After having a great time with Linux as my daily driver for 3 years,
I was wondering what keeps people stuck on Windows
even though, by now, there are so many
very outspoken critics of Windows 11.
About 17% of all Windows users
have been captured
with proprietary file formats,
for which there is no good Linux editor.
Who is a true Windows hostage?
I define someone as unable to escape from Windows if they:
- must exchange files in proprietary formats like .docx / .psd / .dwg
- or need advanced features not available in alternatives
- or work in regulated industries mandating specific software
I’d estimate that this applies to 40% of Office users, 85% of Adobe’s users, and 90% of Autodesk’s users.
In installation counts, that’s
216M for Microsoft Office,
34M for Adobe’s Creative Cloud,
and 27M for Autodesk software.
The Linux Slayers
When people try to escape from Windows to Linux,
their initiative usually ends
when they need to open a proprietary file
generated by
- Office
- Photoshop (and other Adobe tools)
- or AutoCAD (and Fusion, etc.)
What to do?
If we want to give more users the ability to switch to Linux,
we need to make sure that future Wine versions will work well for:
- Microsoft Office 365/2024 (~539 mio users)
- Adobe Photoshop 2025 (~30 mio users)
- Adobe Illustrator 2025 (~15 mio users)
- Adobe InDesign 2025 (~8 mio users)
- Adobe Premiere Pro 2025 (~12 mio users)
- Adobe Acrobat Pro 2024 (~20 mio users)
- AutoCAD 2025 (~30 mio users)
- Fusion 360 (~10 mio users)
- CorelDRAW 2024 (~5 mio users)
Most Popular Windows Software for Work
What follows is an AI-generated overview of the most popular Windows apps and my estimation of how well it’ll work under Linux:
Office & Productivity
| Software |
Est. Users (M) |
Source/Notes |
Linux |
| Microsoft Word/Excel/PowerPoint (365/2024) |
539 |
450M commercial + 89M consumer M365 subscribers |
😞 |
| Microsoft Outlook (365/2024) |
~400 |
Subset of M365 users |
😞 |
| Microsoft OneNote |
~200 |
Bundled with M365 |
😞 |
| Microsoft Access |
~50 |
Enterprise subset |
😞 |
| LibreOffice |
~200 |
Open source, widely used |
🐧 |
| ONLYOFFICE |
~10 |
Growing alternative |
🐧 |
| WPS Office |
~500 |
Popular in Asia |
🐧 |
Communication & Collaboration
| Software |
Est. Users (M) |
Source/Notes |
Linux |
| Microsoft Teams |
360 |
360M MAU (June 2025) |
🐧 |
| Slack |
79 |
47M DAU, 79M MAU |
🐧 |
| Zoom |
300+ |
300M+ daily meeting participants |
🐧 |
| Discord |
200-259 |
200M+ MAU |
🐧 |
| Skype |
~40 |
Declining, replaced by Teams |
🐧 |
| WhatsApp Desktop |
~100 |
Subset of 2B+ mobile users |
😞 |
| Webex |
~50 |
Enterprise focused |
🐧 |
| Telegram Desktop |
~50 |
Growing |
🐧 |
Development & Coding
| Software |
Est. Users (M) |
Source/Notes |
Linux |
| Visual Studio Code |
~40 |
Part of 50M VS+VSCode combined |
🐧 |
| Visual Studio |
~10 |
Part of 50M combined |
😞 |
| Notepad++ |
~30 |
Very popular on Windows |
😊 |
| Git |
~100 |
Ubiquitous in dev |
🐧 |
| GitHub Desktop |
~15 |
Subset of Git users |
🐧 |
| JetBrains IDEs |
~15 |
IntelliJ, PyCharm, etc. |
🐧 |
| Sublime Text |
~5 |
Niche but loyal |
🐧 |
| Postman |
~20 |
API development |
🐧 |
| Docker Desktop |
~15 |
Containerization |
🐧 |
| Software |
Est. Users (M) |
Source/Notes |
Linux |
| Adobe Photoshop |
~30 |
Part of 37-41M CC subscribers |
😐 |
| Adobe Illustrator |
~15 |
Subset of CC |
😞 |
| Adobe InDesign |
~8 |
Publishing professionals |
😞 |
| Adobe Premiere Pro |
~12 |
Video editors |
😞 |
| Adobe After Effects |
~8 |
Motion graphics |
😐 |
| Adobe Acrobat Pro |
~20 |
PDF professionals |
😐 |
| Figma |
13 |
13M MAU (March 2025) |
🌐 |
| Canva |
~190 |
Mostly web-based |
🌐 |
| GIMP |
~30 |
Free alternative |
🐧 |
| Inkscape |
~10 |
Free vector graphics |
🐧 |
| CorelDRAW |
~5 |
Niche professional |
😞 |
| DaVinci Resolve |
~10 |
Video editing |
🐧 |
| Blender |
~5 |
3D modeling |
🐧 |
CAD & Engineering
| Software |
Est. Users (M) |
Source/Notes |
Linux |
| AutoCAD |
25-60 |
7.79M subscriptions, 25-60M users |
😞 |
| Microsoft Visio |
~15 |
Diagramming |
😐 |
| FreeCAD |
~2 |
Open source |
🐧 |
Accounting & Finance
| Software |
Est. Users (M) |
Source/Notes |
Linux |
| QuickBooks |
7 |
7M+ users |
😞 |
| GnuCash |
~2 |
Open source |
🐧 |
Project Management
| Software |
Est. Users (M) |
Source/Notes |
Linux |
| Jira/Atlassian |
~10 |
300K+ customers, 3.5M AI MAU |
🌐 |
| Notion |
~35 |
Mostly web |
🌐 |
| Todoist |
~30 |
Task management |
🐧 |
| ClickUp |
~10 |
Growing |
🐧 |
| Obsidian |
~5 |
Note-taking |
🐧 |
Web Browsers
| Software |
Est. Users (M) |
Source/Notes |
Linux |
| Google Chrome |
3,400-3,800 |
67-68% market share |
🐧 |
| Mozilla Firefox |
~180 |
~4% market share |
🐧 |
| Microsoft Edge |
~200 |
Growing on Windows |
🐧 |
| Brave |
~70 |
Privacy-focused |
🐧 |
Cloud Storage
| Software |
Est. Users (M) |
Source/Notes |
Linux |
| Dropbox |
700 registered, 18 paying |
|
🐧 |
| OneDrive |
~400 |
Bundled with Windows/M365 |
😐 |
| Google Drive |
~1,000 |
Bundled with Google |
🐧 |
Remote Access
| Software |
Est. Users (M) |
Source/Notes |
Linux |
| TeamViewer |
hundreds |
645K customers, hundreds of millions users |
🐧 |
| AnyDesk |
~100 |
Growing alternative |
🐧 |
| Software |
Est. Users (M) |
Source/Notes |
Linux |
| VLC Media Player |
6,000 downloads |
6B+ downloads |
🐧 |
| OBS Studio |
~50 |
Streaming/recording |
🐧 |
| Audacity |
~100 |
Audio editing |
🐧 |
Security & Password Management
| Software |
Est. Users (M) |
Source/Notes |
Linux |
| 1Password |
millions |
165K businesses |
🐧 |
| NordVPN |
~15 |
VPN service |
🐧 |
| ExpressVPN |
~5 |
VPN service |
🐧 |