WSL reached 16.8% professional use and 15.9% personal use among respondents to Stack Overflow’s 2025 developer survey. This post covers verified WSL usage statistics for 2026: developer survey shares, GitHub activity since the May 2025 open source release, and the Windows desktop base WSL runs on.
WSL Usage Statistics
How Many Developers Report Using WSL?
Stack Overflow’s annual developer survey is the only large public dataset that lists WSL as its own option rather than folding it into Linux. The 2025 edition is the latest published run.
Respondents opt in, so the figures describe that sample and not the developer population. The operating system question drew 31,569 responses.
Options are not exclusive. The published shares total well past 100%, so the rows below cannot be added together into a combined figure.
| Operating system, 2025 survey | Personal use | Professional use |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | 56.7% | 49.5% |
| MacOS | 32.7% | 32.9% |
| Ubuntu | 27.8% | 27.7% |
| Linux (non-WSL) | 17.6% | 16.7% |
| Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) | 15.9% | 16.8% |
| Debian | 11.4% | 10.4% |
| Arch | 9.7% | 4.6% |
| Fedora | 5.8% | 3.7% |
| Red Hat | 1.8% | 5.7% |
Source: Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025, technology section, operating systems question, 31,569 responses
WSL is one of the options where work use tops personal use. MacOS and Red Hat show the same direction; Arch shows the widest gap the other way, at 9.7% personal against 4.6% professional.
The survey prints “Linux (non-WSL)” as a residual label alongside separate rows for Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, Fedora and Red Hat, so 16.7% is not a total for native Linux. For an aggregate view, this breakdown of how the major distributions actually rank across datasets sets the measurement types side by side.
Personal Use Against Professional Use
Plotting both columns shows where the working machine and the home machine diverge. Android carries the widest split in the 2025 data at 29.1% personal against 11.9% professional.
WSL Usage Statistics From The Open Source Repository
Microsoft published most of the WSL source on May 19, 2025, according to the Windows Developer Blog. Repository counters below were read from GitHub in August 2026.
These are repository counts, not installs or users. Nobody stars a repository to run the software.
| microsoft/WSL counter | Value, accessed August 2026 |
|---|---|
| Stars | 33.1k |
| Forks | 1.8k |
| Watchers | 591 |
| Open issues | 893 |
| Open pull requests | 54 |
| Commits on master | 1,111 |
| Published releases | 106 |
Source: GitHub, microsoft/WSL repository, August 2026
At Build 2026 on June 2, Microsoft reported that community contributions had grown to over 200 pull requests per month since the open source release, and announced WSL containers as a built-in way to run Linux containers on Windows.
The codebase is conventional systems programming. C++ and C hold the top two language shares.
Two components stayed inside the Windows image and were not open sourced: Lxcore.sys, the driver behind WSL 1, and the pair P9rdr.sys and p9np.dll, which run filesystem redirection from Windows to Linux. That is documented on Microsoft Learn.
What Windows Base Do WSL Usage Statistics Sit On?
Microsoft Learn states the prerequisite for the install command: Windows 10 version 2004 and higher, Build 19041 and higher, or Windows 11.
StatCounter measures sampled pageviews for a stated month, not users or installed devices. July 2026 is the latest completed month.
| Desktop operating system, worldwide | Share of sampled pageviews, July 2026 |
|---|---|
| Windows | 71.18% |
| OS X | 12.21% |
| macOS | 7.61% |
| Linux | 7.53% |
| Chrome OS | 1.47% |
| FreeBSD | 0% |
Source: StatCounter Global Stats, Desktop Operating System Market Share Worldwide, July 2026
StatCounter tracks Apple desktops under two separate labels, OS X and macOS, and both are reported here rather than merged. The Linux line covers desktop pageviews only; server and web-facing counts run on a different denominator, and month-by-month desktop Linux share moves separately again.
| Desktop Windows version, worldwide | Share of sampled pageviews, July 2026 |
|---|---|
| Win11 | 68.93% |
| Win10 | 29.83% |
| Win7 | 1.01% |
| Win8.1 | 0.09% |
| WinXP | 0.09% |
| Win8 | 0.02% |
Source: StatCounter Global Stats, Desktop Windows Version Market Share Worldwide, July 2026
Win11 and Win10 sit in the version family WSL supports. Win7, Win8, Win8.1 and WinXP do not, and together they account for well under two percent of sampled desktop Windows pageviews.
Ubuntu On WSL And What Canonical Has Said
Microsoft Learn documents that wsl --install installs the Ubuntu distribution, and that the default can be changed. No competing distribution has that position on Windows.
Canonical announced general availability of Ubuntu Pro for WSL on December 2, 2025, delivered through the Microsoft Store and deployable with Microsoft Intune or Active Directory group policies.
Jon Seager, VP of Engineering at Canonical, said in a Pragmatic Engineer interview published April 28, 2026 that the year’s growth in Canonical’s WSL numbers was significantly higher than the growth in desktop usage numbers, and that he expected more Ubuntu WSL users than native Ubuntu users over the coming months.
Canonical has published no absolute counts on either side. Treat that as a vendor expectation, not a measured share.
WSL Usage Statistics Timeline, 2025 To 2026
Five dated events sit between the open source release and the most recent build. Three of the five fall inside 2026.
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| May 19, 2025 | Majority of WSL released as open source at Build 2025 | Windows Developer Blog |
| Dec 2, 2025 | Ubuntu Pro for WSL reaches general availability | Canonical |
| Apr 28, 2026 | Canonical VP of Engineering states WSL growth outpaces Ubuntu Desktop growth | The Pragmatic Engineer |
| Jun 2, 2026 | Microsoft reports 200+ community PRs a month, announces WSL containers | Windows Developer Blog |
| Jun 26, 2026 | WSL 2.7.10 published, the 106th release | GitHub |
Source: as named per row, May 2025 to June 2026
The Windows Command Line blog put WSL containers into public preview in June 2026 and stated an aim of general availability in the fall of 2026. That is a stated plan, not a shipped outcome.
What WSL Usage Statistics Do Not Measure
No public dataset reports WSL installs, active instances, or the distribution split inside WSL. Microsoft has never published an install count.
Survey data also cannot separate WSL 1 from WSL 2, and the two behave differently on filesystem and kernel.
Community discussion is not a usage count either. Reddit was named by 53.6% of professional developers in the same 2025 Stack Overflow survey, but that measures forum use, not WSL adoption.
WSL is also not the only container-style Linux layer on a non-Linux desktop. ChromeOS ships Crostini, and published estimates for Crostini adoption sit in a range rather than a single number, while developer behaviour inside that container is tracked separately again. The desktop applications people actually run in it tell a narrower story still.
Of everything on this page, 16.8% is the figure with the clearest definition attached. Everything else is context around it.
FAQs
How many developers use WSL?
WSL was named by 16.8% of respondents for professional use and 15.9% for personal use in the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025. That question drew 31,569 opt-in responses and measures reported use, not installs.
Does Reddit show how many people use WSL?
No. Reddit publishes no WSL user count. Stack Overflow’s 2025 survey found 53.6% of professional developers used Reddit, but that measures community platform use rather than WSL adoption.
Which Linux distribution does WSL install by default?
Ubuntu. Microsoft Learn states that the wsl --install command installs the Ubuntu distribution of Linux, and that this default distribution can be changed.
How active is the WSL open source project?
The microsoft/WSL repository showed 33.1k stars, 893 open issues and 106 releases in August 2026. Microsoft reported over 200 community pull requests per month at Build 2026 in June 2026.
What Windows versions can run WSL?
Windows 10 version 2004 and higher, Build 19041 and higher, or Windows 11, per Microsoft Learn. Win11 held 68.93% and Win10 29.83% of sampled desktop Windows pageviews in July 2026.
Sources
https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2025/technology
https://github.com/microsoft/WSL
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide
https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2026/06/02/build-2026-furthering-windows-as-the-trusted-platform-for-development/
