This year, water & stone teamed up with CMSWire to release of the second annual Open Source CMS Market Share Report (2009). Previous report available here: 2008.

The Top 20

What was the criteria for inclusion on The List of Twenty? First, the authors are only concerned with web content management systems, aka WCM. Second, the system has to be available under an open source license, though dual-licensed products are eligible for consideration. Finally, to be eligible, the project must have released a new version of the software since the last report (July 2008).

The final List of Twenty is based on a simple criteria, that is, a direct comparison of the following three metrics, gleaned from five different sources:

1. Search volume, according to Google and Wordtracker
2. Traffic for the primary project site, according to Alexa and Compete
3. Social bookmarking prominence, as gauged by Delicious saves

The List of Twenty (in alphabetical order)

The 20 systems covered in this report have been assessed on variety of metrics related to Rate of Adoption and Brand Strength. The analysis looked at a broad range of indicators — both direct and indirect — with the goal of synthesizing trends and patterns.

The Market Leaders

• WordPress
• Joomla!
• Drupal

This year, as last, three brands dominated the survey: WordPress, Joomla! and Drupal. As in 2008, the top three spots in almost every metric were held by The Big Three.

The principal conclusions of the report

• Three brands — The Big Three — continue to dominate the present market: WordPress, Joomla! and Drupal. The numbers indicate that these systems maintain a large lead on the rest of the pack and are the dominant players in the market. In both this year’s report and last year’s, we found The Big Three in firm command of the open source CMS market.
• Since last year’s report (Summer 2008), there has been some shift between The Big Three, with WordPress gaining brand strength and Joomla! gaining market share.
• PHP-based systems hold a significant lead in market share over both Java and .NET systems.
• Alfresco performed well across a number of categories and is the leading Java-based open source CMS, though Liferay shows growing strength.
• DotNetNuke is presently the leading .NET-based open source CMS, though market share is slipping and our research highlights some concerns.
• Brand sentiment and adoption rates imply that user dissatisfaction may be beginning to have an affect on several systems.
• Brand recognition and familiarity is a major challenge facing all systems in the survey outside The Big Three.
• phpWebSite, Textpattern and TikiWiki face significant challenges in terms of brand strength and market share.