The database consists of hundreds of different open source distributions, mainly Linux but also BSD and Solaris.

[7] Distrowatch itself affirms that its page rankings are "a light-hearted way of measuring the popularity of Linux distributions and other free operating systems among the visitors of this website.

They simply show the number of times a distribution page on DistroWatch.com was accessed each day, nothing more.

"[8][9][10][11] PC World has written that "the page-hit counts on DistroWatch give some indication of which distributions are drawing the most interest at the moment, of course, but such measures can't be assumed to gauge who's actually using what or which are preferred overall".

[12] On January 19th, 2025, Facebook began taking down posts that included "DistroWatch" on the basis that "Linux is malware".