TOP-10 & misc. forum statistics

[gigatoaster]

Hello there

Could you share:

- Top 10 posts of 2025
- Top 10 posts of all time
- Most commented topic of 2025
- Most commented topic of all time
- Most liked post of 2025
- Most liked post of all time
- Best year for MR (by number of messages)
- Worst year of MR (idem)

How old is MacRumors and how many monthly active users there are in the last 10 years?

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Hello there

Could you share:

- Top 10 posts of 2025
- Top 10 posts of all time
- Most commented topic of 2025
- Most commented topic of all time
- Most liked post of 2025
- Most liked post of all time
- Best year for MR (by number of messages)
- Worst year of MR (idem)

How old is MacRumors and how many monthly active users there are in the last 10 years?

Who do you expect to compile this information?

The (voluntary) staff?

Not only would one need to be reasonably technically proficient to be able to do this, but I would imagine that it might take a fair bit of time, as well.

And - a different question - why the focus on "likes"? Actually, given the perfervid reactions in some of those threads, I suspect that such posts may lurk - or be located in - in the iPhone section, or, perhaps, the Political News sections, as these seem to generate powerful emotions and reactions, both.

Now, I do recall that there used to be a sort of collation of stats, - most posts, most likes, among many other criteria - which were published twice a year (early January, and early July); originally, - if memory serves - @Doctor Q used to compile & publish these stats, and latterly, I believe that @chown33 had very kindly undertaken this task.

 

[gigatoaster]

Just being curious. No other intents.

 

[smirking]

Hold on, allow me to tap into my psychic powers to pull up a list of the most viewed and commented topics of 2025:

Topics 1 through 10 are:

It's appalling that Apple even has a 16GB RAM/256GB SSD option in 2025.
Link: every other thread

As Scribe said... stats are misleading. People who are motivated to climb a stats leaderboard are going to do a lot of things that will make the site miserable to most everyone else.

 

[NoBoMac]

Putting together stats has always been a chore, hence no longer done. Last one was Jan 2024.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/top-50-posters-extrapolated-january-2024.2416345/

To add to what @smirking said re stat padding, so true, and in the case of the reports, you have top posters that no longer post or rarely, ditto the stats can be misleading.

 

[gigatoaster]

just to clarify, I wanted to see the topics, the subject of the discussion, not who posts.

For instance, It feels like iOS redesign is a hot topic this year, wonder if it was the same with previous redesign.

 

[smirking]

For instance, It feels like iOS redesign is a hot topic this year, wonder if it was the same with previous redesign.

There's the trending topics list for the forums here that might be a step in the right direction.

https://forums.macrumors.com/trending/

But I don't think you're actually interested in the most "popular" topics. You're looking for the most useful and engaging topics on the site. One way you might find what you're looking for is to choose a subforum and then sort the topics active within the past week in ascending order like so:

https://forums.macrumors.com/forums/apple-silicon-arm-macs.227/?last_days=7&order=post_date&direction=asc

I find that old threads that continue to get a modest amount of activity for a long time tend to be the most informative. The ones that go supernova as measured in post counts or reaction scores either become contentious and burn out or they become a tiresome loop of the same three comments said in different ways over and over again.

 

[M4th]

Not sure if this helps quench OP's, um, curiosity?

 

[maflynn]

Who do you expect to compile this information?

Not for nothing, this sounds like a great opportunity for Microsoft's PowerBI. Even the now defunct Top 50 posters thread. I believe Xenforo forum software uses MySQL database, so setting up a database connectivity between Power BI and MySQL should be feasible.

As an aside, I am bummed out that we no longer have the top 50 posters thread.

 

[S.B.G]

As an aside, I am bummed out that we no longer have the top 50 posters thread.

Yeah, that was always a fascinating read and one I looked forward to when it came out.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Not for nothing, this sounds like a great opportunity for Microsoft's PowerBI. Even the now defunct Top 50 posters thread. .....

As an aside, I am bummed out that we no longer have the top 50 posters thread.

Yeah, that was always a fascinating read and one I looked forward to when it came out.

I always loved reading it (even long before my own nom de plume made an appearance), and am somewhat sorry that it no longer exists.

However, I was always cognisant of the fact that taking the time and trouble to compile these stats must have been an enormous amount of work, and taken a lot of time to put together.

Moreover, such a task could only have been undertaken by someone with not just a keen knowledge of how stats actually worked and are applied in this sort of situation, but also only by someone who is completely fluent - and wholly at ease with - the use of technology for such purposes.

 

[chown33]

- Top 10 posts of 2025
- Top 10 posts of all time

Measured by what metric?

- Most commented topic of 2025
- Most commented topic of all time

Does "topic" mean "thread", or does it mean the actual topic of the discussion?
I ask because there can be multiple threads about a single discussion topic, even though we try to merge these when we see them reported.

If "Most commented topic of all time" means "the thread with the most visible replies", then take a look in Megathreads. Personally, I was rooting for Bacon, but it wasn't even close.

- Most liked post of 2025
- Most liked post of all time

Offhand, I don't know of a way to automate finding those.

Also, "most liked" presumably means the highest positive reaction score. The "Disagree" reaction counts as -1, and Sad & Angry count as 0, so it's numerically possible for a post to have more reactions applied to it than its overall score. E.g. 10 Likes + 5 Disagrees = 5 total score, 15 total reactions.

You can see who has the top reaction scores here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/members/

- Best year for MR (by number of messages)
- Worst year of MR (idem)

How old is MacRumors and how many monthly active users there are in the last 10 years?

These seem possible to answer by probing with URLs.

The URL pattern for a specific post is:

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/NUMBER

where NUMBER is the time-sequential post number. You can plug in a low number like 50 and see where that brings you. Some post numbers might not work, but you can definitely go lower than 50, because I tried it and there are posts earlier than that.

If you find the first post of a calendar year, and the first post of the prior calendar year, you can calculate the number of posts in that year by subtracting the numbers. I recommend binary search, coupled with searching for threads likely to be started in January, such as the Photo of the Day threads. The calculated difference is probably just an approximation, for multiple possible reasons. E.g., post numbering might have changed over the years of site-software updates, some things like private conversations and profile posts have their own numbering, and maybe other things.