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ZDNET key takeaways
The Linux desktop continues to grow in popularity.
Cloudflare numbers show Linux at work is making gains
AI is a big reason why more people are turning to Linux.
Web traffic analysis site StatCounter recently showed that desktop Linux had reached an all-time high of 10.65% in the North American desktop market. Many people, even many Linux fans, dismissed this proportion as fake news. However, the last time I looked at the numbers in 2025, Statcounter only showed a high of just over 5%. As I mentioned in my recent report, Linux doubling its market share in just over a year should get everyone's attention.
I dug deeper and found that data from popular content delivery network Cloudflare also showed that the Linux desktop has been gaining popularity. By its count, desktop Linux has now reached 6.4%. That proportion is not as high as StatCounter's, but it represents significant growth given that Linux accounted for 4.1% of North American operating systems for the same period last year.
Also: How to try out over 85 Linux distros, no installation required - with DistroSea
Cloudflare's dataset is much larger than StatCounter's. StatCounter monitors about a million websites, while Cloudflare keeps an eye on over 24 million websites. Cloudflare itself claims to cover about 20% of the web.
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