Honestly, although I think WoltLab is good software, I prefer using Xeonforo, which is still the most used forum...
Bbpess (which I use for a fairly large project) isn't a forum on par with xeonforo and invisioncommunity.
https://www.wmtips.com/technologies/internet-forum-software/
Impossible, but it would be intersting to know how valid these numbers are. Possibly based on a bot that scans domains as long as he is not blocked. They
say:
- The analysis is based on our extensive dataset of websites crawled by the Website Information tool and other tools available on our site. This dataset is broad and diverse enough to be considered a representative sample of the web.
- Currently analyzed: 2,644,665 domains from 247 countries and territories. (...)
While we strive for accuracy, please note that our results are estimates. Therefore, the data is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind.
So they have a bit over 2.5 million domains "analyzed"- in fact less, as they do count every subdomain as a separate domain as they say. Not too impressive to be honest as shows a check of
the relevant statistics:
The second quarter of 2025 closed with 371.7 million domain name registrations across all top-level domains (TLDs), an increase of 3.3 million domain name registrations, or 0.9% compared to the first quarter of 2025. Domain name registrations increased by 9.3 million, or 2.6%, year over year.
Which means they analyzed not even 0,7% of the existing domains and from that you still have to substract all subdomains that they hit (and count as a full domain of it's own). So in fact it will be way less than 0,7% to an unknown degree. How reliable their marketshare stats are is thus unclear.
The actual numbers they have is according to them:
3875 bbPress installations, 31,5% of the forum market and 0,1% of the webpages (with 0 in the top 10.000 highest-ranked webpages, highest is 16.5xx)
1827 XenForo installations, 14,8% of the forum market and 0,07% of the webpages (with 9 of them in the top 10.000)
1717 phpBB installation, 14% of the forum market and 0,06% of the webpages (with 1 of them in the top 10.000, rank 9.922)
1089 Invision installation, 8,8% of the forum market and 0,04% of the webpages (with 0 in the top 10.000, highest is 15.9xx)
1058 vBulletin installations, 8,6% of the forum market and 0,04% of the webpages (with 1 in the top 10.000)
(...)
308 WoltLab installations, 2,5% market share and 0,01% of the webpages (with 0 in the top 10.000, highest is 43.xxx)
Which would mean: According to them there would be a number of 12.301 forums worldwide, or, extrapolated to the real number of registred domains (times 142), at least 1.757.285 forums (plus an unknown x to compensate for subdomains they counted that lower the actual number of domains they analyzed). True or at least probable or possible? I've no idea.
However, if it was true there would be 259.434 + x XenForo installs out there (1827+142) - seems a bit steep if I should guess... Let's greatfully assume half of the domains were actually unused, placeholders or redirects this would still leave us with 130.000 + x XenForo installs. Sounds a bit more realistic? Now let's further assume just 20% of the forum owners would extend their license per year. This alone (w/o MG, RM or ES)) would create a turnover of 26.000 * 60$ = 1.560.000$ + x. For license extensions alone, w/o new sales and w/o cloud. Given the small size of the XF team and the fact that apart from people there probably is not too much cost involved in the company my guess would be: This does not add up terribly well.
So probably the numbers from the statistic are a somewhat random indicator, but nothing more, nor really reliable.
From what I've seen, the BBpress numbers are probably grossly inflated.
It's a one click free install on WordPress, so there are many installs, but in the wild I've seen few that actually have anything other than the site owner's posts.
Mainly I think it has a different use case and audience than XF and other dedicated forum software. Plus, as you say, not only being free but also a plugin for Wordpress, it is quickly installed and as quickly ignored or forgotten afterwards.
Honestly, although I think WoltLab is good software, I prefer using Xeonforo, which is still the most used forum...
According to the statistic you posted 85% of the Woltlab installs are based in Germany - which seems to make sense as they are a German company and so is their audience. I've using Woltlab as a forum member for many years and can't say anything about it. However, when it came to choose the software for my forum I went for XenForo b/c I had been using it more than Woltlab as a user over the years and really liked it. A big point for XenForo was the huge community - Woltlabs is way smaller and at that time most pepole tere seemed to have a bit of a stiff upper lip for the most part. For non German speaker the community may possibly be prestty small as well.
I had a look at what Woltlab offers just today and on paper it could suit me better than XF: It is a tad cheaper initially and already includes a files repository (which seems a more suitable variant of the resource manager), a photo gallery and a CMS-like editor along with many things more that I wished XF had but hasn't. Even their cloud offering seems potentially interesting. Their add on system seems decent, for the most part sufficient and well maintained, too - but in opposite to XF the number of devs seems smaller. Typically there is one add on for a certain purpose, so nothing to choose from like it is often the case with XF. However: It is only the paper-form anyway, typically one will realize the smaller and bigger annoyances only after some time and I have no intention to switch horses.
I do like the default style of XF better btw - Woltlab looks more modern but also a bit cold and distant, maybe I am old.
