This Week in Rust #674 picked up our crates.io download-count study
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https://tensorust.com/articles/crates-io-download-count/ (tensorust.com)
Receipt
#674
This Week in Rust issue that linked the crates.io download-count study
- Source
- https://this-week-in-rust.org/blog/2026/10/21/this-week-in-rust-674/
- Measured
- Oct 21, 2026
- Check
- Number found on the source page by our checker
- Stamp
- ZLqAu1uAjRKARkTBpoeN06FozC0dEkO5
The study pulled 90 days of daily crates.io downloads for Matt's own 69 Rust crates. 80% of those downloads arrived within a day of a new version being published, and none of the crates had an outside dependent.
The article's guess, and it says it is a guess: registry mirrors, build farms and security or license scanners that fetch every new version as it appears.
This Week in Rust linked it in issue 674. Source below; the article has the method and the data.
Question for Rust folks: what number would you trust more than raw downloads when picking a dependency? Reverse dependencies, downloads between releases, something else?
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