Link: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Steam-Survey-September-2025

Steam on Linux use in March hit an all-time high of around 5.33% marketshare. Since then it pulled back to around 4% while for September 2026 the Steam Survey results are now in and it's clocking in just above 3%.

The Steam Survey results for September that were published this evening indicate a rather steep decline of 0.85%, down to 3.05%. Meanwhile macOS is at 1.92% and Microsoft Windows at 95%.

As with most months where Steam Survey indicates an abnormally large decline for Linux use, the second stop is checking on the language use... Once again a case of a big spike in Simplified Chinese use. Steam's Survey reports a 7.42% increase in Chinese use, up to 31.39% overall of the Steam population. Usually with those large month-over-month swings where Steam China use shoots up dramatically is a boost to Windows and a detriment to Linux. Some attribute the large increases in Simplified Chinese use to being a reporting/sampling issue.

When diving into the Steam Linux data exclusively, CachyOS has spiked by another 2.65% to now account for 18.12% of the sampled Linux gaming population. That even outperforms SteamOS Holo coming in at 17.37%.

Among Linux gamers on Steam, AMD CPUs still account for the high 60 percentage space thanks to the Steam Deck and Steam Machine using AMD APUs and their open-source/Linux support being popular with enthusiasts.

Those wanting to dive in to all the Steam Survey stats for September can find the fresh data on SteamPowered.com.

The Year of Linux is, when China bans Windows.

I've actually been surprised that they haven't already

It's extremely hard to believe that someone that has had a taste of Linux would switch back to Windows, if this is what the stats imply, which I'm not sure. I would need to be paid thousands to willingly use Windows again.

Sampling variation/statistical noise, probably. I wouldn't read too far into it.

Happening now actually, according to this

I still don't get why I can't opt in to participate in the survey every month, I've only been asked twice in the last three years on Arch

Not exactly what I meant. They ban for the government, similar to what is happening in Europe. It won't have any effect on gamers, as no one is forced to give up Windows (other than the government bodies themselves).

Because thats not how good stats works. They want random samples to draw actual stats from.

Volunteering ruins the point.

I mean the stats very clearly are useless this month for Linux usage as they are all months that have this simplified Chinese spike.

They could just pull the stats from every system

Probably. But it'd 50x the cost of the tool. And for only marginally better results.

I am surprised that any nation would adopt a closed source product from abroad when it could build its own, especially given Linux. In a world like this, choosing that path seems genuinely diabolical.

Nations where using Windows for years when Linux came out. And it took at least two decades for Linux to be a viable option for governments, because they are dependent on Windows and didn't have much experience in Linux. But the "turns have tabled", finally. The world woke up.

Yeah, you have a point, but still, twice in three years? I don't know how representative it really is, ESPECIALLY when you see 50-100% ups and downs in the Linux user base. 5 to 3 percent and back cannot be the actual stat, that has to be unreliable selection of users.

Would pushing a request through steam to participate in the survey realistically increase cost?

I am pretty sure they banned gaming at work a long time ago.

I'm talking about banning Windows for any citizen.

The stats imply there were more chinese users surveyed this month and chinese steam users don't use linux much

It's disappointing how weak minded people are.

I wonder what the sampling/reporting issue is? Why Chinese specifically? Are there droves of Chinese gamers flip-flopping between Linux and Windows? That doesn't seem likely.

Sorry. My fault. I've been working too much to play games.

Sorry dudes forgot to fill in my survey

Reporting every bit of noise in this statistic is kinda boring?

F*ck that's on me. I took a break from gaming to focus on other projects + the occasional GBA SP.

China has entered the room.

privacy issue

censuses only have marginally better results than random sampling

steam has at least 130 million monthly active users

a margin of error of 1% (resulting in a range of 3–5%) is very, very good

I think it's that Chinese gamers are much more likely to use Windows and that sampling is random so whenever too many Chinese computers are selected on sampling the Linux share decreases

I'm doing my part 🙂

To be fair, the spike up in the noise in march was reported widely. Now the "correction" can be as well IMO.
But oh well, lets hope there is a tleasr a larger trend to Linux

I even ensured I refused survey data on my Windows machine but that it ran on my Linux machine to help game the numbers as I'm sure other Linux users do.

I'm convinced Microsoft would have to mandate sticking a probe up your ass when creating a user account/setting up a computer before significant switching among average users would take place and even then a huge 50% of the population would say it's not that big a deal and switching is a larger hassle and they have no choice, blah, blah.

Linux is kind of still stuck in the doldrums of tech and privacy enthusiasts and a few of their friends and I'm just not sure what if anything can change that in terms of individual actions and markets. Now sure if China or the EU made it harder to sell Windows computers and really pushed people onto a version of Linux that could bump the numbers but in both cases they're just trying to gain some sovereignty by putting government systems on Linux and that transition alone will probably run for a good part of a decade.

Literally just defaults. The average person does not care what their operating system is, and will just run whatever is already on their computer.

The type of person who watches trashtubers, is the same type of person who was born to use windows.

It happens when they survey China. I don’t know why China isn’t included in the regular survey runs, but if they know the parameters of their surveying, they can make more accurate analysis of it than us.

The notification would be negligible in cost, but the collation and processing of that collected data would not.

I’m sorry for the fluctuation guys. I haven’t had as much time for gaming this past month due to exams and whatnot. I didn’t mean to let you all down.

I cracked my offline games and mostly stopped using steam. :p

It's not even for pirating I don't want to depend on those guys to own my game which I guess is piracy I think, but anyway.

It's only banned if they find out!

Fair point, let's hope this is the end of it :P

We're talking about ~5c worth of energy...

And, in your professional opinion, how much in compute, database, network, and storage costs? We mutli AZ, with some offsite backup or nah? We got a test version of this stack with some junk type-correct data? You 50x the dataset, you 50x all of that.

Look. I’m not saying its gonna bankrupt Valve of all companies. But its clear that people replying have 0 idea about how much hosting 4 9’s available, resilient, reliable, web tooling costs.

Meh. I like seeing it. I don't spend a lot of time thinking/worrying about it, but it's a nice data point to keep up with.

As with most "computer geeks" forced to use Teams/M365, I have a strong reason to want more people comfortable switching to open source. The faster we can ditch American property slopware, the better.

I forgive you. It's what Tux would want me to do.

Look, I'm doing my best, ok? Back off!

How can a government enforce such ruling? It is not the same as blocking the websites you don't like.

Enforcement is secondary, the first and most important step is making it illegal. And maybe providing an alternative they develop and control themselves, a custom China based Linux as a replacement for Windows. So the first step is making it a reason not to install Windows willing fully. And the enforcement goes as far as they can, nobody said that it can be enforced on everyone.

If anyone is caught talking or using Windows because they don't use VPN and hide their browser identity, then the government could investigate a bit further. Nobody want to be caught in China. Windows has a builtin identification, the browser tells a lot, and Windows tries to connect to the internet for downloads and updates. All of that could be tracked. You would need to be offline in order not get caught, unless you know 100% exactly what you do, maybe then its safe.

I'm not a wizard, I don't know the exact methods. This is just what I know as a normal citizen who does not really do all of this stuff. Imagine what they know.

It's funny, because if the Chinese really did something along those lines it would be interpreted (correctly) as authoritarian abuse.

I got four running already!

Why would they make a rural Chinese granny either go out and buy a new computer with preinatalled Linux or go learn how to do it herself, just so that it's legal for her to call her relatives? Sounds a bit shortsighted to me.

Yeah... I've been playing more games on GOG than Steam lately for the same reason. (Nobara, for the Nvidia support out of the box)