After two years, we bring you our regular statistics from our virtual servers, specifically the distribution breakdown.
It is time to compare the current distribution data with our previous figures.
We currently run 2184 virtual servers for 1481 members. We automatically checked every virtual server to see what name and version its distribution reports. This is more accurate than looking at the template from which the system was originally installed. The system shows the real state after all updates and, in some cases, moves between distribution branches.
As usual, Debian and Ubuntu remain in front, together running on 74% of our virtual servers. That figure has stayed the same over the long term. We used to speak of a strong top three, including CentOS. But it has now split among three distributions: CentOS, Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux. Together, they have an 11.8% share, again very similar to two years ago. Add all five distributions together, and they account for 85.8% of all installed virtual servers.
Many users abandoned CentOS because of major changes in its development, dividing between Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux. Rocky is ahead, appearing on 25 of our servers, compared with 10 users for Alma. Many users still remain on the older CentOS 7 (134 installations), while some have moved to CentOS 8 Stream (27 installations). Support for version seven ends in a year and a half, so we will see another shift in users at the next count.
Last time, NixOS was the big mover, and once again it confirms that many users are interested. Over two years, it grew from 79 installations to 130 and seems far from finished. Alpine Linux, already stagnant last time, remains at its previous level, as do Arch Linux, Devuan, Fedora, openSUSE and Void Linux.
The number of Gentoo installations fell by a whole third. Apart from three remaining instances, Scientific Linux has gone, and Slackware has left us completely, with no installations on our infrastructure. All the figures are in the following table:
| Distribution | Share | Count | Abs. change | Rel. change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AlmaLinux | 0.5% | 10 | +10 | – |
| Alpine Linux | 1.4% | 30 | -2 | -6% |
| Arch Linux | 1.7% | 35 | +1 | +3% |
| CentOS | 10.1% | 207 | -86 | -30% |
| Debian | 42.3% | 860 | -57 | -6% |
| Devuan | 0.4% | 9 | +2 | +28.5% |
| Fedora | 1.3% | 26 | +3 | +13% |
| Gentoo | 1.7% | 34 | -16 | -32% |
| NixOS | 6.4% | 130 | +51 | +40% |
| openSUSE | 0.5% | 11 | +2 | +22% |
| Rocky Linux | 1.2% | 25 | +25 | – |
| Scientific | 0.1% | 3 | -32 | -91% |
| Slackware | 0.0% | 0 | -2 | -100% |
| Ubuntu | 31.7% | 645 | +6 | +1% |
| Void | 0% | 2 | +1 | +100% |
Rocky, do toho! :-)