[1] DirectWrite is hardware-accelerated (using the GPU) when running on top of Direct2D, but can also use the CPU to render on any target, including a GDI bitmap.
[8] Internet Explorer 9 and later versions use DirectWrite layered over Direct2D for improved visual quality and performance.
[9][10][11] Firefox 4 also added DirectWrite support, but rendering in the DirectWrite specific style was made non-default for some fonts in Firefox 7 due to user complaints about the rendering quality.
[14] Telegram's desktop client uses DirectWrite to render color emojis on Windows.
Steam has the option to enable DirectWrite for improved font smoothing and kerning on its desktop client