Crates / anchor-lang
Rust crate · real downloads · data Oct 27, 2026
anchor-lang downloads, and should you depend on it?
Anchor v2: trait-based account system for Solana (no_std) crates.io · docs.rs · repository
Established and losing ground.
anchor-lang: 728 crates depend on it; downloads don't spike on releases.
How this verdict is decided (4 rules)
- Usage: crates.io reverse dependencies (crates that list it as a dependency): 10,000+ = foundational, 1,000+ = widely used, 100+ = established, under 100 = few direct dependents.
- Direction: the median quiet day in the last 30 days of the window against the first 30, read against the median tracked crate (the whole field moved +39% from late summer to October, so a raw trend says nothing). 10%+ ahead of the field = gaining; 10%+ behind = losing ground; otherwise steady. Steady with no release in 2+ years = quiet for years.
- Release spikes: the median release-window day against the quiet-day baseline: under 1.15x = no spike, 1.15x to 1.3x = small bumps, 1.3x or more = jumps on release days.
- Release recency: days since the newest version that was not yanked, from crates.io publish times.
release window (release day + next day)quiet dayquiet-day median · download the 89 days as CSV
The numbers in one paragraphanchor-lang got 1,628,584 crates.io downloads from Jul 30, 2026 to Oct 26, 2026. 12% of them landed within 2 days of one of its 6 releases. On the other 79 quiet days it got a median of 17,890 a day, about 125,230 a week. Capping release days at that baseline leaves 1,611,271 release-adjusted downloads for the window.
What this means if you're choosing a dependency
- Used, not everywhere. 728 crates depend on it. Look at how fast its issues get answered before you lean on it.
- Actively released. 2.0.0-rc.2 shipped 15 days ago (Oct 12, 2026).
- Fit check: license Apache-2.0, edition 2021 (from the latest version's manifest).
- Compare it by the baseline, not the raw count. 12% of its 1,628,584 downloads in the window landed within 2 days of a release; the steady number is 17,890 a day.
Its place in the dependency graph
anchor-lang builds on
Tracked crates its latest version (2.0.0-rc.2) depends on.
What the chart says
- Weekend quiet days ran at 75% of weekday quiet days (14,429 vs 19,364). A moderate dip: a mix of work-week builds and always-on automation.
- Biggest day: 32,645 on Aug 17, 2026, a quiet day with no release nearby.
Every number
| All-time downloads | 7,777,095 (outside the crates.io top 1,000 by all-time downloads) |
| Downloads in the window | 1,628,584 (Jul 30, 2026 to Oct 26, 2026, 89 days) |
| Within 2 days of a release | 194,376 (11.9%) |
| Quiet-day median (baseline) | 17,890 a day; weekdays 19,364, weekends 14,429 |
| Release-adjusted downloads | 1,611,271 (release-window days capped at the baseline) |
| Baseline rank | #1113 of the 1243 crates we track |
| Quiet-day trend | -2% raw, -30% against the median tracked crate (+39%) |
| Releases in the window | 6 |
| Versions published, ever | 69 |
| Latest version | 2.0.0-rc.2, published Oct 12, 2026 (license Apache-2.0, edition 2021) |
| First published | Jan 15, 2021 |
| Reverse dependencies | 728 |
Releases in the window
Each one opens a 2-day release window on the chart.
| Version | Published | Downloads that version got (lifetime) |
|---|---|---|
| 2.0.0-rc.2 | Oct 12, 2026 | 479 |
| 1.2.1 | Oct 6, 2026 | 23,827 |
| 0.32.2 | Sep 14, 2026 | 12,991 |
| 0.31.2 | Sep 14, 2026 | 32,566 |
| 1.2.0 | Sep 4, 2026 | 65,374 |
| 2.0.0-rc.1 | Aug 12, 2026 | 4,055 |
How we compute this
crates.io counts every download, including CI runners, mirrors and bots that fetch each new version, so raw counts run high (why, in The Manual). We split the last 89 days into release windows (the day a version of anchor-lang was published, plus the next day) and quiet days, and use the median quiet day as the baseline: an upper bound on steady use, never a head count. The method and data come from our study of 90 days of crates.io data from 69 crates, featured in This Week in Rust #674; check any crate live with the real-downloads checker.
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Categories
Sources
- Daily downloads: crates.io API, /crates/anchor-lang/downloads (last 90 days, all versions), fetched Oct 27, 2026.
- Versions and publish times: crates.io API, /crates/anchor-lang/versions, same fetch.
- Reverse dependencies: crates.io reverse dependencies, same fetch. Dependency edges between tracked crates: each crate's default version, crates.io API.
- Fetched politely (one request every 2 seconds, identified User-Agent) per the crates.io data access policy. Data is crates.io's; the release-window split, baseline and verdict rules are ours, CC BY 4.0.
Up next
Next by real downloads: The next crate down the real-downloads ranking: 17,880 a day. Established and gaining.typstRust crate. A new markup-based typesetting system that is powerful and easy to learn. Real use: 17.9K downloads a day on quiet days; 179 crates depend on it.Read it next →Also worth your time
Art: Nicholas Roerich, Nag Lake (1925). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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