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
5.9B
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
16M (31%)
19.1.1
13M (27%)
18.2.0
6M (12%)
19.1.0
5M (10%)
17.0.2
3.6M (07%)
7,633,34806 Aug7,541,39707 Aug6,699,45408 Aug2,430,63409 Aug2,613,69810 Aug7,076,50411 Aug7,453,45812 Aug7,511,37313 Aug7,542,78714 Aug6,026,61215 Aug2,542,68916 Aug2,637,27417 Aug7,329,81118 Aug7,780,27419 Aug7,827,59220 Aug7,819,74821 Aug7,202,31422 Aug2,949,72123 Aug2,773,01224 Aug7,429,50525 Aug8,137,53826 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 Sep193,810,129Last 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
3.5.21
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

3.5.20
2.7M (26%)
2.7.16
1.8M (18%)
3.5.13
1.3M (13%)
3.5.21
739K (07%)
3.5.18
571K (06%)
1,204,27206 Aug1,168,37807 Aug1,011,05108 Aug291,13209 Aug339,32410 Aug1,097,80811 Aug1,160,46312 Aug1,209,43713 Aug1,203,65114 Aug949,16615 Aug527,15816 Aug558,70217 Aug1,299,18818 Aug1,291,90219 Aug1,338,89320 Aug1,448,18421 Aug1,266,65922 Aug527,81823 Aug541,92424 Aug1,358,06525 Aug1,409,87826 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 Sep34,188,425Last 30 days

Avatar for GitHub account angularangular/angular

99K
979M
20.2.4
MIT

Deliver web apps with confidence 🚀

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

Version rolloutLast week

20.2.3
794K (17%)
19.2.14
403K (09%)
9.0.0
359K (08%)
18.2.13
333K (07%)
17.3.12
233K (05%)
735,86706 Aug734,05607 Aug618,78508 Aug124,75009 Aug135,78410 Aug696,61311 Aug740,44212 Aug752,50113 Aug708,44814 Aug462,45715 Aug126,38016 Aug132,52217 Aug690,32118 Aug758,18619 Aug754,08620 Aug750,66121 Aug671,77122 Aug159,03523 Aug157,25124 Aug709,91425 Aug776,48126 Aug714,25327 Aug810,15128 Aug842,97129 Aug426,81130 Aug480,51531 Aug610,22701 Sep738,80002 Sep763,16603 Sep753,81204 Sep17,537,017Last 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

5.38.6
1.8M (53%)
4.2.19
178K (05%)
3.59.2
171K (05%)
4.2.20
153K (05%)
5.34.9
124K (04%)
321,97006 Aug320,90207 Aug289,13808 Aug109,24609 Aug120,81210 Aug308,84511 Aug339,30712 Aug364,45813 Aug398,01214 Aug320,05115 Aug273,40816 Aug268,03817 Aug407,40318 Aug364,86219 Aug419,33820 Aug473,04121 Aug390,79622 Aug215,61723 Aug244,52124 Aug398,88425 Aug438,32426 Aug438,80327 Aug409,96228 Aug386,59229 Aug509,93830 Aug820,24131 Aug351,53901 Sep416,80902 Sep404,28003 Sep466,91204 Sep10,992,049Last 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