Usage share of operating systems

The usage share of an operating system is the percentage of computers running that operating system (OS). These statistics are estimates as wide scale OS usage data is difficult to obtain and measure. Reliable primary sources are limited and data collection methodology is not formally agreed. Currently devices connected to the internet allow for web data collection to approximately measure OS usage.

Android, which uses the Linux kernel, is the world's most popular operating system with 47% of the global market, followed by Windows with 26%, iOS with 17%, macOS with 5%, and other Linux devices with 1.4%.^[1] This is for all device types excluding embedded devices.

• For smartphones and other mobile devices, Android has 73% market share, and Apple's iOS has 26%.^[2]
• For desktop computers and laptops, Microsoft Windows has 73%, followed by Apple's macOS at 14%, desktop Linux at 4.1%, then Google's ChromeOS at 1.9%.^[3] 6.4% is unknown (third-most popular, and thought to actually also be Linux, which is otherwise fourth-most popular).^[4]
• For tablets, Apple's iPadOS (a variant of iOS) has 53% share and Android has 47% worldwide.^[5]
• For the top 500 most powerful supercomputers, Linux distributions have had 100% of the marketshare since 2017.
• The global server operating system marketshare has Linux leading with a 62.7% marketshare, followed by Windows, Unix and other operating systems.^[6]

Linux is also most used for web servers, and the most common Linux distribution is Ubuntu, followed by Debian. Linux has almost caught up with the second-most popular (desktop) OS, macOS, in some regions, such as in South America,^[7] and in Asia it's at 6.4% (7% with ChromeOS) vs 9.7% for macOS.^[8] In the US, ChromeOS is third at 5.5%, followed by (desktop) Linux at 4.3%, but can arguably be combined into a single number 9.8%.^[9][10]

The most numerous type of device with an operating system are embedded systems. Not all embedded systems have operating systems, instead running their application code on the "bare metal"; of those that do have operating systems, a high percentage are standalone or do not have a web browser, which makes their usage share difficult to measure. Some operating systems used in embedded systems are more widely used than some of those mentioned above; for example, modern Intel microprocessors contain an embedded management processor running a version of the Minix operating system.^[11]