WP Data Dashboard Tracks WordPress.org Themes Ecosystem – WP Tavern
Munich-based digital company proprietor Hendrik Luehrsen has been tracking the usage of themes with the FSE tag (block themes) utilizing a spreadsheet that pulls in knowledge from the WordPress.org API. Wrangling the info in a spreadsheet turned too cumbersome, so Luehrsen launched WP Data Dashboard over the weekend as a “centralized hub for exploring, analyzing, and visualizing knowledge throughout the WordPress panorama.”
The brand new web site is at the moment monitoring 6,017 themes hosted on WordPress.org with 250 snapshots. It provides stats and data-based insights for these all for getting a chook’s-eye view on themes hosted within the official listing.
“Proper now, the WP Knowledge Dashboard has one primary operate: It crawls the WordPress Theme Repo (API) and crunches the numbers to establish tendencies,” Luehrsen stated. “With the info saved in my very own database, I can analyze and mix it in thrilling new methods.”
WP Knowledge Dashboard has two distinctive stats which are interpretations of the info out there. The primary is a “Utilization Rating,” which is calculated primarily based on a theme’s energetic installs vs. complete downloads:
A excessive rating signifies a theme that not solely has been downloaded ceaselessly but additionally stays actively put in on many websites. The rating undergoes a big decay if the proportion of energetic installs to downloads is low, indicating that whereas the theme is perhaps ceaselessly downloaded, it’s not retained by customers. This metric offers perception into each the preliminary enchantment of a theme and its lasting utility to customers.
The second distinctive stat is a “Range Rating,” which compares the downloads of a single theme writer to the general theme listing (or a tag) and scales that worth from 0 to 100:
A excessive rating signifies that downloads are unfold throughout many authors, suggesting a various and aggressive market. Alternatively, a low rating means that a couple of authors dominate the downloads, indicating much less variety. This metric offers perception into the number of theme choices and the stability of energy within the theme market.
The Utilization Scores could be seen on the List web page, which is an index of all of the themes, in addition to on the Tag pages.
The Range Rating is barely displayed on the Stats web page as a share representing your entire WordPress.org ecosystem. The Range rating goes up when the stats are calculated with out the default themes, which get numerous downloads from the identical “WordPress.org” writer yearly.
In a thread on X, Luehrsen highlighted a couple of knowledge factors he has extracted so removed from the dashboard.
“Enjoyable reality: Do you know that essentially the most downloaded themes ever are Twenty Seventeen, Twenty Fifteen, and Astra?” he stated. “Every has crossed over 10 million downloads! However solely Astra managed to retain its customers and stays immediately as one of the crucial extensively used themes.
“What’s considerably shocking is the decline in downloads for the newer default themes. Whereas Twenty-Twenty garnered over 8 million downloads, Twenty Twenty-One managed solely 6 million, and Twenty Twenty-Two a mere 3 million.”
This can be associated to the slow adoption of block themes, which nonetheless appears to be stagnating on the finish of October. The variety of block theme energetic installs declined from August to September, however is now inching its manner again as much as earlier numbers.
“Do you know that solely 2% of general theme downloads come from themes tagged as ‘Full Site Editing‘?” Luehrsen stated. “On condition that they’re comparatively new, it’s not too shocking!”
When requested if he has thought-about making an attempt to incorporate numbers for themes like Elementor and Divi, which make up a big section of the industrial theme market, Luehrsen stated he wish to embody exterior knowledge however the compatibility of that knowledge can be very restricted, which in flip limits comparability with WordPress.org-hosted themes.
The WP Knowledge Dashboard is a helpful option to observe tendencies in WordPress.org themes over time, and the location seems primed so as to add knowledge for plugins at a future date. It might be much more useful if Luehrsen may make a few of the calculated knowledge out there for guests at a look, similar to 2% of general theme downloads coming from Full Site Editing tagged themes. There are numerous methods this knowledge might be visualized with graphs and charts sooner or later, because the database provides extra data over time.
The mission is hosted on GitHub underneath a GPL license, so anybody can dig deeper into the code to see the way it works or submit contributions to increase its capabilities.
