Usage share of operating systems

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The usage share of an operating system is the percentage of computers that run 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 April 2024^[update], Android, a mobile OS that uses the Linux kernel, is the world's most widely used operating system. It has 42.73% of the global market, followed by Windows with 28.08%, iOS with 17.93%, macOS with 5.72%, desktop Linux at 1.52%, with the remaining 2.72% being ChromeOS and numerous smaller operating systems.^[1] These numbers do not include embedded devices or game consoles.

• For smartphones and other mobile devices, Android leads with 70.87% market share, and Apple's iOS has 28.39%.^[2]
• For desktop computers and laptops, Microsoft Windows is the most used at 72.22%, followed by Apple's macOS at 14.73%, desktop Linux at 3.88%, and Google's ChromeOS at 2.45%. Since ChromeOS is a Linux based OS, it can be added to the total desktop Linux share bringing it to 6.33%. 0.01% is FreeBSD and the remaining 6.7% is likely obscure Linux distributions. ^[3]
• For tablets, Apple's iPadOS (a variant of iOS) has 55.53% share and Android has 43.97% worldwide.^[4]

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.

The most numerous type of device with an operating system are embedded systems. These use varied 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.^[5]