fastest-growing DNS server provider, the second fastest-growing data center provider and the third fastest-growing email server provider.
Source: W3Tech
7. The ten overall largest web hosting providers
Amazon has the largest usage share in the world, more than 6%, followed by Newfold Digital Group (ex. Endurance International Group (EIG)), Shopify, OVH, and GoDaddy.
The table below is an excellent demonstration of Amazon’s vastness because although a 1.7% gap seems small, on a global scale, that’s humongous.
| Web hosting provider | Percentage of usage |
| Amazon | 6.1% |
| Newfold Digital Group | 4.4% |
| Shopify | 3.8% |
| OVH | 3.4% |
| GoDaddy | 3.4% |
| Hetzner | 2.6% |
| Wix | 2.5% |
| WP Engine | 2.2% |
| DigitalOcean | 2.2% |
| SiteGround | 2.1% |
* Stats are from April 2023
Source: W3Tech
Web Hosting Market Share & Size
8. Web hosting services market is expected to reach $252 billion by 2030
The web hosting market share was estimated at $91.3 billion in 2022, but it’s predicted to grow to over $250 billion in just eight years – that’s a 13.6% CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate).
Source: Research And Markets
9. Shared hosting, as the largest segment of web hosting, is to hit $113 billion by 2030
Shared hosting is predicted to grow slightly faster than the overall market share of web hosting services, at a rate of 15.4% CAGR.
Moreover, the dedicated hosting market is forecast to grow at 11.4% CAGR in the coming eight years.
Source: Research And Markets
10. Web hosting market share around the world
The growth of web hosting in the United States by 2030 is forecast at $33.5 billion, with China being close behind at $30.1 billion (experiencing a 15.9% growth).
In addition, some other notable countries with a more rapid thriving in web hosting services are Germany (14.3% CAGR), Canada (12.1% CAGR) and Japan (11.3% CAGR).
Source: Research And Markets
11. Nginx and Apache have the largest web server market share
According to a March 2023 survey by Netcraft, nginx and Apache have the largest web server market share at 21.37% and 21.28%. This was actually the first time that nginx overtook Apache.
In third place is OpenResty with a 14.37% market share and in fourth is Cloudflare at 9.95%.
Surprisingly, LiteSpeed had the most significant growth rate of new sites and domains, jumping to 5.33% of websites and 3.43% of domains.
Source: Netcraft
12. Global web hosting market share by country
United States
| Web hosting provider | Market share |
| GoDaddy | 19.1% |
| Google Cloud Platform | 13.1% |
| Amazon Web Services | 5.6% |
| Squarespace | 4.2% |
| HostGator | 3.9% |
Canada
| Web hosting provider | Market share |
| Shopify | 27.1% |
| Tucows | 11.9% |
| OVHcloud | 9.1% |
| Onlive Server | 3.8% |
| HostPapa | 3.1% |
United Kingdom
| Web hosting provider | Market share |
| Host Europe | 14.8% |
| FastHosts | 11.5% |
| Webfusion | 8.2% |
| Names.co.uk | 5.9% |
| Digital Ocean | 2.5% |
Germany
| Web hosting provider | Market share |
| IONOS | 26.2% |
| STRATO | 14.4% |
| Hetzner Online | 13.1% |
| Host Europe | 6.7% |
| InterNetX | 5.1% |
China
| Web hosting provider | Market share |
| Aliyun | 34.3% |
| HiChina | 11.1% |
| West.cn | 0.9% |
| EGI Hosting | 0.6% |
| GoDaddy | 0.3% |
Russia
| Web hosting provider | Market share |
| REG.RU | 16.5% |
| Beget | 11.9% |
| RU-CENTER | 10.1% |
| Timeweb | 8.1% |
| SpaceWeb | 3.2% |
Japan
| Web hosting provider | Market share |
| XServer | 14.7% |
| Lolipop | 14.1% |
| Sakura Internet | 13.5% |
| DigiRock | 4.2% |
| Amazon Web Services | 3.9% |
Source: Hostadvice
13. Cloudflare Hosting is the most popular amongst the top 1 million website
According to BuiltWith, Cloudflare has a market share of 27.4% amongst the top one million sites in the world.
Not far behind, in second place, is Amazon, with a market share of 23.6%. Following are Google (9.7%), Google Cloud (8.6%), Microsoft (5.9%) and Hetzner (4.9%).
Source: BuiltWith
14. The global VPS hosting distribution – GoDaddy FTW!
GoDaddy absolutely dominates the VPS hosting space with a 64% share. Digital Ocean is second at only 10%, then Linode (7%) and Liquid Web (6%) in fourth.
But in the United States, GoDaddy (15%) is only in fourth place, Digital Ocean (21%) takes the lead, Liquid Web (18%) and Linode (18%) are in second place and DreamHost (13%) is in third.
Source: BuiltWith
15. Hetzner is the most preferred dedicated hosting service
The top one million websites around the world prefer using Hetzner’s (22%) dedicated hosting service the most. But OVH isn’t far behind with a share of 19%. GoDaddy (9%) and Rackspace (5%) are third and fourth.
Source: BuiltWith
16. EPiServer is the most popular eCommerce hosting option
When overviewing the top one million eCommerce websites, 48% of them opt for EPiServer Hosting. The other 52% are spread amongst many other providers, like Jimdo (24%), Hipex (19%) and eShopRychle (4%), to name a few.
Source: BuiltWith
17. Cloud hosting distribution is ruled by Cloudflare and Amazon
Cloudflare has a 37% market share and Amazon has 32%. Google Cloud is far behind in third place with a 12% market share.
Speaking of cloud, you may also be interested in checking our extensive cloud computing statistics.
Source: BuiltWith
18. GoDaddy owns the shared hosting usage distribution in the top 1 million websites
A whopping 76% of the top one million websites that use shared hosting go with GoDaddy. The reason is probably that this hosting option is a very good starting point but easy to manage and maintain even with larger traffic volumes.
Source: BuiltWith
19. Which WordPress hosting has the largest market share in the top 1 million sites?
WP Engine is a clear winner, with 76% of WordPress sites choosing it. Although there are many other hosts that fill that 24%, Kinsta (14%) and InMotion Hosting (6%) take most of the space.
Don’t forget to read our WP Engine review if this is the host you’re considering opting for.
Source: BuiltWith
You may also be interested in our tutorial on choosing the right WordPress hosting.
Web Hosting Providers Statistics
20. The 5 most-used hosting in the top 1 million websites
| Web hosting | Number of websites |
| Cloudflare | 274,000+ |
| Amazon | 235,000+ |
| 97,000+ | |
| Microsoft | 59,000+ |
| Hetzner | 49,000+ |
When speaking about the entire internet, Google + Google Cloud and Amazon + AWS’s hosting services dominate, followed by GoDaddy, Cloudflare and 1and1.
| Web hosting | Number of websites |
| 54,286,000+ | |
| Google Cloud | 48,274,000+ |
| Amazon | 44,044,000+ |
| AWS | 20,880,000+ |
* Unfortunately, the BuiltWith platform cannot detect nearly 200 million domains, so the final stats could be completely different.
Source: BuiltWith
21. HostGator and Bluehost are the most popular NewFold Digital Group hosts
NewFold Digital Group has a massive share in the web hosting industry, where HostGator and Bluehost are the most preferred solutions.
| Web hosting | Percentage of website |
| HostGator | 26.9% |
| Bluehost | 25.2% |
| Newfold Digital | 15.2% |
| PublicDomainRegistry | 9.1% |
| Network Solutions | 8.1% |
Source: W3Tech
22. Wix is the favorite hosted solution
If we look at the complete solutions for running a website (including a website builder, domain registration and web hosting), Wix is the most popular, followed by Shopify and Squarespace.
Remember, this isn’t a content management system like WordPress – if you’re interested, don’t miss our exciting WP stats and a roundup of the best WordPress hosting options.
| Hosted solution | Number of websites |
| Wix | 8,047,000+ |
| Shopify | 4,230,000+ |
| Squarespace | 2,916,000+ |
| Wix Stores | 2,213,000+ |
| Duda | 953,000+ |
Source: BuiltWith
23. Newfold Digital controls 80+ hosting brands
Few actually know that some of the leading web hosting services are owned by a single company – Newfold Digital. But they try to keep it private and let web hosts continue operating under their original names.
Newfold Digital controls BlueHost, HostGator, Domain.com, HostMonster, FatCow, NetFirms, and iPage, among many others.
Source: Review Hell
Web Domain Name Statistics
If you want a more in-depth overview, feel free to peek at our domain name statistics.
24. There are approximately 627+ million registered domains around the world
In 2021, there were 438+ million registered domain names, which shows a rapid growth rate.
A more detailed distribution of registered domain names would be 1) Generic TLDs (270+ million), 2) Country TLDs (250+ million) and 3) New gTLDs (107+ million).
Source: Domain Name Stat
25. Commercial domain (.com) has the largest market share
The commercial domain is the extension of the largest share of domain names (245+ million), with a market share of 36%. The four other most-popular top TLDs are .cn (29+ million), .tk (27+ million), .de (24+ million) and .net (21+ million).
Source: Domain Name Stat
26. The US has the largest share of registered domains
At 128+ million, the United States has the most registered domain names, with the most liked TLDs being .com, .org, .net, .info, .xyz and .co.
Canada (17.1+ million), China (17+ million), Iceland (15+ million) and France (7+ million) and second, third, fourth and fifth.
Source: Domain Name Stat
27. GoDaddy is the most popular domain registrar
Besides being one of the largest web hosting providers in the world, GoDaddy IS the largest domain registrar, with an 11.9% share. NameCheap is second but with only a 2.7% market share. And Tucows Domains even further behind on third with a share of 1.7%.
| Registrar | Registered domain names |
| GoDaddy | 79,267,000+ |
| NameCheap | 18,123,000+ |
| Tucows Domains | 11,324,000+ |
| 9,630,000+ | |
| IONOS | 5,884,000+ |
Source: Domain Name Stat
28. The most expensive domain sold for – wait for it – $872 million
That’s not a typo; cars.com was valued at $872 million, which is mind-boggling.
Some other (publicly reported) super expensive domain names are carinsurance.com ($49.7 million), insurance.com ($35.6 million), vacationrentals.com ($35 million), privatejet.com ($30.18 million) and voice.com ($30 million).
Source: GoDaddy
Web Hosting Trends
29. Eco-friendly hosting is on the rise
Even though your website is online, servers that run 24/7/365 are still needed to make it happen. These servers require (a lot of) cooling so they don’t overheat, generating a large carbon footprint.
Green or eco-friendly hosting is thus becoming increasingly popular. It uses renewable energy to run data centers. Two of the most popular examples of such hosting services are Greenhost and GreenGeeks.
Source: Daily Host News
30. Cloud hosting is expected to outgrow shared and dedicated hosting
More users opt for cloud hosting than shared and dedicated, which caused an 18.3% CAGR.
Shared and dedicated hosting only have 10.3% and 5.6% CAGR. The expansion is likely due to cloud hosting’s flexibility and affordability.
Source: Berkaweb
31. VPS is also on the rise
The virtual private server market was $2.6 billion in 2018 but is expected to hit around $8.3 billion by 2026, with a 16.2% CAGR.
Moreover, although North America is dominating the VPS game, Asia-Pacific is expected to grow the most.
Source: Allied Market Research
32. The need for traditional data centers is dying
According to Gartner, 80% of enterprises will close their traditional data centers by 2025, moving to the cloud. At the time of writing this, 10% of the respondents had already made the switch.
Not only are cloud-based options less expensive for organizations, but they are also easier to manage.
Another research found that by 2025, 49% of the world’s stored data will live in public and private cloud environments.
33. Cloud computing will grow to around $591+ billion by the end of 2023
In the last five years, the cloud computing market share increased from $197+ billion in 2018 to an expected $591+ billion in 2023. We can expect it to get even beefier at this rate, eventually hitting the $1 trillion mark.
Source: Statista
Other Interesting Web Hosting Stats
34. Can you guess the first-ever registered domain name?
It’s symbolics.com, and it was registered on March 15, 1985. Some other domains registered in the same year were bbn.com, think.com, mcc.com and dec.com.
Source: Wikipedia
35. Can you guess the first-ever published website?
Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web in 1989, also published the very first “website” two years later, on August 6, 1991, which was a summary of the WWW project.
Plus, Tim is also the father of the first web server that he named CERN httpd.
Source: Wikipedia
36. An hour of server downtime can cost up to $400K
The average cost of an enterprise server’s downtime worldwide can cost between $300,000 and $400,000.
17% reported that the cost of an hour could be higher than $5 million, while 10% said it’s between $2 and $5 million.
Donwtimes can be EXTREMELY pricey.
Source: Statista
37. Slow-loading websites create billions of dollars loss annually
Websites that load slowly (also a result of poor-quality web hosting service) create a $6.8 billion annual loss. Just a small speed enhancement can improve your business A LOT.
Check more site speed statistics and determine why website loading speed is so important.
Source: Sales Lion
38. Newfold Digital Group bought HostGator in July 2012 for $299.8 million
I already mentioned earlier that Newfold Digital Group runs 80+ hosting services, but I bet you didn’t know that they acquired HostGator for $299.8 million, of which they paid $227.3 million in cash, right?
Source: Wikipedia
Conclusion
This web hosting statistics roundup informs you about the market share, popular web hosting providers, and domain registrars and keeps you updated on the latest trends.
When it comes to choosing the ideal web hosting service for you depends on your individual needs and priorities.
Reliability is essential in choosing the right solution because you want your website or application to offer the ultimate performance for the best user and customer experience.
By staying up-to-date with easy access to valuable insights (“Hey, thanks for these stats!”), you can stay ahead of the curve and ensure your online presence remains strong and competitive.
We hope this article provided helpful information to make the best decision for your website hosting.
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