Re: Nmap Usage Stats by OS/Platform

[magnus () linuxtag org (Nils Magnus)]

Re,

On Sat, Dec 10, 2005 at 02:19:37AM -0800, Fyodor wrote:

> Total 2005%   2003% OS
> 1278  63.996% 65.1% Linux
> 295   14.772% 19.5% Windows
> 196    9.815%  1.5% Mac OS X
[...]

> Linux is completely dominant, with 64%.  It did lose a percentile
> point since last time though.  Windows come next.

Keep the total numbers in mind, not only the share; I doubt that nmap
has lost significant numbers of users; however, some had effectively no
option to use nmap at all, such as the Mac OS X users.

> Now let's look at download stats and see how the different packages
> compare.  The last 9,143 downloads of Nmap 3.95 are distributed as so:
>
> 4901 53.6038% nmap-3.95-win32.zip
> 1839 20.1137% nmap-3.95.tar.bz2
> 1152 12.5998% nmap-3.95.tgz

Grouping those both together we have a little more closer race (53% vs.
32%).

[...]

> This is a very different picture.  Windows downloads are the majority
> here.  That isn't too surprising, as Nmap comes with most Linux
> distributions and FreeBSD.

That's an important point. Many Free Software operating systems come
with nmap, but Windows does not. On the other hand, once you have _any_
reasonably new version installed, most users don't care about latest
versions. To give an example on my working terminal I use to type mails
results in:

$ nmap -V
nmap version 3.75 ( http://www.insecure.org/nmap/ )

I conclude from that, that the user base of nmap is much higher and
possibly differently structured as the download figures suggest.

Regards,

Nils Magnus
Program-Chair LinuxTag 2006 Free Conference Program

LinuxTag 2006: Where .com meets .org - magnus () linuxtag org


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