NPM download stats are down

François Best • 21 September 2023 • 2 min read

I noticed the problem on 2023-09-14, while I was working on my NPM package embed.

It looks like this, showing NPM download stats for the last 30 days:

Avatar for GitHub account facebookfacebook/react

239K
6B
19.1.1
MIT

The library for web and native user interfaces.

$ pnpm add react
$ yarn add react
$ npm install react

Version rolloutLast week

18.3.1
15M (35%)
19.1.1
8.5M (19%)
18.2.0
5.1M (12%)
19.1.0
4.9M (11%)
17.0.2
3.2M (07%)
8,137,53826 Aug7,907,82027 Aug8,355,29828 Aug9,086,76829 Aug5,783,50530 Aug5,817,52131 Aug6,216,18601 Sep7,599,53602 Sep7,851,90703 Sep8,232,84504 Sep7,037,27105 Sep2,745,04506 Sep2,873,51007 Sep7,949,34608 Sep8,227,01309 Sep8,034,81110 Sep7,985,13311 Sep7,031,24612 Sep2,720,26613 Sep2,681,55614 Sep7,808,36215 Sep8,050,41416 Sep8,242,37517 Sep7,925,74918 Sep7,139,17019 Sep2,624,39820 Sep2,601,70421 Sep7,570,79622 Sep7,753,95023 Sep7,995,48124 Sep199,986,520Last 30 days

After seeing the latest download stats zero-out, I thought it was a bug in my code, but a quick call to the NPM registry API confirmed there’s an issue across the whole registry:

$ curl -s https://api.npmjs.org/downloads/range/2023-09-12:2023-09-20/ | jq .
 
{
    "start": "2023-09-12",
    "end": "2023-09-20",
    "downloads": [
        {
            "downloads": 10511123926,
            "day": "2023-09-12"
        },
        {
            "downloads": 0,
            "day": "2023-09-13"
        },
        {
            "downloads": 0,
            "day": "2023-09-14"
        },
        {
            "downloads": 8912767625,
            "day": "2023-09-15"
        },
        {
            "downloads": 2444583811,
            "day": "2023-09-16"
        },
        {
            "downloads": 2260617731,
            "day": "2023-09-17"
        },
        {
            "downloads": 0,
            "day": "2023-09-18"
        },
        {
            "downloads": 0,
            "day": "2023-09-19"
        },
        {
            "downloads": 0,
            "day": "2023-09-20"
        }
    ]
}

And indeed, other popular packages show the same decline:

Avatar for GitHub account vuejsvuejs/core

52K
1.3B
3.5.22
MIT

🖖 Vue.js is a progressive, incrementally-adoptable JavaScript framework for building UI on the web.

$ pnpm add vue
$ yarn add vue
$ npm install vue

Version rolloutLast week

3.5.21
1.6M (24%)
3.5.13
1.2M (17%)
2.7.16
806K (12%)
3.5.18
431K (06%)
3.5.17
317K (05%)
1,409,87826 Aug1,419,15127 Aug1,436,91728 Aug1,583,27629 Aug1,168,24930 Aug1,560,54131 Aug1,584,45601 Sep1,425,17402 Sep1,363,58903 Sep1,444,01904 Sep1,316,63805 Sep581,21906 Sep562,87107 Sep1,445,09708 Sep1,350,86009 Sep1,394,99210 Sep1,427,80511 Sep1,281,76412 Sep455,99513 Sep366,12514 Sep1,219,59615 Sep1,295,80716 Sep1,351,39217 Sep1,297,77218 Sep1,135,00819 Sep351,97620 Sep358,76321 Sep1,257,24322 Sep1,236,19723 Sep1,314,13324 Sep35,396,503Last 30 days

Avatar for GitHub account angularangular/angular

99K
991M
20.3.2
MIT

Deliver web apps with confidence 🚀

$ pnpm add @angular/core
$ yarn add @angular/core
$ npm install @angular/core

Version rolloutLast week

9.0.0
369K (09%)
19.2.14
293K (07%)
18.2.13
268K (07%)
20.3.1
255K (06%)
17.3.12
243K (06%)
776,48126 Aug714,25327 Aug810,15128 Aug842,97129 Aug426,81130 Aug480,51531 Aug610,22701 Sep738,80002 Sep763,16603 Sep753,81204 Sep644,15605 Sep140,11506 Sep147,95207 Sep743,89208 Sep789,10809 Sep784,31810 Sep791,02211 Sep679,41912 Sep150,04413 Sep153,42614 Sep768,07615 Sep799,48116 Sep804,49217 Sep790,67118 Sep685,23019 Sep142,07620 Sep156,09921 Sep758,06622 Sep792,45323 Sep788,22224 Sep18,425,505Last 30 days

After a couple of days, it started to show on NPM’s own website:

NPM download stats for the react package, with a visible drop towards the end of the line

Reddit and Hacker News users were quick to react, with some hilarious comments:

Bun 1.0 is out, so everyone is switching to that.

You should use PNPM anyway.

Some folks were prompt to draw ominous conclusions:

Well, that confirms it, javascript and front end development is dead. I'll start looking for a new job.
drpossum | Hacker News

This proves React is dead, you should use Svelte now.

Someone who didn’t notice Svelte stats were also down:

Avatar for GitHub account sveltejssveltejs/svelte

web development for the rest of us

$ pnpm add svelte
$ yarn add svelte
$ npm install svelte

Version rolloutLast week

4.2.19
175K (09%)
4.2.20
137K (07%)
3.59.2
128K (07%)
5.39.2
106K (06%)
5.34.9
106K (06%)
438,32426 Aug438,80327 Aug409,96228 Aug386,59229 Aug509,93830 Aug820,24131 Aug351,53901 Sep416,80902 Sep404,28003 Sep466,91204 Sep468,71405 Sep286,71706 Sep262,61007 Sep435,64708 Sep374,74909 Sep437,16810 Sep471,33911 Sep414,49412 Sep193,07413 Sep119,76414 Sep308,00315 Sep320,88316 Sep339,45717 Sep334,85818 Sep304,75119 Sep130,00420 Sep121,08621 Sep332,49722 Sep328,25023 Sep367,08324 Sep10,994,548Last 30 days

Official response from NPM

I contacted NPM support on 2023-09-15, but didn’t get much of a useful response:

Yes, we also see the zero download count on different packages.

This issue remains under investigation.

We will let you know once we have an update.

Resolution

As of 2023-09-24, the problem seems to have been resolved. Stats are returning to normal, and previous zero values have been restored for all tested packages.


François Best

Freelance developer & founder