Consumer personal computer usage by OS
- Windows – 65-70%
- Mac OS – 15-20%
- Linux – 6% (some other surveys suggest less than 2%)
Business personal computer usage by OS
- Windows – 85-95%
- Mac OS – 5-10%
- Linux – 1.9%
Servers
- Linux – 65-70%
- Windows – 25-30%
- Unix – <5%
- Mac OS – basically 0%
Embedded Systems
Up to 21 billion devices (e.g. IoT).
- Embedded Linux: 45–46% (dominant where feasible).
- FreeRTOS (Amazon Web Services): 29%.
- Zephyr (Linux Foundation, open-source RTOS): 21% (rapidly rising).
- Bare metal (no OS): ~21%.
- Eclipse ThreadX (Microsoft/Azure RTOS): 13%.
Among Internet connected devices (such as APs, routers)
- Linux: 67%.
- Windows (IoT/Embedded variants): 26%.
- Android: 22%.
- Bare metal: 10%.
There are other OSes and market splits depending on how deep we go into the many variations of embedded system devices
Smartphones
StatCounter Global Stats (February 2026 data, based on web browsing):
- Android: 68.24%
- iOS: 31.48%
- Harmony OS: 4% (China)
- Samsung (legacy Tizen category): 0.22%
- KaiOS (basic/feature phones): 0.01% (based on linux)
- Linux (miscellaneous): 0.01%
- Unknown/other: 0.04%
Android is based on an underlying Linux OS “kernel” with Google specific adaptations added to it. It is not, however, considered to be a Linux distribution nor is it considered to be “just Linux but on a phone”.
