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.

As of October 2024^[update], Android, a mobile OS that uses the Linux kernel, has 45% of the global market and is the world's most widely used operating system, which is 70% than share the next-most used operating system Microsoft Windows at 27%, but note this is based on web browsing statistics so, this may not reflect usage share of all use (at least in different countries, where both traditional PCs and mobile devices are common).

Android is followed by Windows with 27%, then iOS with 18%, macOS with 5.6%, and desktop Linux with 1.6% (2.4% Linux share when including ChromeOS, but not Android's non-desktop Linux share). The remaining operating systems total 2%.^[1] These numbers do not include embedded devices or game consoles.

It's arguable that it's better to only compare only usage share across different classes of computing devices like here below:

• For smartphones and other mobile devices, Android leads with 72% market share, and Apple's iOS has 28%.^[2]
• For desktop computers and laptops, Microsoft Windows has 73%, followed by Apple's macOS at 15%, desktop Linux at 4.5%, then Google's ChromeOS at 2.25%.^[3] The remaining 4.5% is unknown category (third-most popular, and thought to be actually also be Linux, which is otherwise fourth-most popular).^[4]
• For tablets, Apple's iPadOS (a variant of iOS) has 55% share and Android has 45% worldwide.^[5]

Linux has completely dominated the supercomputer field since 2017, with all of the top 500 most powerful supercomputers in the world running a Linux distribution. 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,^[6] and in Asia it's at 6.4% (7% with ChromeOS) vs 9.7% for macOS.^[7] 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%.^[8][9]

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.^[10]