WordPress 5.6 « Simone » was released as expected on December 8, 2020. As for previous releases, let’s have a look on Core stats.
WordPress 5.6 is quite particular, as it was directed by a 100% female Release Squad. WP 5.6 was named « Simone », in honor of jazz singer and civil rights activist Nina Simone.
In the past, I already published some contributions stats for versions 5.3, 5.4 and 5.5. I did it again for WP 5.6, so we can have an eye on the influence of countries and companies on WordPress Core.
Before diving into WordPres 5.6 Core contributions stats, few disclaimers, for better context:
- These statistics only relate to Core contributions (= source code and design) of WordPress. There are a whole bunch of other types of contributions, not listed here: marketing, communication, translation, organization, testing …
- To get these stats, I parsed WordPress.org profiles pages for each contributor to get some public informations about the contributors: country, employer, and wether they already contributed to WordPress Core or not. It includes both Core contributions on Trac and Gutenberg pull requests on GitHub.
- Those stats are based on what’s declared in each contributors’s wp.org profile. Users with empty profile informations are not taken into account.
- All the charts and raw data can be downloaded below.
📊WordPress 5.6 General Stats
605 people contributed to WordPress 5.6. These people come from at least 57 different countries, and from at least 155 different companies.
More important, 236 people never contributed to WordPress source code before WP 5.6. In WP 5.6 sourcecode, 39% of people contributed for the very forst time to WordPress Core. Therefore, we now have more than 200 new contributors in the project 😎
This is without doubt the more important stats of this post, as it proves the dynamism and the health of the WordPress open-source project..
On the other hand, the people who contribute the most are generally people who have contributed for a long time to the Core, which is… quite logical 😉
🌍Country ranking by number of contributors
The graph below shows the number of countries that have contributed to WordPress 5.6, ranked by number of contributors. I also put the top 10 in a table, WorldRugby style 😃🏉
Of the 57 countries (58 countries on WP 5.5, and 48 on WP 5.5) that contributed to this version of WordPress, US once again has the largest number of contributors, followed by India and then the UK.
| Rank | Country | Contributors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | 121 |
| 2 | India | 46 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 24 |
| 4 | Germany | 17 |
| 5 | Canada | 14 |
| 6 | Netherlands | 13 |
| 7 | Australia | 11 |
| 8 | France | 9 |
| 9 | Japan | 9 |
| 10 | Russia | 7 |
Here is the evolution of the top 10 countries between versions 5.3, 5.4, 5.5 and 5.6 of WordPress. If the leading trio remains unchanged since WP 5.3, France falls to WP 5.6. Germany goes back to fourth place. Canada retains its 5th place and the Netherlands 6th. Australia move up the rankings while Spain drop out of the top 10.
| WordPress 5.3 | WordPress 5.4 | WordPress 5.5 | WordPress 5.6 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Country | People | Country | People | Country | People | Country | People |
| US | 110 | US | 99 | US | 164 | US | 121 |
| India | 63 | India | 48 | India | 48 | India | 46 |
| UK | 26 | Germany | 20 📈 | UK | 31 📈 | UK | 24 |
| Germany | 22 | UK | 18 📉 | France | 25 📈 | Germany | 17 📈 |
| Netherlands | 21 | France | 15 📈 | Canada | 23 📈 | Canada | 14 |
| Australia | 14 | Canada | 11 📈 | Netherlands | 22 📈 | Netherlands | 13 |
| Canada | 13 | Netherlands | 11 📉 | Germany | 15 📉 | Australia | 11 📈 |
| France | 11 | Bangladesh | 9 📈 | Japan | 15 📈 | France | 9 📉 |
| Italia | 9 | Italia | 8 | Spain | 13 📈 | Japan | 9 📉 |
| Japan | 8 | Japan | 8 | Australia | 12 📈 | Russia | 7 📈 |
🌏Country ranking by number of contributions
If instead of counting contributors, we prefer to count the contributions (number of participations in Trac tickets or GitHub issues), then the results are a little different.
The USA remains number 1 by far with 712 contributions, but Russia is behind with 344 contributions, still led by Sergey, the person who made the most individual contributions on this version of WP. Australia follows, with 152 contributions overtaking the United Kingdom (135 contributions) and Algeria (133 contributions). India, Greece, Canada, Poland, France and Germany are following the top 10.
👩💻Company ranking by contributors
Of the 57 companies that contributed to WordPress 5.6, Automattic had by far the most contributors, with 70 people credited. Yoast is still the second biggest contributor with 16 people. 10up then comes third with 8 people. Then we have a group with 5 contributors: Human Made, GoDaddy, WP Engine and rtCamp. Google closes the head group with 4 contributors.
Note that Whodunit is not represented in the leading group (2nd on WP 5.5 with 10 people, and 1 contributor only on WP 5.6) and iThemes (4 people on WP 5.5, 2 people on WP 5.6). This can be explained by the difficulty for small companies to maintain a large number of contributors over time. When economical activity is important, only people who have time to contribute on their working time can continue to contribute (which is my case at Whodunit).
And here is the evolution since WordPress 4.8 for the top 10 (except Automattic):
👩💻Company ranking by contributions
Automattic is still the most prolific company with employees credited in no less than 1002 contributions (for 70 contributors), but is followed by Yoast with 467 contributions (for 16 contributors).
After Automattic and Yoast, come in order: iThemes (99 contributions, for only 2 contributors), Bluehost hosting company (92 contributions for 2 contributors), 10up (75 contributions for 8 contributors), Human Made (70 contributions for 5 contributors) and Whodunit (62 contributions for 1 contributor – me) agencies. In the following actors, we find a majority of agencies. Google’s contribution volume has dropped significantly compared to WordPress 5.5, which makes sense because Google has done a lot of work on sitemaps.xml on WP 5.5.
Worth noting that the following major stakeholders can be categorized in three sorts of companies: agencies, plugins/themes editors and hosting companies.
🕊Individuals top ranking for WordPress 5.6
Here is the list of people who have validated at least 10 contributions on version 5.6 of WordPress:
| Rank | Profile | Country | Company | Contributions | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SergeyBiryukov | Russia | Yoast | 338 | Trac only |
| 2 | youknowriad | Algeria | Automattic | 133 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 3 | TimothyBlynJacobs | United States | iThemes | 98 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 4 | desrosj | United States | Bluehost | 89 | Trac only |
| 5 | zieladam | Poland | 72 | both Trac and GitHub | |
| 6 | ntsekouras | Greece | Automattic | 65 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 7 | johnbillion | United Kingdom | Human Made Ltd | 63 | Trac only |
| 8 | audrasjb | France | Whodunit | 62 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 8 | helen | Costa Rica | 10up | 62 | Trac only |
| 10 | talldanwp | Australia | Automattic | 60 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 11 | ellatrix | Bulgaria | 52 | GitHub only | |
| 12 | joen | Denmark | Automattic | 51 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 13 | garrett-eclipse | Canada | SendtoNews Incorporated | 49 | Trac only |
| 14 | nosolosw | Spain | Automattic | 48 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 15 | noisysocks | Australia | Automattic | 45 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 16 | mkaz | United States | Automattic | 43 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 17 | isabel_brison | 42 | both Trac and GitHub | ||
| 17 | jorgefilipecosta | Portugal | Automattic | 42 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 19 | ocean90 | Germany | required | 40 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 20 | justinahinon | Benin | Yoast | 39 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 20 | zebulan | 39 | both Trac and GitHub | ||
| 22 | aristath | Greece | Yoast | 37 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 23 | ryelle | United States | Automattic | 36 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 23 | whyisjake | United States | Automattic / WordPress VIP | 36 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 25 | aduth | United States | Automattic | 35 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 25 | noahtallen | 35 | both Trac and GitHub | ||
| 25 | addiestavlo | 35 | GitHub only | ||
| 28 | gziolo | Poland | Automattic | 34 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 29 | peterwilsoncc | Australia | Awesome Motive | 33 | Trac only |
| 29 | happiryu | 33 | GitHub only | ||
| 31 | jrf | Netherlands | Advies en zo | 32 | Trac only |
| 32 | kevin940726 | Taiwan | Automattic | 31 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 32 | davidszabo | Automattic | 31 | GitHub only | |
| 34 | mukesh27 | India | 28 | Trac only | |
| 35 | hellofromTonya | United States | 27 | Trac only | |
| 35 | nrqsnchz | Mexico | 27 | both Trac and GitHub | |
| 37 | sabernhardt | United States | 23 | Trac only | |
| 37 | copons | Automattic | 23 | GitHub only | |
| 37 | geriux | 23 | GitHub only | ||
| 40 | itsjonq | Canada | Automattic | 22 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 40 | jsnajdr | 22 | GitHub only | ||
| 40 | sirreal | 22 | GitHub only | ||
| 43 | afercia | Italy | Yoast | 21 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 43 | azaozz | Canada | Automattic | 21 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 45 | Clorith | Norway | Dekode Interaktiv AS | 20 | Trac only |
| 45 | mista-flo | France | Culture Trip | 20 | Trac only |
| 47 | chipsnyder | 19 | GitHub only | ||
| 48 | adamsilverstein | United States | 18 | both Trac and GitHub | |
| 48 | davidbaumwald | United States | Dream Encode | 18 | Trac only |
| 48 | mcsf | Portugal | Automattic | 18 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 51 | dd32 | 17 | both Trac and GitHub | ||
| 51 | hareesh-pillai | India | KiloFarms | 17 | Trac only |
| 51 | kjellr | Automattic | 17 | both Trac and GitHub | |
| 51 | ceyhun0 | 17 | GitHub only | ||
| 55 | poena | Sweden | Themes By Carolina | 16 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 55 | epiqueras | Peru | 16 | GitHub only | |
| 57 | pbiron | United States | Sparrow Hawk Computing | 15 | Trac only |
| 57 | sergioestevao | United Kingdom | Automattic | 15 | GitHub only |
| 59 | andraganescu | Romania | Automattic | 14 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 59 | ayeshrajans | 14 | Trac only | ||
| 59 | cvoell | United States | 14 | GitHub only | |
| 59 | etoledom | 14 | GitHub only | ||
| 63 | dratwas | 13 | GitHub only | ||
| 63 | jeremyyip | 13 | GitHub only | ||
| 65 | karmatosed | United Kingdom | Automattic | 12 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 65 | mapk | United States | Automattic | 12 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 65 | melchoyce | United States | Automattic | 12 | Trac only |
| 65 | spacedmonkey | United Kingdom | Spacedmonkey | 12 | both Trac and GitHub |
| 65 | antonisme | Greece | 12 | GitHub only | |
| 70 | antpb | United States | WP Engine | 11 | Trac only |
| 70 | joostdevalk | Netherlands | Yoast | 11 | Trac only |
| 70 | bernhard-reiter | Automattic | 11 | GitHub only | |
| 73 | afragen | United States | GitHub Updater | 10 | Trac only |
| 73 | ramiy | Israel | 10 | both Trac and GitHub |
🎁Download charts & data
All those resources are shared under Creative Commons BY-SA, which means you are free to use it on your blog or website with proper attribution (and maybe a link to this page?).
If you want to support this initiative, you can buy me a beer 🍺 or leave a kind comment below 🥰
 | WP 5.6 credits – Countries by people | Download SVG |
 | WP 5.6 credits – Countries by contributions | Download SVG |
 | WP 5.6 credits – Companies by people | Download SVG |
 | WP 5.6 credits – Companies by contributions | Download SVG |
| 📊 | WP 5.6 credits – Row data | Download CSV |
| 🖼 | WP 5.6 credits page with noteworthy contributors | Download PNG |
2 replies on “WordPress 5.6 Core Stats: contributions by country & company”
Thanks for the stats! It’s because of this article that I found out I became a Core Contributor to 5.6. I had a patch committed to Application Passwords for 5.5 support which was integrated into core as part of 5.6. 🙂
Thanks ! And congrats for contributing to WP 5.6 « Simone » 🌟