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Linux Desktop Market Share skyrocketing 500%?

by John Machado

The topic of Linux market share on the desktop is and has been widely contested, but the Windows 10 EOL and Windows 11 issues, spurred many Windows users to migrate to Linux or Mac. But these numbers are difficult to come by. Big Tech has an incentive to suppress any real data on Linux adoption. So how do we know what the real adoption is? Well, I don’t have the answer to that, but I do have some info that I stumbled across and that sparked an idea on how we can find out.

I host a website for a client, a site that I realized is a great microcosm of average desktop/phone users. I will not mention the site name directly, but we will use LRM.net, an acronym for the site. What makes this site unique in regards to the question at hand is that it is a Catholic based site, where Catholics around the world can look up the nearest church to them. The Catholic Church is not bound by ethnicity or borders , so the users are as diverse as you can possibly imaging.

This scenario is perfect for looking at “what are regular users using”, for instance this site (delinuxco.com) is not a good gauge, because you would expect it to be mostly Linux users. So the graph below shows that from November 2025 on, visitors running Linux rose by 500%+ ? The site averages approximately 1400 unique visitors every month with about 2200 page views.

I would like to encourage anyone who hosts websites to check your analytics, do you also see this as well? What are your thoughts?

-John

Bar graph illustrating the increase in Linux market share from July 2025 to January 2026, showing percentage growth over several months.
World map highlighting regions with varying visit counts, showing darker shades for higher visitor numbers.

January 2025 – Incomplete @ 13%

LabelVisitsActionsUnique visitors
iOS265437249
Android9919594
Windows9125688
GNU/Linux749173
Mac5211250
Chrome OS151
A dashboard from Matomo analytics showing the distribution of operating system families for the website LRM.net, featuring a pie chart with segments for Android, iOS, Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac, and Chrome OS.

December 2025 – 14%

LabelVisitsActionsUnique visitors
iOS 18.6206378191
GNU/Linux186192186
iOS 18.7178347169
Windows 10158272157
Windows 11118277115
Others516997501
A dashboard screenshot from Matomo analytics showing the distribution of operating system families for December 2025, including sections for Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac, iOS, Android, and Chrome OS.

November 2025 – 10%

LabelVisitsActionsUnique visitors
iOS 18.6336571300
Windows 10158245155
GNU/Linux130157130
Mac 10.15124295117
Windows 11117338112
Others4921102459
Dashboard view displaying operating system family statistics from November 2025, showcasing the distribution of visits among various operating systems including Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac, iOS, Android, and Chrome OS.

October 2025 – 2%

LabelVisitsActionsUnique visitors
iOS7321266655
Android252464242
Windows248499243
Mac191357179
GNU/Linux333833
Chrome OS584
Dashboard displaying operating system families for the website LRM.net, showing a pie chart with visits from various operating systems like iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, GNU/Linux, and Chrome OS for October 2025.

September 2025 – 2%

LabelVisitsActionsUnique visitors
iOS504927465
Windows218432212
Android192353185
Mac141249122
GNU/Linux225122
Others6236
Screenshot of analytics dashboard showing operating system market share for the website LRM.net in September 2025, with a pie chart illustrating the distribution of visits among different operating systems.

August 2025 – 6%

LabelVisitsActionsUnique visitors
iOS6441225578
Android222401215
Windows203431200
Mac113279107
GNU/Linux7515974
Others112711
Chart displaying the distribution of operating system families for August 2025 visits to the website LRM.net, including segments for Android, Windows, Mac, GNU/Linux, iOS, and Others.

July 2025 – 4%

LabelVisitsActionsUnique visitors
iOS538915497
Android274526254
Windows243444236
Mac133305127
GNU/Linux4810746
Others102010
Dashboard view of website analytics for LRM.net showing the distribution of operating system families among visitors in July 2025, with a pie chart illustrating the percentage of visits by Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, GNU/Linux, and Others.