update: Statistics from GBG World are missing because my database did not collect the data. (It’s a non-standard format.) I added it manually and updated the story. For examples of great stats pages, check out Stats from Baller Nation, Stats from Discovery Grid, or Stats from Alternate Metaverse. DreamGrid’s default Diva WiFi page also works. The numbers I take are total registered users, total 30-day active users (including both local and hypergrid), and land area (or square meters) equivalent to a standard area. The less content on a page and the simpler the formatting, the easier it is to set up a scraping algorithm.
With OSgrid users modeling all of North America, the total number of standard-size areas in OpenSim remains an astronomical 973,193.
Land is land, and many people set up areas in OpenSim that no one uses because land is so cheap. It may even be free if you run it on your own computer. So on the one hand, you have to count this.
On the other hand, it makes the bar chart completely impossible to read! So we exclude those regions and calculate OSgrid as if it had the 35,873 regions it had before the macrogeography experiment earlier this year, plus the 1,373 regions we added last month (37,246 total). That’s instead of the 864,410 currently being reported.
Anyway, that particular oddity aside, OpenSim’s commercial grid reported this month that it had 12,308 more entries in the standard area, 366 fewer registered users, and 14 fewer active users.
This month, 11 grids were listed as suspended: Eenhgrid, Gabngio, Gridworld, KittyBlue, Lonetree, Moonlighting Grid, Nitro, Paradise City, SiLi, Six Sides, and VR-ESC. Some grids have been shut down completely, including the Canadian Grid.
According to my calculations, OpenSim now has 46,230 regions, which corresponds to 159,922 standard regions. It has 491,935 active and registered users.
Our statistics do not include most grids running on DreamGrid, a free and easy-to-use version of OpenSim. Because these grids tend to be private grids.
OpenSim is a free, open-source virtual world platform, similar to Second Life, that allows non-technical people to quickly and inexpensively create virtual worlds and teleport to other virtual worlds. Those with technical skills can run OpenSim worlds on a server for free using DreamGrid, the official OpenSim installer for the more technically minded, or another distribution, while commercial hosting starts at less than $5 per region.
A list of OpenSim hosting providers is here. If you offer a local rental but are not on this list, please email us!
Download the recommended Firestorm viewer here and learn where to get content for your OpenSim world or region here.
Meet the Hypergrid Business Newsletter now
On the 15th of each month, right after the statistical report comes out, we will send out a newsletter containing all the OpenSim news from the previous month. You can subscribe here or fill out the form below.
Top 25 grids by active users
For general purpose social grids, especially closed grids, the rule of thumb is that the more crowded the better. People looking to make new friends look for grids that already have the most users. Sellers looking to sell content go to the grid with the most potential customers. Event organizers looking for the largest audience – you get the idea.
The top 25 most popular grids this month:
- Wolf Territories Grid: 11,274 active users
- OSgrid: 4,258 active users
- GBG World: 2,606 active users
- Alternate Metaverse: 2,303 active users
- DigiWorldz: 2,032 active users
- Darkheart’s Playground: 1,542 active users
- WaterSplash: 1,535 active users
- Sciattisi Grid: 1,502 active users
- Groovy Verse: 1,384 active users
- AvatarLife: 1,036 active users
- Neverworld: 916 active users
- Trianon World: 855 active users
- Craft World: 827 active users
- Sanctum Astra: 826 active users
- BloodMoon: 817 active users
- Littlefield: 787 active users
- Party destination grid: 786 active users
- AviWorlds: 782 active users
- Gentle Fire Grid: 548 active users
- SpaceGrid: 435 active users
- ZetaWorlds: 430 active users
- Kitely: 394 active users
- Herederos Grid: 386 active users
- Astralia: 384 active users
- Vivo Sim: 365 active users
Canadian Grid Shuts Down
Canadian Grid (not to be confused with the Great Canadian Grid, which also closed) closed due to lack of interest, grid owner Chris Strachan said. Hypergrid business.
Typically, when a grid ends, people worry about how to transfer regions, content, avatars, and upcoming events to the new grid. I write articles about migration.
That’s not the case here, because the grid had none of that. Since I started grid tracking a year ago, I’ve had up to 13 visitors a month and only 3 visitors a month.
Online marketplace for OpenSim content
According to Kitely CEO Ilan Tochner, the Kitely Market currently has 21,137 product listings with 41,907 product variants, of which 36,620 are sold with an export license.
Kitely Market has delivered orders to 666 OpenSim grids to date.
The numbers have all increased since the start of the year and, as always, almost all of the growth has come from exportable content. This means that shoppers can deliver purchased items directly to their avatar’s inventory in other grids and travel to other grids with their content.
In the early days of OpenSim, many creators considered it a security risk and non-exportable content dominated. However, creators quickly realized that most of Copybot’s content actually came from Second Life, where all of it was non-exportable. And copybot tools and content thieves typically don’t check item permissions before committing the theft. Instead, allowing people to purchase exported content legally, conveniently, and at a reasonable price would completely destroy the copybot economy, leaving only a handful of freebie stores that are not yet aware of their existence and are demolished.
Another source of legal content for OpenSim is Linda Kellie’s products and those of other creators who offer their products for free. Many official free stores in OpenSim Grid offer these products.
This is similar to how Netflix and other low-cost, free streaming services have dramatically reduced online movie piracy.
Kitely Market is the largest collection of commercial legal content available on OpenSim. You can access both hypergrid-enabled grids and closed private grids. Instructions on how to configure Kitely Market for a closed grid are available here.
Top 40 grids by land area
All region numbers in this list are based on standard regions whenever possible. Active user counts include Hypergrid visitors whenever possible.
Many schools, companies or private grids do not make their numbers public.
The raw data for this month’s report is available here. A list of all active grids is here. Below is a list of all HyperGrid supported grids and their HyperGrid addresses, sorted by popularity. This is very useful when creating hyperports.
You can view all past OpenSim statistics, including opinion polls, dating back to 2009 here.
- OSgrid: 37,246 regions
- Wolf Territory Grid: 33,258 locations
- Kitely: 17,840 locations
- ZetaWorlds: 17,049 locations
- Groovy Verse: 14,979 locations
- Alternate Metaverse: 11,180 locations
- DigiWorldz: 3,405 locations
- Neverworld: 2,634 locations
- GBG World: 1,951 locations
- Discovery Grid: 1,614 locations
- Tag grid: 1,465 locations
- Friends Grid: 1,168 locations
- ArtDestiny: 1,156 locations
- Subversion space: 1,065 regions
- Craft World: 1,030 locations
- Virtual world grid: 910 regions
- AviWorlds: 812 locations
- Kinky Haven: 685 locations
- AvatarLife: 615 locations
- Exotic Reality: 603 locations
- Virtual World Zones: 558 locations
- Littlefield: 533 locations
- Darkheart’s Playground: 423 locations
- Furry World: 358 locations
- EdMondo: 310 locations
- BloodMoon: 272 locations
- Coconut Migration: 247 locations
- Open virtual world: 241 locations
- Oligrid: 214 regions
- MisFitz grid: 213 regions
- Japan Open Grid: 201 regions
- Virtual Vista Metaverse: 199 regions
- Adreans-World: 170 locations
- Cater & Friends: 162 locations
- SpaceGrid: 157 regions
- Utopia Skye: 147 locations
- I Love You Grid: 147 regions
- GerGrid: 141 regions
- Logic Camp: 133 regions
- Outworlds: 129 locations
Do you know of any other grids that are available to the public but not in the database? Please send me an email. (email protected).
