DistroWatch - The best open source operating systems of 2025
News and feature lists of Linux and BSD distributions.
Just a simple run down of DistroWatch's best distros of the year.
Currently using Linux Mint Mate and I gotta agree with them that it's pretty fucking great. Whats everyone's favorite distro of 2025?
I don't know a single person that uses MX Linux and yet it's always at the top of the distrowatch list
Distrowatch list is just how many people click the page on Distrowatch. It's not a general metric how many people use it.
I've always thought of it as being a measure of the "WTF is that one again?" factor of a distro. Maybe it represents how unmemorable the name is.
We know, who is clicking at MX Linux? And the other distros that are currently at the top?
My top distros:
Me, I use it.
In fact, his sentiment of "Linux mint for everyone else, MX Linux for me" is my exact philosophy.
I started using it for this shitty old system I was using as an HTPC. Then I tried it on my main system (using the KDE flavor), and I love it. Everything just works. Most stable system I've ever used. And, the MX tools are great. I can change the bootloader settings so easy. I try other distros, and I always wind up missing some small feature from the tools.
I like that I can set my password as [nothing] right from the installer. Why do all the other installers fight you for that? Sure there are ways around it with the command line, but I don't even need them in MX.
ok your starting to sell me on this. Im lazy though so tend not to change until I need to.
It runs on an Intel compute stick about a decade old, and quite well. I use it on a couple of them I have.
Thats about it though.
I used MX for a bit. Its actually pretty solid and I liked their Fluxbox setup. Very similar to Mint as it provides quite a solid suite of tried and tested tools and is fairly easy to get started with if you have basic computer experience. It also has non-systemd options for those who are into that. Quite a few reasons for folks to check it out so I am not shocked its towards the top of the list.
I use MX Linux because it provides a simple way to use both the NVIDIA 340 drivers and the latest kernels with my 14 year old laptop.
Personally my favorite distros that I tried this year are the following:
General:
Gaming:
I am willing to elaborate on my choices.
I've been using CachyOS for a couple of years now, so I suppose that makes it my favourite distro of 2025
I have been liking CachyOS as well. I reluctantly switched from Fedora after I kept getting weird problems (definitely a "my PC" thing, I wish I could upgrade).
Features I like about Cachy:
What I wish was different:
How can you say a distribution is the best? There are lot of use cases where many distributions are optimized for. They are just not an allrounder general one like "Ubuntu" in example. There should be some categories, at least some popular categories like "Gaming" that is separate from "General Purpose" or "Server".
I'm surprised Bazzite was not mentioned. I'm glad EndeavourOS was mentioned.
Fedora (I use Gnome on my laptops and KDE on my desktops). I don't love that it's technically an IBM product, but love the OS otherwise.
Why different DEs for laptop/desktop may I ask?
This year I have been mostly using:
I am sure I will be thoroughly laughed at for the following:
I currently use Mint (with Cinnamon; formerly MATE, considering to go back), but I used LMDE a lot before. This was LMDE 1 times, though, the distro fancied itself as a rolling distro. Might be interesting to see if Debusine makes it more popular, even without it LMDE was already damn great.
Daily driving Kubuntu 26.04