Docker Index Shows Continued Massive Developer Adoption and Activity to Build and Share Apps with Docker

It’s been one year since we started publishing the Docker Index (stats, trends and analysis from developers and dev teams based on anonymized data from millions of Docker users). At that time we saw how Docker was being used at an incredible scale to power application building globally. Today we are excited to share the latest edition of the Docker Index, this time with some yearly and quarterly comparisons. 

Every time we pull these user stats, we are blown away by the sheer volume and continued growth in activity happening across the Docker developer community. It’s clear to see that collaborative application development platforms are the foundation for developers who want to build, share, and run modern apps. We are also thrilled to see this type of growth more than one year after refocusing Docker on making developers’ lives easier. The Docker community has stayed with us and continues to grow at a tremendous pace, giving us very encouraging signals about the path that Docker is taking. 

To begin, there has now been a total of 318 billion all time pulls on Docker Hub, an increase of 145% year-over-year. That’s right, the total number of pulls has increased by nearly 1.5x in the past year. In addition, there were nearly 30 billion Docker Hub pulls in our fourth quarter. This could very well be because essentially all businesses had to rapidly shift to digital, making the demand for great apps higher than ever.

Those large pull numbers were driven by an equally large number of Docker users. There are now 7.3 million total Docker Hub accounts, up approximately 45% year-over-year. It’s great to see more and more developers signing up for a Free, Pro or Team subscription, underscoring the value they find in new subscription features we have rolled out such as audit logs, vulnerability scanning and higher rate limits. 

There are approximately 8.3 million application container image repos on Hub, representing a nearly 40% year-over-year increase in the application components that developers rely on to build apps. Docker Hub remains the world’s largest library and community for trusted, high-quality images and we are so proud of its growth. This rich content is one of the reasons that JFrog decided to partner with us, as premium access to Docker Official Images was strategic to their customers. 

Installations of Docker Desktop have now reached 3.3 million, which is a year-over-year increase of approximately 38%. This underscores the importance of giving developers choice and meeting them where they are. Docker Desktop remains unique in the market as the leading platform for developers working locally on their desktop, accelerating inner loop development speed. 

Docker has been hard at work continuing to release features that make life easier for developers so that they can get back to the fun part of their work – building and sharing awesome apps. You can expect the next Docker Index to be released mid-year after DockerCon Live 2021 with a fresh set of usage and growth stats fueled by our amazing users! 

For further reading, check out Part 1 and Part 2 of the top Docker blog posts of 2020 and this post on 2021 developer trends and predictions by Docker CEO Scott Johnston.