GNU/Linux users per 1000 windows users
TLDR: In 2020 the fraction of Linux users doubled compared to Windows users. Compared to 2008 the Linux-user fraction rose by factor 5.
Every year people ask “is it finally the year of the Linux Desktop?”.
In 2020 the answer is clear: since 2008 almost every year was a year of the Linux Desktop: Compared to Windows users there was reliable superlinear growth:
The source of this graph is data I collected over the past decade every July from OS market share. Except for the 2022 data which is from October because I missed taking the data point in time. They do browser detection, so the data is far from perfect, but at least they have data we can use:
| 2008 | 8.6 | GNU/kw |
| 2009 | 11 | GNU/kw |
| 2010 | 10 | GNU/kw |
| 2011 | 11 | GNU/kw |
| 2012 | 12 | GNU/kw |
| 2013 | 14 | GNU/kw |
| 2014 | 19 | GNU/kw |
| 2015 | 18 | GNU/kw |
| 2016 | 22 | GNU/kw |
| 2017 | 25 | GNU/kw |
| 2018 | 21 | GNU/kw |
| 2019 | 24 | GNU/kw |
| 2020 | 41 | GNU/kw |
| 2021 | 20 | GNU/kw |
| 2022 | 27 | GNU/kw |
| 2023 | 30 | GNU/kw |
As a second datasource, here’s this data as reported from statcounter (postprocessed from their csv export to be GNU/kw and filtered to just july; and ignoring Chrome OS):
| Date | Windows | Linux | Chrome OS | GNU/kw |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 94.83 | 0.76 | 0 | 8 |
| 2010 | 93.29 | 0.77 | 0 | 8 |
| 2011 | 91.87 | 0.76 | 0 | 8 |
| 2012 | 88.85 | 0.83 | 0 | 9 |
| 2013 | 90.49 | 1.23 | 0.03 | 14 |
| 2014 | 89.25 | 1.34 | 0.19 | 15 |
| 2015 | 87.7 | 1.52 | 0.26 | 17 |
| 2016 | 83.33 | 1.54 | 0.35 | 18 |
| 2017 | 84.46 | 1.79 | 0.45 | 21 |
| 2018 | 82.88 | 1.71 | 0.5 | 21 |
| 2019 | 77.61 | 1.65 | 0.54 | 21 |
| 2020 | 77.74 | 1.85 | 0.67 | 24 |
| 2021 | 73.04 | 2.38 | 1.21 | 33 |
| 2022 | 75.21 | 2.76 | 1.5 | 37 |
| 2023 | 69.52 | 3.12 | 3.24 | 45 |
| 2024 | 72.1 | 4.44 | 1.41 | 62 |
Thanks to gamingonlinux and The Linux Experiment (video) for referencing the statcounter data.
GNU/Linux is growing. (though there is a dip during the pandemic)
When will you migrate? Did you migrate already?
This is based on an older German article I wrote in 2010 and updated regularly: GNU/Linux gewinnt gegenüber Windows und MacOSX an Marktanteil
FAQ
- Could the increase be due to Windows users moving to mobile platforms?
Windows users did not go down enough, and MacOS did not rise along, to warrant a 100% increase of GNU/kw. It’s at 87% while GNU/Linux in July was only 3.57%. If this were due to an exodus of Windows-users, I would expect MacOS to rise along.
The results are filtered for Desktop. When including mobile, Windows did not have sufficiently high losses compared to mobile to explain the Linux numbers differently than with an increase of Linux users.