Creative Commons License

Mountain View, California, United States

Creative Commons (CC) licenses are a set of standardized copyright licenses that let creators share their works with the public while clearly defining how others may use, remix, or redistribute them under specific conditions.

They offer distinct permissions such as Attribution (CC BY) which lets others use and build on a work with credit, Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) requiring adaptations to carry the same license, Attribution-NoDerivatives (CC BY-ND) allowing redistribution without changes, and Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) variants that restrict commercial use.

According to our data, Creative Commons is the most popular open-source license on the web.
It has 88.2% of the license market share and is detected on 0.4% of all websites.

Statistics based on 3.8M+ analyzed websites. About this data

📊 Rankings and Market Share

🏆 Creative Commons License Awards

⚡ Sites Using Creative Commons License

We have data on 14,541 websites that use the Creative Commons license. Here is a list of some of the top ranked ones.

The highest rated site using Creative Commons is wikipedia.org.

#WebsiteRankCountryLanguage
1 wikipedia.org #11 United States English
2 wikimedia.org #102 United States English
3 gov.br #240 Brazil Brazilian Portuguese
4 namu.wiki #604 United States Korean
5 mozilla.org #1,003 United States English
6 wiktionary.org #1,071 United States Amharic
7 wikisource.org #1,317 United States English
8 developer.mozilla.org United States American English
9 xkcd.com #1,529 English
10 getbootstrap.com #1,542 United States English
11 eldiario.es #1,610 Spain Spanish
12 commons.wikimedia.org United States English
13 odisha.gov.in #1,829 India Odia
14 libreoffice.org #2,057 Germany American English
15 mediawiki.org #2,098 United States English
16 runescape.wiki #2,112 United States British English
17 he.wikipedia.org United States Hebrew
18 stardewvalleywiki.com #2,296 English
19 interno.gov.it #2,603 Italy Italian
20 addons.mozilla.org United States American English

📈 Usage Statistics

Most of the sites that use Creative Commons:

Most of the sites using Creative Commons License are from the United States, Germany, and Spain.

  • United States 17.8%
  • Germany 9.2%
  • Spain 8.2%
  • Italy 6.9%
  • United Kingdom 4.8%
  • France 4.5%
  • Ukraine 4.1%
  • Czech Republic 3%
  • Russia 2.8%
  • Other 38.7%

Most Creative Commons License users speak English, Spanish, or German.

  • English 53.6%
  • Spanish 9.9%
  • German 5.5%
  • Italian 5.1%
  • French 3.6%
  • Ukrainian 3.1%
  • Portuguese 2.6%
  • Russian 2.3%
  • Czech 1.7%
  • Other 12.6%

The Creative Commons license is especially popular on .com, .org, and .net top-level domains.

  • .com 28.7%
  • .org 20.6%
  • .net 6.3%
  • .de 4.1%
  • .it 3.1%
  • .gov.ua 2.3%
  • .cz 1.9%
  • .ru 1.7%
  • .info 1.5%
  • Other 29.8%

The primary market segments for websites utilizing Creative Commons License include blogs and wiki, education and reference, and business.

  • Blogs/Wiki 17.9%
  • Education/Reference 15.1%
  • Business 9.5%
  • Marketing/Merchandising 5.2%
  • Non-Profit/Advocacy/NGO 4.5%
  • Software/Hardware 4.2%
  • Entertainment 3.7%
  • Technical/Business Forums 3.5%
  • Internet Services 3.2%
  • Other 33.2%

🔢 Creative Commons License Versions

The most popular version of Creative Commons License is BY 4.0, used by 21% of sites where versions were detected. In addition, 13.8% of sites use Creative Commons License BY-SA 4.0, and 12% use Creative Commons License BY-NC-SA 4.0.

  • BY 4.0 21%
  • BY-SA 4.0 13.8%
  • BY-NC-SA 4.0 12%
  • BY-NC-ND 4.0 9.8%
  • BY-SA 3.0 7.3%
  • BY-NC 4.0 6.3%
  • BY 3.0 6.3%
  • BY-NC-SA 3.0 6.2%
  • BY-NC-ND 3.0 5.9%
  • Other 11.4%

🕵️ Similar Technologies

These are some of the best Creative Commons License alternatives.

RankName
2
GNU License
Boston, Massachusetts, United States

The GNU General Public Licenses are a family of free, copyleft software licenses created to guarantee users the freedom to run, study, share, and modify software while ensuring those freedoms are preserved when the software is distributed.
3
MIT License
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

A permissive software license that allows reuse, modification, distribution, and commercial use without requiring source code disclosure.
4
Apache License
Wilmington, Delaware, United States

A permissive software license that allows use, modification, distribution, and commercial use without requiring source code disclosure.
5
BSD License
Boulder, Colorado, United States

A family of permissive free software licenses that allow software to be used, modified, and redistributed with minimal restrictions.
6
MPL License
Mountain View, California, United States

A free and open-source weak copyleft license that is more restrictive than the permissive software BSD-style licenses.

🆚 Compare Alternatives

Compare Creative Commons License to…

💬 Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Creative Commons License from?

Creative Commons License is from Mountain View, California, United States.

Which country uses Creative Commons License the most?

The majority of Creative Commons License users are from the United States.

Who uses Creative Commons License?

According to our data, Creative Commons License is used on thousands of sites, including such established ones as wikipedia.org, wikimedia.org, and gov.br.

Is Creative Commons License used on government websites?

Yes, for example, it is used by odisha.gov.in and interno.gov.it. Overall, we found Creative Commons License on 339 government sites in Ukraine and 3 in the United States.

Do academic institutions use Creative Commons License?

Yes. In total, we know of 15 academic websites in the United States that use Creative Commons License.

How does Creative Commons License compare to its competitors?

Creative Commons License is the most popular open-source license on the market, outranking all others.

What are the alternatives to Creative Commons License?

Alternatives and possible competitors to Creative Commons License may include GNU License, MIT License, and Apache License.

🗃️ About This Data