In the past 12 months, Linux has grown in the US alone by 1.13%!
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A couple more videos by Felix and we can attribute growth to him
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4.27% worlwide
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I know it is just a joke, but pretty generous of you to give a ~week old video credit for a year long trendline that peaked globally 8 months before the video was made 
That said, I’m happy for almost anything which may help increase awareness, adoption, or relevance of Linux. I’d really love to see desktop Linux achieve >10% marketshare in the medium term. And in the longterm I’d really love a future where no OS has a majority marketshare (e.g. something like 40% Windows, 30% MacOS, 20% Linux, 10% ChromiumOS)
edit: added the word “globally” [1]
because I am looking at worldwide stats, not US specific ↩︎
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I mean.. that’s why I said a couple more videos - with his influence online, several videos on Linux can surely be attributed to its growth. I also never said all its growth thus far this year.
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What I meant to draw attention to is that (if Statcounter’s numbers are reflective of reality) Linux has been on a slow upwards trajectory for at least the past ~3-5 years, and the last few months of growth (or even the last full year) is inline with that upwards trajectory, not an obvious exception or deviation attributable to any particular event or individual.
| Year | Marketshare | Diff since prev year | |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 2025 | 4.3% | increase of 0.4% | |
| April 2024 | 3.9% | increase of 1.1% | |
| April 2023 | 2.8% | increase of 0.3% | |
| April 2022 | 2.5% | increase of 0.3% | |
| April 2021 | 2.2% | increase of 0.4% | |
| April 2020 | 1.6% | increase of 0.0% |
^ Those figures are global. For the US specifically the clear upwards trajectory starts a little bit later (2023ish), with a significant bump in Q4 2023, and then fairly consistent gradual growth through 2024 into 2025.
For the US specifically:
| Year | Marketshare | Diff since prev year | |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 2025 | 4.9% | increase of 1.2% | |
| April 2024 | 3.7% | increase of 1.5% | |
| April 2023 | 2.2% | increase of 0.2% |
I think this is good news for LinuxTM (if the numbers are accurate), since slow steady growth over a longer time frame is more likely to represent a real trend with more resilient staying power as opposed to a momentary spike due to a single event, or short term fluctuations/noise.
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This is a fantastic analysis. Great write up 
I am quite literally baffled that the previous commenter would even suggest the idea that linux’s recent success over a 8 month period is because of one rando’s youtube video uploaded a few days ago 
But on a positive note if these stats keeps following in this trajectory Linux will likely have majority market share within < 2 decades. Actually crazy to think about!
I eagerly await that day
While the current linux uprising isn’t do to PewDiePie, he will most assuredly help in the growth.
At 110 million subscribers calling him some “rando” is quite the understatement. While i do not follow him, many people do and he has had significant impact on people.
Edit: fixed some spelling errors
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I really am getting tired of talking about this pewdiepie guy
His video got a measly 5 million views
What percent of those viewers:
- Watched the full video
- Watched even the first minute of the video
- Actually did further research on linux
- Actually processed / retained any information about linux
- Actually took the next steps required to get linux installed on a machine (a very tedious process I would imagine for newbies)
Let’s just let this convo fade away I really don’t think anything productive comes from talking about this youtuber
Your questions can’t be answered, so it’s a bit dishonest to ask many questions like that (a form of manipulation). Anyway his impact is quite important as it pushes Linux further into the mainstream. It’s now becoming normal to use Linux.
And a Linux video getting 5 million views is quite an achievement IMO. Plus all the reactions video and sharing on social media that we shouldn’t forget.
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I remain unconvinced 
His video insists upon itself
I understand your point, but with Linux being mentioned by multiple people with different audiences, it becomes closer to being a “household name” than an obscure piece of software used only by programmers.
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Does Linux getting more users / household name make it better / more secure?
I think there may be serious negative consequences when “non tech people” start using a programmer focused OS.
Despite popular belief, Linux is very susceptible to bad actors, and the more popular a particular distro becomes (aka the ones being shilled by youtubers to their newbie audience) the more those distros become targets to said bad actors.
Rapid growth in users does not equate to rapid growth in developers actively working on the security of said product. It does however, lead to rapid growth in bad actors targeting those users.
I did not say that having a massive sudden spike of uninformed users would be a good thing. What I meant was that when people continuously talk about it, it becomes more familiar, and gradually, some people might give it a try and stick with it.
Without exposure, how do you expect it to grow?
The same people who click links from unknown emails would do the same regardless of the OS they use. It is not like Windows security scales with its user base.
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I agree with this, but the exposure should stay within the bounds of users that deserve it. I genuinely can’t name anything in the history of open source that has benefited from an influx of total newbies who don’t appreciate it’s utility. Can you?
This is true but at least windows is financially motivated to push out better security and they have hyper frequent updates that benefit the average joe.
I’m not exactly sure what you mean by “don’t appreciate it’s utility”, but what about Tor as an example?
I am just happy more people will not use privacy-invasive Windows. More people using it will also open a market for antivirus, and more developers -especially those from big companies- will dedicate time to it.
What about Android ?
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Yes
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Tor seems like a pretty good example. Though presumably virtually everyone using Tor does appreciate its utility or they wouldn’t be using it (or put up with the annoyances of using it), even if they don’t understand how it works in depth.
This is one of the main reason I see greater marketshare as desirable.
What about Android ?
How so, what’s your thinking?
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I don’t know if this is still a thing, but one group that comes to mind is people only using it to access the big scary “darknet”, which was popular among younger people a decade ago.
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