Blog: One Million Active Users post

blog/2024-01-08/index.md

@@ -5,13 +5,18 @@ authors: [razze, bertob]
 tags: [flathub, quality]
 ---
 
-Flathub has grown massively over the past few years, with over 2400 apps at present. In the early days our goal was mostly to make it easy to get the latest version of popular apps via Flatpak. Today we can safely say that this goal has been achieved!
+Flathub has grown massively over the past few years, making it easier than ever to get a ton of apps all from one place—but with that growth comes new problems. We're here with a solution to ensure developers' apps, Flathub, and the entire Linux desktop ecosystem is presented in what we believe is the best light possible.
 
-Not only can you get pretty much any app on Flathub, they are often directly maintained by the developer, and it's the primary channel many new app developers choose for shipping their apps.
+<!-- truncate -->
+
+## Growth
+
+Today, Flathub has over 2,400 apps, including many of the big names you would expect. In the early days our goal was mostly to make it easy to get the latest version of popular apps via Flatpak, and we can safely say this has been achieved: not only can you get pretty much any app on Flathub, they are often directly maintained by the developer—and it's the primary channel many new app developers choose for shipping their apps.
 
 ![App cards with high quality metadata on the homepage](good-metadata-apps.png)
 
 ## More Apps, More Problems
+
 However, having lots of apps comes with some new (in this case nice to have) problems. While there are a lot of beautiful modern apps, there are also a lot of apps with low quality metadata, ugly icons, or out of date screenshots. This means that looking at the new and updated lists on the Flathub home page you get the impression that most of the apps on Flathub are low quality.
 
 One of the biggest reasons for the prevalence of low quality app metadata is probably that historically people were not discovering new apps from their repositories very often. Instead, they were mostly installing the same few classics with well-known brands (VLC, Blender, etc.), or relying on word of mouth for discovery. Now that new apps are being released on a weekly basis, app metadata becomes much more important for introducing people to these new apps.
@@ -20,9 +25,10 @@ The unfortunate result of the status quo in metadata quality is that many apps d
 
 So how can we make Flathub a place for people to discover awesome apps? We've thought about this quite a bit, and landed on a two-pronged approach:
 1. Raise the bar for metadata for all apps
-2. Introduce curation to hightlight the best apps
+2. Introduce curation to highlight the best apps
 
 ## Raising the Bar
+
 As a first step towards improving metadata quality across the board we have added new, detailed [documentation for app metadata](https://docs.flathub.org/docs/for-app-authors/appdata-guidelines/quality-guidelines). This new page goes over all the most important aspects, and which common mistakes to avoid. These include, for example:
 
 - App icons that fill the entire canvas
@@ -42,6 +48,7 @@ If you are not an icon designer, getting your icon to meet the guidelines can be
 This does not affect the app review process for apps being published on Flathub. We will continue to accept apps that don't fully meet the new quality guidelines. However, we do want to highlight apps that meet the guidelines, and try to show them in more prominent places on the website.
 
 ## Curation
+
 Our hope is that with better documentation and developer outreach we can get to a solid set of apps with high quality metadata: Short descriptions, good icons, correctly sized screenshots with good content, and so on. Once we have that, we have a lot of new possibilities with regard to curation. For example, we've been exploring having app banners with app icons and screenshots on the home page. Other ideas we'd like to experiment with in the future include curated lists of apps, seasonal/topical recommendations, and editorial blog posts.
 
 ![Flathub home page mockup with app banners including screenshots](homepage-banners.png)
@@ -55,6 +62,7 @@ This effort will also help to improve the Flathub-wide search and the discoverab
 ![Mockup of GNOME Software with banners including screenshots](banner-native.png)
 
 ## What's Next?
+
 As of today, if you have an app on Flathub you can log in on the website, and see the app metadata ratings for your apps. Please have a look at your apps' ratings and the new documentation and make sure your app's metadata is in shape when we start rolling out banners over the coming weeks :)
 
 If you run into issues or have questions please contact us in [#flathub on Matrix](https://matrix.to/#/#flathub:matrix.org).

blog/2024-01-23/index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
+---
+slug: over-one-million-active-users-and-growing
+title: Over One Million Active Users—and Growing
+authors: [cassidyjames]
+tags: [flathub, milestone, stats]
+---
+
+Earlier this month we shared [new app metadata guidelines](../2024-01-08/index.md) in response to the growth and maturity of Flathub. Today we're proud to share about that growth in a bit more detail including a huge milestone, how we calculate stats, and what we believe is driving that growth.
+
+<!-- truncate -->
+
+## Milestones
+
+To date, Flathub has served a total of **1.6 billion downloads** of **over 2,400 apps** and their updates.
+
+Since introducing [verified apps](/docs/for-users/verification) last year, **over 800 apps have been verified** by their original authors—more than one third of all apps, with that number constantly increasing. 
+
+And finally, we're thrilled to announce that Flathub has surpassed **one million active users**. 🎉️
+
+## How We Measure Growth
+
+We have a [public dashboard](https://flathub.org/statistics) that shares some basic statistics, powered by an [open source script](https://github.com/flathub-infra/flathub-stats). We don't track individual metrics from end user machines; instead, we look at downloads of specific artifacts from the Flathub infrastructure itself. This gives us a count of installs and updates over time, downloads per country (based on the origin of requests), and some derivative data like downloads of apps in different categories.
+
+But how can we measure how many _active users_ we have?
+
+Since Flathub necessarily serves downloads of Flatpak _runtimes_ (common platforms on which apps are built), we can estimate active users fairly well. For example, when installing or updating most apps, Flatpak will automatically install the base [FreeDesktop SDK](https://freedesktop-sdk.gitlab.io/) runtime on which the KDE and GNOME runtimes (and most other apps) are built. We can look at the number of downloads of _updates_ to a recent release of this runtime to understand how many active installs are out there getting Flatpaks from Flathub.
+
+This methodology reveals that over the past few months there have over a million updates of each of the latest FreeDesktop SDK runtime releases, meaning we've passed the one million active user mark.
+
+:::note
+If anything, we believe this to be a conservative estimate as some users may be using apps that do not use the specific runtime measured.
+:::
+
+If you'd like to explore more of this data yourself, there's this [handy dashboard by Kristian Klausen](https://klausenbusk.github.io/flathub-stats/#ref=org.freedesktop.Platform/23.08&interval=infinity&downloadType=updates) ([source](https://github.com/klausenbusk/flathub-stats)), or you can always chat with us in [#flathub on Matrix](https://matrix.to/#/#flathub:matrix.org).
+
+## What's Driving Growth
+
+We attribute the growth of Flathub to a few developments over the years, and especially the last several months:
+
+1. **Popular app availability**: Since we started Flathub, we've seen apps like Firefox, Google Chrome, Discord, VLC, Spotify, Telegram, Microsoft Edge, Steam, OBS Studio, Zoom, Thunderbird, and _many_ more make their way into the store. These are many of the apps people want and expect, especially if they're coming to a Linux desktop for the first time. Each time another popular app hits Flathub, it makes Flathub that much more compelling to users.
+
+2. **Verified apps**: We've heard that some folks have held off installing specific apps or even using Flathub altogether because they didn't want a third-party maintainer redistributing an app they rely on—verifying apps solves this by assuring users their favorite app is actually coming from its developer. With an ever-increasing number of apps choosing to get verified—including both big names like Firefox, Discord, and Telegram as well as many newer indie apps—the trust and adoption of Flathub increases.
+
+3. **Steam Deck**: It's not [just a meme](https://mastodon.blaede.family/@cassidy/111031129234702967); we suspect Flathub being included as the default app source for the Steam Deck's desktop mode has had a large positive effect on the usage of Flathub. Just look at some of the [most popular apps](https://flathub.org/apps/collection/popular): retro game emulators, game compatibility tools, gaming-oriented chat services, alternate game launchers—all the kinds of apps you'd expect Steam Deck users to want. And according to our category [statistics](https://flathub.org/statistics), "games" itself is the most downloaded category of app on Flathub. It turns out selling ["multiple millions" of devices](https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/9/23954205/valve-steam-deck-multiple-millions) has an impact on the ecosystem!
+
+4. **Linux distro adoption**: In addition to shipping on Steam Deck, Flathub now comes included out of the box on at least Clear Linux, Endless OS, KDE Neon, Linux Mint, Pop!_OS, and Zorin OS—and [as of Fedora 38](https://pagure.io/fesco/issue/2939), Flathub is available in its entirety when enabling third-party software sources. **Flathub is the preferred app store for Linux, and its grassroots adoption across the Linux desktop ecosystem proves that.**
+
+5. **New apps**: Last but definitely not least, we've entered a thrilling chapter of Flathub as an ecosystem. It's not just another source to get popular, big-name apps you'd expect to be able to get anywhere else; **Flathub has become the preferred app store for a growing number of indie, open source developers**. Developers are increasingly submitting their own new apps and directing their users to Flathub.
+
+And of course a large part of Flathub's continued growth has been due to the incredible work of the Flathub admins, contributors, and volunteers who have helped ensure Flathub remains the trustworthy and reliable service it has always been known as. 
+
+## Here's to What's Next!
+
+It's easy to pat ourselves on the back for these milestones (and it's well deserved!), but equally important is to look forward. Over the coming months we're excited to continue tackling [the roadmap we laid out last year](https://discourse.flathub.org/t/flathub-in-2023/3808#whats-next-8), including continued work towards payments and the new organizational structure for Flathub.
+
+We're also increasing our engagement with third-party developers and ISVs to share why they should bring their apps to the million-plus Flathub users on Linux, continuing to improve documentation, and working towards [curation and improved presentation of apps](../2024-01-08/index.md#curation). There's a lot more coming and always more to do; if you want to get involved, chat with us in [#flathub on Matrix](https://matrix.to/#/#flathub:matrix.org).
+
+Thank you for reading, and happy downloading!

blog/authors.yml

@@ -9,3 +9,9 @@ bertob:
   title: Flathub Community Member
   url: https://tobiasbernard.com/
   image_url: https://github.com/bertob.png
+
+cassidyjames:
+  name: Cassidy James Blaede
+  title: Flathub Community Member
+  url: https://cassidyjames.com/
+  image_url: https://cassidyjames.com/images/me.jpg