This page should be revised or reconstructed to be more helpful. Problems may include being out of step with current team or project status or process.
This page contains a variety of statistics about Fedora's usage. The Fedora Project believes that metrics are an important tool.
Who uses Fedora?
Lots of different people. Millions, in fact -- many millions! You can see some notable examples on the Overview page.
Update Server Data
Total repository connections
Anyone who tells you otherwise may be misinformed, dishonest, or trying to sell you something.
The numbers above do not represent a total user or usage count or overall download count for Fedora. Correlation of the numbers between different releases of Fedora is difficult due to the way our infrastructure is set up, and in part because the method we have used count IP connections has changed over time. We are counting IP addresses because they are the only statistic we can reliably measure. Similarly, OEM shipping numbers, application popularity contests, and other "estimates" all have intrinsic error factors. Without a 1:1 sales figure or registration process, user counting is a difficult problem to solve. Our accuracy section has more information on this issue.
When you hear of a user estimate, you should ask the following questions:
- How did you arrive at this number?
- For Fedora, the answers are located here.
- Where is the data located, to allow process verification?
- Accessing Fedora's data requires appropriate access rights to our logging hosts, but as a community project, our Infrastructure team welcomes new contributors, allowing others to duplicate our analysis.
Accuracy of metrics
The numbers above, for yum, represent unique IP addresses that reach our update server, not simply downloads. We believe it is reasonable to equate a "new IP address checking in" with "a new installation of Fedora", with the following caveats:
- Users who have dynamic IP addresses will likely be counted multiple times, which inflates the number by some amount.
- Users who are behind NAT or corporate proxies will not be counted at all.
The anecdotal evidence that we receive from different groups, companies, and organizations suggests that group (2) is significantly larger than group (1). As such, we believe that the true numbers in the field are higher than the numbers on this page.
For a more thorough discussion and enlightening information about the measurement of Fedora's userbase, refer to this blog entry by Jef Spaleta
Charts
Some charts are available reflecting some of the information shown on this page. Up-to-date charts are available at the Fedora community portal.
Legacy Statistics
Older releases and years are on the Legacy statistics page.
Commands
Information on how these statistics are gathered is found here.