Operating System

Last update: December 27, 2024

Operating systems (OS) are system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. +Show More

Operating systems (OS) are system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. The most common operating systems available today are Microsoft’s Windows, Apple’s OS X, and Linux. Additionally, there are mobile operating systems specific for smartphones.

If you’d like to learn about the ecosystem consisting of Operating System and others, feel free to check AIMultiple IT/Tech.
How relevant, verifiable metrics drive AIMultiple’s rankings

AIMultiple uses relevant & verifiable metrics to evaluate vendors.

Metrics are selected based on typical enterprise procurement processes ensuring that market leaders, fast-growing challengers, feature-complete solutions and cost-effective solutions are ranked highly so they can be shortlisted.
Data regarding these metrics are collected from public sources as outlined in the “What are AIMultiple’s data sources?” section of this page.


There are 2 ways in which vendor metrics are processed to help prioritization:
1- Vendors are grouped within 4 metrics (customer satisfaction, market presence, growth and features) according to their performance in that metric.
2- Vendors that perform high in these metrics are ranked higher in the list.


The data used in each vendor’s ranking can be accessed by expanding the vendor’s row in the below list.
This page includes links to AIMultiple’s sponsors. Sponsored links are included in “Visit Website” buttons and ranked at the top of the list when results are sorted by “Sponsored”. Sponsors have no say over the ranking which is based on market data. Organic ranking can be seen by sorting by “AIMultiple” or other sorting approaches. For more on how AIMultiple works, please see the ethical standards that we follow and how we fund our research.

Products Position Customer satisfaction
Windows 10 logo

Windows 10

Leader
Satisfactory
Windows 10 is familiar and easy to use, with lots of similarities to Windows 7 including the Start menu. It starts up and resumes fast, has more built-in security to help keep you safe, and is designed to work with software and hardware you already have.
Basis for Evaluation

We made these evaluations based on the following parameters;

Customer satisfaction
Average rating
4.55 / 5 based on 2k reviews
Market presence
Company's number of employees
100k-1m employees
Company's social media followers
30m-40m followers
Apple iOS logo

Apple iOS

Leader
Satisfactory
An advanced mobile operating system. With its easy-to-use interface, amazing features, and rock solid stability, iOS is the foundation of iPhone. And even as others try to catch up, the technologies and features built into iOS keep iPhone years ahead.
Basis for Evaluation

We made these evaluations based on the following parameters;

Customer satisfaction
Average rating
4.60 / 5 based on 1k reviews
Market presence
Company's number of employees
100k-1m employees
Company's social media followers
10m-20m followers
Ubuntu logo

Ubuntu

Leader
Satisfactory
Super-fast, easy to use and free, the Ubuntu operating system (OS) powers millions of machines worldwide.: * Ubuntu server is the most popular OS for VMs and containers in the public cloud. * Ubuntu server is the default choice for * Ubuntu desktop is the preferred OS for developer desktops and workstations * Ubuntu for embedded runs the most advanced robots
Basis for Evaluation

We made these evaluations based on the following parameters;

Customer satisfaction
Average rating
4.60 / 5 based on 1k reviews
Market presence
Number of case studies
50-100 case studies
Company's number of employees
1k-2k employees
Company's social media followers
100k-1m followers
Total funding
$10-50m
# of funding rounds
1
Latest funding date
January 1, 2013
Last funding amount
$10-50m
Company
Type of company
private
Founding year
2004
Android logo

Android

Leader
Satisfactory
When your phone, tablet, watch, TV or car’s tech goes from just working to actually making life easier, that’s when you know Android is behind it. With over 2.5 billion active devices around the world, our goal is to create features that are useful for all. Find the latest product news and go deep with stories behind the tech.
Basis for Evaluation

We made these evaluations based on the following parameters;

Customer satisfaction
Average rating
4.53 / 5 based on 1k reviews
Market presence
Company's number of employees
100k-1m employees
Company's social media followers
50m-60m followers
Windows 7 logo

Windows 7

Leader
Satisfactory
Windows 7 is your PC simplified. Enjoy your media wherever you want, stay productive with the smart new desktop, get creative with Windows Live Photo Gallery.
Basis for Evaluation

We made these evaluations based on the following parameters;

Customer satisfaction
Average rating
4.20 / 5 based on ~800 reviews
Market presence
Company's number of employees
100k-1m employees
Company's social media followers
30m-40m followers
RedHat Enterprise Linux logo

RedHat Enterprise Linux

Challenger
Satisfactory
Open source platform for mission-critical computing
Basis for Evaluation

We made these evaluations based on the following parameters;

Customer satisfaction
Average rating
4.50 / 5 based on ~500 reviews
Market presence
Company's number of employees
10k-20k employees
Company's social media followers
1m-2m followers
macOS Sierra logo

macOS Sierra

Challenger
Satisfactory
macOS Sierra helps you rediscover your best photos, shop fast and conveniently online, and work between devices. It can also help free up storage space.
Basis for Evaluation

We made these evaluations based on the following parameters;

Customer satisfaction
Average rating
4.50 / 5 based on ~300 reviews
Market presence
Company's number of employees
100k-1m employees
Company's social media followers
10m-20m followers
Oracle Linux logo

Oracle Linux

Challenger
Satisfactory
A highly performant and secure operating environment, Oracle Linux delivers virtualization, management, automation, and cloud native computing tools, along with the operating system, in a single, easy-to-manage support offering. Oracle Linux provides a 100% application binary compatible alternative to Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS Linux and is supported across both hybrid and multicloud environments.
Basis for Evaluation

We made these evaluations based on the following parameters;

Customer satisfaction
Average rating
4.42 / 5 based on ~400 reviews
Market presence
Company's number of employees
100k-1m employees
Company's social media followers
9m-10m followers
Linux Mint logo

Linux Mint

Challenger
Satisfactory
Linux Mint produces a modern, elegant and comfortable operating system which is both powerful and easy to use.
Basis for Evaluation

We made these evaluations based on the following parameters;

Customer satisfaction
Average rating
4.60 / 5 based on ~200 reviews
Market presence
Company's number of employees
1-5 employees
Company's social media followers
100k-1m followers
Company
Type of company
private
Founding year
2006
CentOS logo

CentOS

Challenger
Satisfactory
Community-driven free software effort focused around the goal of providing a rich base platform for open source communities to build upon.
Basis for Evaluation

We made these evaluations based on the following parameters;

Customer satisfaction
Average rating
4.39 / 5 based on ~500 reviews
Market presence
Company's number of employees
20-30 employees
Company's social media followers
5k-10k followers
Company
Type of company
private
Founding year
2004

“-”: AIMultiple team has not yet verified that vendor provides the specified feature. AIMultiple team focuses on feature verification for top 10 vendors.


Sources

AIMultiple uses these data sources for ranking solutions and awarding badges in operating system:


79 vendor web domains
42 funding announcements
157 social media profiles
127 profiles on review platforms
91 search engine queries

Operating System Leaders

According to the weighted combination of 4 metrics

Windows 10 logo
Apple iOS logo
Android logo
Ubuntu logo
Windows 7 logo

What are operating system
customer satisfaction leaders?

Taking into account the latest metrics outlined below, these are the current operating system customer satisfaction leaders:

Windows 10 logo
Ubuntu logo
Apple iOS logo
Android logo
RedHat Enterprise Linux logo

Which operating system solution provides the most customer satisfaction?

AIMultiple uses product and service reviews from multiple review platforms in determining customer satisfaction.

While deciding a product's level of customer satisfaction, AIMultiple takes into account its number of reviews, how reviewers rate it and the recency of reviews.

  • Number of reviews is important because it is easier to get a small number of high ratings than a high number of them.
  • Recency is important as products are always evolving.
  • Reviews older than 5 years are not taken into consideration
  • older than 12 months have reduced impact in average ratings in line with their date of publishing.

What are operating system
market leaders?

Taking into account the latest metrics outlined below, these are the current operating system market leaders:

Windows 10 logo
Apple iOS logo
Android logo
Ubuntu logo
Windows 7 logo

Which one has collected the most reviews?

AIMultiple uses multiple datapoints in identifying market leaders:

  • Product line revenue (when available)
  • Number of reviews
  • Number of case studies
  • Number and experience of employees
  • Social media presence and engagement
Out of these, number of reviews information is available for all products and is summarized in the graph:

Windows 10
Ubuntu
Apple iOS
Android
Windows 7

What are the most mature operating system?

Which one has the most employees?

IBM logo
Google logo
Microsoft logo
Dynamic Netsoft Technologies logo
Microsoft logo

Which operating system companies have the most employees?

40 employees work for a typical company in this solution category which is 17 more than the number of employees for a typical company in the average solution category.

In most cases, companies need at least 10 employees to serve other businesses with a proven tech product or service. 47 companies with >10 employees are offering operating system. Top 3 products are developed by companies with a total of 800k employees. The largest company in this domain is IBM with more than 300,000 employees. IBM provides the operating system solution: IBM AIX

IBM
Google
Microsoft
Dynamic Netsoft Technologies
Microsoft

Insights

What are the most common words describing operating system?

This data is collected from customer reviews for all operating system companies. The most positive word describing operating system is “Easy to use” that is used in 11% of the reviews. The most negative one is “Difficult” with which is used in 3% of all the operating system reviews.

What is the average customer size?

According to customer reviews, most common company size for operating system customers is 1-50 Employees. Customers with 1-50 Employees make up 42% of operating system customers. For an average IT/Tech solution, customers with 1-50 Employees make up 40% of total customers.

Customer Evaluation

These scores are the average scores collected from customer reviews for all operating system. Operating System are most positively evaluated in terms of "Overall" but falls behind in "Customer Service".

Overall
Customer Service
Ease of Use
Likelihood to Recommend
Value For Money

Where are operating system vendors' HQs located?

What is the level of interest in operating system?

This category was searched on average for 261.7k times per month on search engines in 2024. This number has decreased to 0 in 2025. If we compare with other it/tech solutions, a typical solution was searched 1.1k times in 2024 and this decreased to 0 in 2025.

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