Insights Into Arch Linux Users’ Preferences

Arch is one of the most well-known names in the Linux world, with a global community of users. That’s why it’s always fun to take a look behind the scenes and see what Arch users actually like to install on their systems—and where in the world the distro has the most fans.

Before we dive into the actual stats, however, there’s one important thing to clear up: all the data you’ll see below comes from users who’ve chosen to install the pkgstats package on their Arch systems.

If you’re not familiar with it, it is a tool that sends a list of installed packages and system architecture to Arch developers. The goal is to help them understand what people are using so they can better focus their work and improve Arch overall. Don’t worry—it’s totally anonymous and doesn’t collect any personal information.

What Arch Linux Users Really Prefer?

While the data below provides a fairly accurate snapshot (by July 2025), it doesn’t represent the entire Arch user base—just something to keep in mind. Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s get to the fun part.

Arch Popularity by Country

The United States has the largest share of Arch users worldwide, making up 22.1% of the total. Germany comes in a close second with 20.58%. These two countries are way ahead of the rest, with Russia in third at 4.28%, followed by China at 4.14%, and France at 3.98%. Here are the top ten countries with the most Arch users.

• USA 22.1%
• Germany 20.58%
• Russia 4.28%
• China 4.14%
• France 3.98%
• United Kingdom 3.14%
• Canada 3.11%
• Brasil 2.41%
• Poland 2.08%
• Australia 1.99%

When you first look at it, it might seem like good old Europe is falling behind—but actually, the opposite is true. If you add up all the European countries, they make up nearly 50% of Arch’s entire global user base—that’s half.

North America accounts for approximately 25%, and the remaining quarter is distributed fairly evenly across the rest of the world, with Africa (perhaps unsurprisingly) comprising less than 1% of all Arch users.

Preferred Desktop Environments

I’m guessing the next thing you’re most curious about is which desktop environment Arch users install the most. Well, no need to keep you waiting—it’s KDE. Arch users love it, and honestly, I’m pretty sure the feeling is mutual. Just look at the graph below.

KDE Plasma is, hands down, the most popular desktop environment among Arch users, with more than 33% of users opting for it. GNOME comes in second at almost 19%, while Xfce holds a solid third place with 11%. It’s interesting to note that while KDE is gaining momentum, both GNOME and Xfce appear to be losing popularity within the Arch community.

Rounding out the list are four other desktop environments that trail well behind the top three: Cinnamon, with just over 3%; LXDE, at 2.41%; MATE, with a little more than 2%; and Budgie, coming in at under 1%.

Window Managers Loved by Arch Users

Since Arch tends to attract more advanced users, it’s no surprise that a variety of window managers have found a home here—especially the ones this crowd tends to favor. And this is where things get really interesting.

Openbox, once the top choice, has seen a steady decline. Over the past four years, it’s dropped from first to fourth place and now runs on just over 8% of Arch systems. Taking the lead now is i3, with 12.89% usage, closely followed by Sway at 12.28%.

But the real star here is Hyprland—a name that’s already made a big splash among window manager fans. Launched just three years ago, it has been on a rapid climb and now holds third place, with nearly 10% of users. And if its current momentum continues, it’s on track to become the most popular window manager on Arch within the next year or two—something that probably wouldn’t surprise anyone.

Firefox Is Still the King

When it comes to browsers, even though a basic Arch install just gives you a blank slate to build on, most Arch users still lean toward the classics. Firefox comes out on top, appearing in nearly 60% of installations—proof that people still trust what’s tried and true.

Chromium takes second place, with a share of nearly 43%. What’s kind of surprising, though, is that Lynx and w3m—both text-based browsers—grab third and fourth. But that’s more about those packages just being present on systems, not that people are actually using them as their go-to browsers.

No surprise here—Google Chrome is also one of the top choices, used by 17% of Arch users. And if you’re wondering why the percentages in the chart add up to more than 100%, it’s pretty simple: most Arch users (like just about everyone else) have more than one browser installed on their system at the same time.

Editors and Shells

In the text editors’ space, Arch users—despite often being more advanced—still tend to favor user-friendly tools. Nano tops the list, showing up on 66% of systems, just ahead of Vim at 62%. Vi and Neovim come in third and fourth, with 45% and 35% usage, respectively.

There aren’t any big surprises when it comes to shells. Bash, which is the default on a fresh Arch install, remains the go-to option and is available on every Arch system. Rounding out the top three are Zsh, used by nearly 39% of users, and Fish, which comes in at just over 20%.

Terminal Emulators

Regarding terminal emulators, the classic Xterm still holds the top spot among Arch users, showing up on more than 33% of all systems. Not far behind is KDE’s Konsole, used by 31% of users. Taking third and fourth place—neck and neck with 21.89% and 21.38%—are two long-time favorites in the Linux world: the GPU-accelerated Alacritty and Kitty.

Arch Linux Architecture Stats

Last but not least, let’s take a look at the system architectures on which Arch is most commonly run. As expected, x86_64_v3 is currently the most popular, used by over 60% of Arch Linux systems. It’s modern but still broadly compatible with CPUs from the last decade.

x86_64_v2 is taking second place, used on around 20% of systems. It covers slightly older CPUs than v3, including many pre-2013 Intel chips. x86_64, baseline (AMD64, 2003+) is arouind 15%.

The most modern and advanced one, x86_64_v4, which includes Intel Ice Lake and AMD Zen 4 (since 2021), is slowly but surely gaining traction, with its usage among Arch users growing more than tenfold over the last four years. Currently, it’s running on over 14% of all Arch systems—and that number is expected to continue climbing, gradually taking market share away from the other options.

Overall, this chart reflects a clear trend: Arch Linux users are steadily transitioning to newer x86_64 instruction set levels (such as v3 and v4), optimizing for modern CPUs. Meanwhile, legacy architectures are fading out, and ARM (aarch64) is slowly gaining ground in niche setups.

How You Can Help Improve Arch Linux Usage Statistics

And now, something that matters. If you’re anything like me, you probably enjoy examining broad statistical data, such as what we just saw. But here’s the thing—having access to this kind of info depends on all of us pitching in. In the case of Arch, helping out takes less than a minute, and it makes a real difference for the folks developing this amazing distro.

Here’s how it works: as I mentioned earlier, all of this data comes from Arch users who’ve installed the pkgstats package. Once that’s on your system, a simple weekly cron job handles everything automatically. It simply lists the packages you have installed, along with your system’s architecture and the mirror you’re using. That’s it. It’s completely anonymous—nothing that could identify you personally gets shared.

To contribute to this, all you need to do is execute the following two commands:

sudo pacman -S pkgstats
sudo systemctl start pkgstats.timerCode language: Bash (bash)

Check the status of the timer with:

systemctl status pkgstats.timerCode language: Bash (bash)

If you’re ever unsure or just want to double-check what’s being sent, you can always review it:

pkgstats submit --dump-jsonCode language: Bash (bash)

You can view all available statistics from Arch systems in detail at pkgstats.archlinux.de.

Conclusion

So, what can we take away from all this? If I had to sum it up—keeping in mind this is more of a representative snapshot than a complete picture of all Arch systems (which would be nearly impossible to gather)—here’s what I’d say.

Arch Linux has the largest number of users in the U.S., but it’s actually most popular across Europe as a whole. Most Arch users tend to install it on systems with the x86_64_v3 architecture, and when it comes to desktop environments, KDE Plasma is by far the top pick. For those who prefer a window manager instead, Hyprland is usually the go-to choice.

Bash remains the overwhelmingly dominant shell, and Firefox is the browser of choice for accessing the internet. As for terminal emulators, the classic Xterm still leads the pack, but options such as Kitty and Alacritty are often preferred as well.

Well, that’s all from me. I hope you enjoyed the article—it was an absolute pleasure putting it together for you. Thanks so much for taking the time to read it. Catch you next time, and happy Arching, btw!