Linux desktop use surged to 22% on one workday, Cloudflare data shows

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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.

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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 .

A deeper look also reveals that desktop Linux use tends to peak during the work week. For example, believe it or not, on Monday, 6 July, when people were back after the 4 July holiday, Linux usage jumped to a high of 22%.

The users of these systems are not AI agents or bots, but real people. I set Cloudflare to count humans rather than bots. If you include people and bots, Linux has a 9.7% market share. That proportion is similar to StatCounter's score. By Cloudflare's count, bots alone come to 19%.

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These numbers tell us that workers are leading the way to the Linux desktop. That result is not surprising. Historically, they're people who prefer control over their PCs, like open systems, or have a specific workload, such as programming or system administration, where Linux works well.

Microsoft has long known this requirement. Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), for example, is designed for Windows developers who also need Linux's power and tools . It's been years since Microsoft released WSL user numbers, but in 2020, there were 3.5 million WSL users .

However, past performance doesn't explain present trends. So, why are we now seeing such a bump in Linux desktop growth? Experts believe this trend is largely AI developers and Linux users running AI Agents.