What do the Homebrew install numbers mean?
The board's default ordering is how many times an app was installed through Homebrew in the last 30 days. That figure is not ours and not an estimate: Homebrew publishes it, for every cask, as a public document. It is the only ordering here built on a number somebody else is accountable for.
What the number counts
Installations performed with the brew command in the previous 30 days, as counted by Homebrew's own opt-out analytics and published per cask. A cask is Homebrew's packaging of a Mac application, maintained by volunteers rather than by the app's developer.
So the number counts one distribution channel, used disproportionately by developers and people comfortable in a terminal. It is a fraction of any app's real userbase, and the fraction is different for every app.
How we read it
One download of Homebrew's published 30-day analytics document, matched to each listing by its cask token. There is no per-app request, no scraping and no account: the whole board's figures come from a single public file, refreshed on a schedule.
That is the reason this ordering exists. A directory with no audience cannot rank by its own traffic without inventing something, and inventing something is the thing this site is against.
What it does not mean
It is not a user count and not a popularity ranking. An app sold only from its own website, or only on the App Store, has no Homebrew cask and therefore no number — and that says nothing whatsoever about how many people use it. Several widely used apps on this board are in exactly that position.
Because an app without a count cannot be placed in an ordering by count, those apps sort to the end of the default view. That is a limit of the ordering, not a finding about the apps, and it is why the board states how many of its listings have a published count.
Between two apps that both have a cask, the comparison is fair and the number is somebody else's. That is the whole extent of what it supports.
Most installed through Homebrew
Ordered by Homebrew's published 30-day count. Apps with no cask have no count and are not in this ordering.
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Questions
Where do these Mac app install numbers come from?
From Homebrew, which publishes a 30-day install count for every cask as a public document. This site downloads that document and matches each figure to a listing. The number is Homebrew's, not ours.
Why do some apps have no install count?
Because they have no Homebrew cask. An app distributed only from its own site or the App Store is never installed through Homebrew, so there is no figure to publish. It is not evidence that few people use it.
Is the most-installed app the best one?
No, and it is not even the most used. The count covers one distribution channel favoured by developers. It is useful for comparing two apps that both ship a cask, and for very little else.