For several years now, Neowin has conducted annual year-long polls in order to asking forum members about the types of hardware and software they use in their computing environments. While this is not a formal poll conducted with academic rigor, it is a fun and interesting way to gain insight into how our members run things at home. And because the polling is of Neowin's readers, we're calling it our readerboard as a play on the word "leaderboard."
With many of Neowin's members being IT professionals during the day, prosumer choices are popular. And with system administrators, network administrators, desktop technicians, system architects, IT analysts, and other professions participating in the forum, these often lead to some pretty technical, and sometimes opinionated, discussions.
Over time, those polls have grown in two directions:
On the hardware side, Neowin has asks its members about their favorite CPU, GPU, motherboard, and storage manufacturers, since those encompass the basic building blocks of computers, as well as routers, since they act as a kind of central nervous system for all of your digital devices.
In the software side, there are not as many polls since a lot of functionality that was previously provided by third-party utilities is now, for better or worse, built in to Windows. However, there are still vibrant ecosystems for antivirus and backup software, so that’s where Neowin has focused its polling.
The results for 2025 are as follows.
Hardware
For processors in 2025, Neowin had a combined poll of CPU and GPU manufacturers.
CPUs
For the desktop side of things, Windows users have a choice of x86 compatible processors from AMD and Intel, and Arm-based processors from Qualcomm. Apple originally started with CPUs from Motorola, switched to Intel, and introduced its own CPUs derived from Arm's designs in its Mac line-up. On the CPU side of things, AMD lead the way with 54.55% of respondents choosing them as their preferred CPU vendor.
Coming in at number two was Intel, with 36.36%. Apple’s M-series CPUs and Qualcomm's Snapdragon tied in third place with 4.55% each. This represents a noticeable change from 2024's results, in which AMD was selected by 45.95% and Apple was selected by 8.11% of the polltakers.
GPUs
For GPU’s, Nvidia received 61.9% of the vote, followed by AMD with 28.57%, and Intel with 9.52%.
While Intel's share in 2025 was not huge, just hovering under 10%, it is important to keep things in perspective: In the 2024 portion of poll, Intel received 5.88% of the vote, meaning an increase of about 38.3% over the course of a single year.
You can view 2025's combined poll for CPU and GPU manufacturers here. If you would like to see and vote in 2026's poll, it is available here in the forum.
Motherboards
For motherboards, Neowin listed twenty manufacturers, including a category for "other" to cover any that might have been missed.
Taking the lead at 53.85% was ASUS, with ASRock and Supermicro tying in second place at 11.54%. Gigabyte took third place with 7.69%. The remaining 15.4% were filled by single votes each. This represents a bit of a change from 2024, where ASUS had 44.64%, followed by Gigabyte with 16.07%, ASRock with 14.29%, and MSI with 12.5%.
You can view 2025's poll for motherboard manufacturers here. If you would like to see and vote in 2026's poll for motherboard manufacturers, it is located here in the forum.
Storage
Neowin's 2025 storage manufacturer poll asked readers for their favorite hard disk drive (HDD) and solid-state drive (SSD) manufacturers.
Hard disk drives
On the rotating media side of things, Western Digital Corporation came in first with 43.33%, followed closely by Seagate Technology at 40%, and less closely by Toshiba at 10%.
Oddly enough, 6.67% of respondents chose "Other" as their preferred HDD brand, but did not leave any replies explaining what these were. This represents a bit of a change over Neowin's 2024 hard disk drive poll, in which Western Digital was in first place and Seagate and Toshiba tied behind it in second place.
Solid-State Drives
Unlike the more mature hard disk drive space, the SSD space has experienced a boom in the number of vendors.
For solid state storage, there were 45 manufacturers listed in the 2025, including "Other" as one of the options. Of these, Samsung Electronics got the lion's share at 46.67%, with Micron Technology (including Crucial it’s consumer-focused subsidiary) coming in second at 11.11%, followed by Western Digital in third place at 8.89% and Seagate in fourth at 6.67%. Dell, Kioxia (formerly Toshiba) and Solidigm (formed by the merger of Intel's and SK Hynix's respective SSD divisions) all tied for fifth place at 4.44% each. The remaining 13.32% were from singleton voters. In the 2024 poll, Samsung came in first with 32.65%, followed by Western Digital at 16.33%, and Micron/Crucial at 14.29%
You can view the Neowin's 2025 storage poll here. If you would like to see and vote in 2026's poll for storage vendors, it is located here in the forum.
Routers
Neowin's 2025 router poll listed twenty five router manufacturers, including two "Other" categories for software (firmware) and hardware, as some readers might have preferred other firmware or devices beyond those listed.
Of these, Ubiquiti came in first place with 29.17%, followed by ASUS in second place at 18.75%, Other (Software) in third place at 12.5%, and Mikrotik and TP-Link tying at fourth place with 11.46%. The remaining 28.12% were between seven other vendors, including the Other (Hardware) category. For Other (Software), Merlin, OPNsense and pfSense were amongst those mentioned, while Fritz!, Sophos, and Synology were mentioned in the Other (Hardware) category. Curiously enough, one respondent mentioned they were still using a Linksys WRT54GS from 2004.
As 2025 was the first year Neowin polled readers about their routers there is no historical data to compare against from 2024. If you would like to see and vote in 2026's poll, it can be found here in the forum.
Software
On the software side of things, operating systems are a matter of continuous discussion in Neowin's forums, and the sheer number of Linux distributions and Windows versions and editions and churn between those makes polling impractical. Also, with the dual trends of operating systems adding so much functionality with included accessory and utility programs, and the trend of using websites rather than software on the desktop, there are less categories to look at. That said, there are several standout categories, and maintaining the security and integrity of those operating systems is something everyone needs to do. Neowin's software polls focus on readers' choices for their antivirus and backup software selections.
Antivirus
Antivirus software (which also includes anti-malware, internet security, security suites, endpoint protection, endpoint detection and recovery, and other nom-de-plumes) is one of those areas where there still is robust competition on the desktop space. As a matter of fact, there is so much competition that we have split antivirus into free and paid categories. Many vendors in this space offer versions in both categories, with the free versions providing basic protection and offering a path to upgrade to paid versions with more features and additional functionality.
Free AV
In the 2025 Free Antivirus poll there were 21 options, including the "Other" category. Redmond-based Microsoft took the lead with 34.78%, followed by Kaspersky Lab in second place with 21.74%, while Bitdefender and Malwarebytes tied in third place with 13.04% each.
The remaining 17.4% was split between three vendors. This lines up closely with 2024's poll, in which Microsoft took first place, followed by Kaspersky Lab and Bitdefender.
You can view 2025's Free AV poll here. If you would like to look at and/or vote in 2026's poll, it can be found here in the forum.
Paid AV
The 2025 Paid Antivirus poll contained 50 options, including the "Other" category. Slovak antivirus firm ESET came in first place with 44%, while Kaspersky Lab and Malwarebytes tied for second place with 16%, and Bitdefender coming in third with 12%.
The remaining 12% was split between two vendors. The 2024's poll had similar results with ESET coming in first, followed by Kaspersky Lab and Bitdefender, although 17 vendors total were chosen from it.
You can view 2025's Paid AV poll here. If you would like to look at and/or vote in 2026's poll, it can be found here in the forum.
Backups
2025's poll for backups had a total of forty-seven choices, including "Other" categories for traditional backup programs, archiving programs, cloud storage providers, and NAS devices, as well as a generic "Other" category.
In Neowin's 2025 poll, Paramount Software's Macrium Reflect came in first with 20%, with Insight Partner's Veeam second at 12.31%, Microsoft's OneDrive in third place at 9.23% and FreeFileSync at 7.69%, the remaining 50.77% were a mix of twenty-one different backup solutions, including two of the Other categories. In 2024's results, Macrium Reflect was in first place with 22.41%, Clonezilla at 10.34%, and Veeam at 8.62%.
You can view the 2025 Backup poll here. If you would like to see and vote in 2026's poll for backups, it is located here in the forum.
Conclusions
With so many choices available, it can sometimes be hard to make a decision about what hardware and software gives you the best bang for your buck. As you can see, though, Neowin’s forums are a place where such questions are not just endlessly debated, but measured as well.
If you have a question about Windows, computers, networking, security, backups or any of the myriad other technical questions that pop up in today’s hyper-connected world, the forums are the place to ask some of the most knowledgeable people in the world..
You do need to register an account to participate in the forum, but the good news is its completely free to do so.
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