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Simon is a Computer Science BSc graduate who has been writing about technology since 2014, and using Windows machines since 3.1. After working for an indie game studio and acting as the family’s go-to technician for all computer issues, he found his passion for writing and decided to use his skill set to write about all things tech.

Since beginning his writing career, he has written for many different publications such as WorldStart, Listverse, and MakeTechEasier. However, after finding his home at MakeUseOf in February 2019, he has been working with it and its sister website, XDA, to bring the latest and greatest in Windows, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity topics.

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There are a few different ways to get software downloaded on your Linux distro, but if you’re looking for a way to grab an app without installing it on your system and without any prerequisites, Flathub is the way to go. It’s especially useful if you’re on an immutable distro, because you can just grab whatever apps you want without needing to layer anything.

Every year since 2018, Flathub has done an annual look back at what it achieved and how people used the service. Well, it’s good news for fans of the service, as Flathub has once again smashed its app download records by 20% of its prior peak. Plus, the developers shared some cool insights into how we used Flathub over the last year.

Flathub saw 433.5 million app downloads in 2025 alone

And 440 brand new apps, too

You can see all the details for yourself over on the Flathub Year in Review website. This year, Flathub managed to service an impressive 433.5 million app downloads, which is a 20.3% over 2024’s record, and is the highest the service has ever seen. Flathub also got 440 new apps to bring its total library count up to 3,243 apps, and performed 723.9 million app updates, too. So, a very productive 2025 indeed.

However, the really interesting parts happen when you scroll down a little. That’s where we see the stats on how we used Flathub, from the regular heavy-hitters to the more niche applications. Firefox, Chrome, and Discord took the top spots for software, while Sober (for Roblox), Minecraft, and Space Cadet Pinball were on the podium for games. Space Cadet Pinball, huh? People clearly yearn for the Windows games of yore.

We also saw some new growth in the underdog apps. For instance, while Visual Studio took the crown in the developer category, Zed experienced a 137% growth this year. Meanwhile, FreeCAD saw a 194% increase in downloads this year, and took the crown for the "most improved" graphics and photography app.