Phoronix Turns 17 Years Old, Covering The Linux Hardware Scene Daily

Today marks seventeen years since I started Phoronix.com for what would become the leading Linux hardware reviews and benchmarking site. The 5th of June also marks 13 years now since the release of Phoronix Test Suite 1.0 for leading open-source benchmarking.

Over the past seventeen years on Phoronix.com there have been more than 32,500 original news articles about Linux/open-source and more than 4,600 Linux hardware reviews / featured benchmark articles. While in the early days there were multiple regular contributors to Phoronix, due to the rise of ad-blockers and other factors, over the past decade it's largely been shouldered on me and with the occasional freelance contributors, etc. Even so, the last calendar day there was no new Phoronix.com content published at all was all the way back in May of 2012.

Since 2004 it's been quite a wild ride for the Linux scene with sharply better hardware support than back then, hardware vendors working vigorously to ensure launch-day mobile/desktop/server Linux hardware support, vendors much more embracing open-source drivers and the ways of the mainline kernel, and everything from Teslas to Valve devices to a majority of HPC and AI workloads all relying on Linux and open-source software in varying capacities.

On the Phoronix Test Suite front, this open-source benchmarking software is now used by practically all major IHVs and ISVs for various purposes from performance benchmarking to stress testing. Going off the OpenBenchmarking.org metrics that include only a sub-set of the Phoronix Test Suite data, there are now more than 660 unique benchmarks / test profiles, 233 test suites, more than 49 million test and suite downloads, more than four thousand organizations running the Phoromatic test orchestration software, nearly 38 million OpenBenchmarking.org searches, and that all is just counting the publicly reported / opt-in reporting points.

It's been quite a journey over the past 17 years albeit with its ups and downs. While Linux continues its upward trajectory, in the publishing world, in recent years mostly a downer... Due to the increasing number of ad-block users operating the site has only become more difficult as well as more advertisers focusing their ad budgets on YouTube and other video content as well as COVID-19 having impacted ad rates. I'll just leave it at that for now.

PSA: If you wish to show your support for Phoronix on its 17th birthday, this week is a Phoronix Premium birthday special for enjoying the site ad-free and other benefits while greatly helping operations. PayPal tips are also accepted or at the very least disable you ad-blocker should you be using one to help ensure during these challenging times on making it to the Phoronix 18th birthday.