Recent surveys by The Pragmatic Engineer indicate that professional developers increasingly favor macOS over Windows. In two separate polls conducted on X and LinkedIn, macOS secured 61.6% and 66% of the vote respectively, while Windows consistently ranked third with approximately 12%. Linux followed in second place with 20% to 24.2% of the preference.
Despite these findings, a 2025 Stack Overflow survey involving tens of thousands of developers showed Windows remains the most common primary OS with a 49.5% share, compared to 32.9% for macOS. This discrepancy is attributed to the survey methodology, as Stack Overflow allowed multiple responses, whereas the newer polls focused on primary OS choice.
The preference for macOS is driven by its Unix-based environment, command-line tools, and the performance of Apple M-series processors. Additionally, the exclusive availability of Xcode makes macOS necessary for developers building software for Apple platforms. Linux remains the preferred choice for server-side, cloud, and AI development tasks.
Microsoft continues to invest in making Windows more developer-friendly. In 2026, the company updated the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and introduced WSL Containers to streamline Linux workloads. At the Build 2026 conference, Microsoft announced new tools for AI development, including Coreutils for Windows and Windows Developer Configurations.
