We recently ran a poll to find which is the most popular, or used, desktop environment among Muktware readers. We ran the poll using a third party service Poll Daddy.

It was surprising to see that KDE emerged as the most popular desktop environment. Gnome 3 Shell captured the second spot and Ubuntu Unity grabbed the 3rd spot. The emergence of KDE as the most popular DE busts the Myth that KDE doesn't have as many users or that it lost a significant user based after 4.x upgrade. If that was the case, the users are definitely returning to KDE.

KDE has matured after its jump to version 4.x. At the moment KDE is the most advanced desktop environment which has optimized versions for netbooks, desktops and tablets. KDE powered tablet Vivaldi has already left Ubuntu behind in the tablet race and is creating a niche market for 'pure' Linux tablets. Kubuntu is now being sponsored by Blue Systems, the same firm that sponsors KDE edition of Linux Mint and Netrunner.

The future of KDE seems bright and this poll just reflects that 'reality'.