Usage share of BitTorrent clients

The usage share of BitTorrent clients is the percentage of users that use a particular BitTorrent client, regardless of version.

2020

A study conducted in March 2020 by TorrentFreak[1]
Rank Application Market Share
1 μTorrent 68.6%
2 BitTorrent 6.6%
3 Libtorrent (μTorrent's web interface reports this as its client ID) 6.3%
4 Transmission 5.1%
5 MediaGet 3.7%
6 qBittorrent 3.4%
7 Zona 3.3%
8 Deluge 0.9%
9 BitComet 0.6%
10 BiglyBT (operated by former developers of Vuze) 0.3%
11 Free Download Manager 0.2%
12 BitSpirit 0.2%
13 BitLord 0.1%
14 Tribler <0.1%
14 FrostWire <0.1%
14 Tixati <0.1%
14 tTorrent <0.1%
14 aTorrent <0.1%
14 PicoTorrent <0.1%

2015

Lifehacker, a software weblog, took a survey of 13,823 readers' preferred BitTorrent clients in May 2015. It showed that μTorrent still maintains a sizable lead over competitors, despite concerns over adware and bloatware. Runner-up Transmission was praised for being lightweight, while qBittorrent was praised for being cross-platform and open-source, Deluge for its plugin library, and Tixati for its simplicity.[2] Vuze, another notable client, failed to make an appearance in the top five for the first time.

Poll data from: Lifehacker[2]
Rank Application Percentage of users' preferred clients Number of votes
1 μTorrent 42.47% 5,870
2 Transmission 21.23% 2,935
3 qBittorrent 18.75% 2,592
4 Deluge 10.7% 1,479
5 Tixati 6.85% 947

2009

Delft University of Technology

A study by the Tribler P2P research team at the Delft University of Technology. To generate this data, samples were taken from a number of swarms of users which were then used to identify which BitTorrent client each user was using, this data was used by TorrentFreak in the table below:

Samples of Global BitTorrent Client Usage Share (Percent & Peers)
Source Date & Age μTorrent
 Vuze
 BitTorrent
(mainline)		 BitComet
 Transmission
 FlashGet
 Unknown
 Tuotu
 libtorrent Xunlei
 Other
 Sample
Size
[3] 16 September 2011;
13 years ago (2011-09-16)		 47.97%
267,466		 22.49%
125,417		 13.01%
72,536		 1.01%
5,638		 7%
39,011		 ? 6.22%
34,703		 ? 1.02%
5,703		 ? 1.27%
7,062		 100%
557,536
[4]
[5]		 4 December 2009;
15 years ago (2009-12-04)		 25.77%
92,086,035		 24.08%
86,055,354		 4.82%
17,207,544		 4.31%
15,403,400		 3.26%
11,637,110		 1.09%
3,882,628		 1%
3,590,584		 0.71%
2,531,472		 0.63%
2,251,736 		29.31%
104,717,386		 3.02%
10,806,362		 100%
357,301,730
[6] 18 October 2009;
15 years ago (2009-10-18)		 60.16%
10,361		 14.22%
2,449		 8.65%
1,489		 4.43%
763		 3.65%
628		 ? 7.97%
1,373		 ? 0.31%
53		 0.02%
3		 0.59%
102		 100%
17,221
[7] 14 August 2009;
15 years ago (2009-08-14)		 56.81% 18.13% 11.79% 4.71% 2.95% ? 4.21% ? ? ? 1.40% 100%
165,000+
[8] 24 June 2009;
15 years ago (2009-06-24)		 55.84% 16.85% 12.01% 6.50% 1.60% ? 4.02% ? ? ? 3.17% 100%
150,000+

2007

Digital Music News

Digital Music News collected the data from PC Pitstop, a company that gathers data from computers using their free online virus and malware scanners. The program scans Windows Registry to find which clients have been installed, more than a million Microsoft Windows computers were surveyed.

Global install rate[9]
Rank Application Install % on Windows desktops
1 LimeWire 18%
2 μTorrent 5.56%
3 BitTorrent (mainline) 2.28%
4 Vuze 2.11%
5 BitComet 1.89%
6 Bitlord 1.27%

References

  1. ^ "uTorrent is the Most Used BitTorrent Client By Far". April 5, 2020.
  2. ^ a b Henry, Alan (19 May 2015). "Most Popular BitTorrent Client: μTorrent". Lifehacker. Retrieved 3 May 2017.
  3. ^ TorrentFreak
  4. ^ TorrentFreak
  5. ^ EZTV
  6. ^ Tribler
  7. ^ TorrentFreak
  8. ^ TorrentFreak
  9. ^ Van der Sar, Ernesto (2007-12-16), "uTorrent Gains Popularity, Azureus Loses Ground", TorrentFreak, retrieved 2024-08-02