Rails gem download numbers

05 Feb 2009

Mark had me crunch some of the download numbers for Rails gems; then Rich took the spreadsheet I came up with and summarized it nicely:

Release 2.0.0 = 1382 downloads in 428 days
Release 2.0.1 = 42205 downloads in 428 days
Release 2.0.2 = 345076 downloads in 428 days
Release 2.0.4 = 1074 downloads in 153 days
Release 2.0.5 = 1147 downloads in 123 days
Release 2.1.0 = 203446 downloads in 245 days
Release 2.1.1 = 102040 downloads in 153 days
Release 2.1.2 = 73896 downloads in 123 days
Release 2.2.2 = 156763 downloads in 92 days

Looks like the pace of downloads is picking up! Here are the monthly total for Rails 2.2.2 so far:

Nov 2008 - 20773
Dec 2008 - 65960
Jan 2009 - 63171
Feb 2009 - 6859

Note that there are many caveats here - this doesn't account for folks who run local gem servers, for folks who get the gems from other places, for folks who roll their own, etc., etc. But, still. Also, since my SQL skills are weak, here's a reminder for me of how it was done so I can Google this up and run it again next year:

select gem_name, date_trunc('month', downloaded_at), count(*) 
 from gem_downloads where gem_name like 'rails-%.gem' 
 group by date_trunc('month', downloaded_at), gem_name 
 order by gem_name, date_trunc('month', downloaded_at)