The announcement of LibreOffice 26.8 had a noticeable positive effect on download figures, which have since exceeded one million per week, totalling 9.4 million downloads over eight weeks, from 24 August to 18 October.
To these must be added updates for the Windows version, which are counted separately and are not included in the download figures, and downloads of older versions, which continue to be fairly high.
The three maps, generated automatically by Matomo, show, in order, visits to the downloads site (11,426,169), visits to the updates site (90,042,601), and visits to the site for older versions (39,669,854).
Anyone curious to know the origin of the visits (which is obviously higher than the number of downloads) can download a ZIP file containing the three CSV files. These figures are reliable but not precise to the nearest unit, as a visit does not necessarily result in a download, particularly in the case of updates and older versions.
Prior to the announcement of LibreOffice 26.8, the number of downloads was less than one million per week, although it was fairly close to that figure. In 2026, the number of downloads has grown dramatically compared to 2025, to the extent that the total for the year has already been exceeded, with 10 weeks still to go.
What are the reasons for this growth? It is difficult to explain based on the data, given that downloads are free and completely anonymous.
We like to think that the consistency of the LibreOffice project – which has been championing the concept of digital sovereignty and standard document formats for years – and the robustness of the software, which has never sought to be a clone of the most widely used office suite on the market but has always strived to forge its own path, are two very important factors that, in the long term, represent a significant advantage over all other products.
There is still a long way to go, however. Users are slowly but surely embracing free and open-source software, as they are coming to understand the benefits it brings to them and to their freedom. We are ready to welcome them.