====================================================================== Title: Counting Capsules Date: 2026-02-02 Tags: Link: https://spool-five.com/posts/2026-02-02_counting_capsules/ Word Count: 1901 ====================================================================== A quick look at some stats about gemini capsules. For those that aren't aware, gemini is a largely text-based, minimal internet protocol. It is part of what is sometimes called the "smolnet", an alternative to the mainstream web. Gemini Protocol (Web)[1] =>[1] https://geminiprotocol.net/ Gemini Protocol (Gemini)[2] =>[2] gemini://geminiprotocol.net/ A "capsule" is the gemini equivalent of what we call a "website" on the http protocol. Here, I will try to answer a few questions I had about gemini, such as: - How many capsules are there? - Is Gemini growing? At what rate? - Where are geminauts located? The data is based on the following two sources: Lupa Statistics[3] =>[3] gemini://gemini.bortzmeyer.org/software/lupa/stats.gmi Kennedy Statistics[4] =>[4] gemini://kennedy.gemi.dev/ How many? --------- The Lupa crawler lists 3,273 capsules as of the end of January, 2026. By web standards, that's pretty tiny! By Dunbar standards, it's big. We can use the Lupa archive to see how the number of capsules have changed over time. The dates range from December 2020 to February 2026 (~5 years), and the counts are monthly snapshots. Line Chart - Number of Capsules Over Time (png)[5] =>[5] https://spool-five.com/blogimg/2026-02-02_capsules_over_time.png A fairly steady growth, but nothing too dramatic. We can also look at the individual changes for each month. As with the chart above, Lupa tracks both 'active' capsules, and 'all' capsules. Bar Chart - Monthly Capsules Added (png)[6] =>[6] https://spool-five.com/blogimg/2026-02-02_monthly_added.png Interestingly, we see over the last year some very large peaks for "All" capsules in a few of the months, followed by sharp drop-offs in the following month. This looks like an increase in "spam" capsules that are added in bulk and then dropped. We can also see more clearly from this that while there is still a steady growth in capsules, the years 2021 and 2022 seemed to have a much higher growth rate. Here is a table that shows the average number of capsules added each month by year. First, for the *active* capsules: | Year | Monthly Avg Change Active | |------+---------------------------| | 2021 | +89.9 | | 2022 | +60.7 | | 2023 | +30.9 | | 2024 | +26.1 | | 2025 | +25.2 | | 2026 | +32.5 | And for *all* capsules: | Year | Monthly Avg Change All | |------+------------------------| | 2021 | +110.7 | | 2022 | +88.5 | | 2023 | +51.8 | | 2024 | +43.6 | | 2025 | +32.3 | | 2026 | +10.5 | While in 2021 there were around 90 active capsules added each month, this dropped to around 25 in 2025. What about the overall annual growth rate? Active Capsules | Year | Year-End Capsules | Percentage Growth | |------+-------------------+-------------------| | 2020 | 441 | N/A | | 2021 | 1541 | 249.4% | | 2022 | 2251 | 46.1% | | 2023 | 2635 | 17.1% | | 2024 | 2912 | 10.5% | | 2025 | 3246 | 11.5% | All Capsules | Year | Year-End Capsules | Percentage Growth | |------+-------------------+-------------------| | 2020 | 531 | N/A | | 2021 | 1854 | 249.2% | | 2022 | 2988 | 61.2% | | 2023 | 3421 | 14.5% | | 2024 | 4246 | 24.1% | | 2025 | 4747 | 11.8% | We see huge growth in 2021, a sharp decline, but then a fairly steady growth rate over the last three years. As a tangent here, I also tried to see if there was any link between the gemini protocol appearing on Hacker News and the monthly change in capsule numbers. Bar Chart - Monthly Change in Capsules with HN posts (png)[7] =>[7] https://spool-five.com/blogimg/2026-02-02_monthly_added_hn.png There were some posts prior to 2021, which aren’t captured here because the capsule counts don’t start until December 2020. For the posts that are captured here, there appears to be no major correlation between a trending post on HN and people joining gemini. For example, there was a post in mid-November 2024 with 216 HN points, but in the subsequent monthly counts, there was no noticeable change in the number of capsules (in fact, it looks like Gemini had one of its worst months, in terms of additional capsules added, in December 2024). Capsules Today -------------- Let's now take a look at just a snapshot of the capsules (February 2026). -With a little help from my friends- The first thing that stands out in the data is the number of capsules that are hosted by some kind of public hosting service. Setting up your own server to host content isn't always easy, so it is great that these services exist to remove the friction for people wanting to join Gemini. As a quick side note here, it is also worth noting that this data doesn't capture any of the activity that takes place on the gemini bulletin board systems, which are also a great way for people to get involved and just start posting without having to buy their own domain, rent a server, etc. In terms of these hosting providers, here is a breakdown of the number of capsules for each provider. To determine what counts as a 'hosting provider', I've just used a rough heuristic where if a domain has more than 7 subdomains, it is counted as one of these services. | Domain | Count | % Total | |------------------+-------+---------| | flounder.online | 1087 | 33.2% | | yesterweb.org | 553 | 16.9% | | smol.pub | 308 | 9.4% | | srht.site | 62 | 1.9% | | pollux.casa | 46 | 1.4% | | midnight.pub | 34 | 1.0% | | e-worm.club | 21 | 0.6% | | capsule.town | 18 | 0.5% | | archipielago.uno | 16 | 0.5% | | subnet.city | 8 | 0.2% | | hispagatos.org | 8 | 0.2% | | geminauts.com | 8 | 0.2% | | TOTAL | 2169 | 66.3% | Looking at the table, it is quite surprising that 1 out of every 3 capsules is now hosted by flounder.online. Also, it is very striking that only 1 out of 3 capsules are not on these services, i.e., "self-hosted". -Where in the world?- We can also use the IP addresses of capsules to *approximately* gauge the geographical location of these spaces. There are lots of caveats about using IPs for geolocation purposes that I won't get into here. Looking at this geodata we get the following breakdown of capsules by region: | Region | Count | % Total | |----------+-------+---------| | Americas | 2008 | 62.3% | | Europe | 1169 | 36.3% | | Asia | 22 | 0.7% | | Oceania | 18 | 0.6% | | Africa | 6 | 0.2% | | TOTAL | 3223 | 100.0% | However, as we saw above, flounder.online is potentially skewing the results here (the IP appears to be located in the USA). By only taking one location for each of the hosting service providers, we instead get the following table: | Region | Count | % Total | |----------+-------+---------| | Europe | 574 | 62.1% | | Americas | 308 | 33.3% | | Asia | 21 | 2.3% | | Oceania | 16 | 1.7% | | Africa | 5 | 0.5% | | TOTAL | 924 | 100.0% | Hmm, it swung the other way! Whether including all the 1,000+ flounder.online capsules or not, the main takeaway here is probably that Gemini is overwhelmingly European/American, which is a pity. In terms of the individual countries, here are the top 5: | Country_name | Count | % Total | |-----------------+-------+---------| | United States | 1969 | 61.1% | | United Kingdom | 433 | 13.4% | | The Netherlands | 204 | 6.3% | | Germany | 188 | 5.8% | | France | 158 | 4.9% | | Finland | 45 | 1.4% | | Canada | 31 | 1.0% | | Russia | 25 | 0.8% | | Austria | 20 | 0.6% | | Spain | 17 | 0.5% | | Others (33) | 135 | 4.2% | | TOTAL | 3225 | 100.0% | And, again with the capsule hosting services collapsed down: | Country_name | Count | % Total | |-----------------+-------+---------| | United States | 271 | 29.3% | | Germany | 141 | 15.2% | | The Netherlands | 120 | 13.0% | | France | 89 | 9.6% | | United Kingdom | 68 | 7.4% | | Finland | 37 | 4.0% | | Canada | 29 | 3.1% | | Russia | 20 | 2.2% | | Sweden | 15 | 1.6% | | Spain | 15 | 1.6% | | Others (33) | 120 | 13.0% | | TOTAL | 925 | 100.0% | The image below shows all the capsule locations on a map: Map of Gemini Capsules by Hosting Location (png)[8] =>[8] https://spool-five.com/blogimg/2026-02-02_world_map.png As we saw with the tables above, most capsules are clustered around Europe/North America. However, it is still interesting to see that there are actually some capsules spread out in other parts of the world. Using this geographical information, we can also get a list of capsules that have one or fewer "neighbours" within a 500km radius from their hosting location. Here is the list, feel free to go visit some of these trailblazers that are out on their own! capsula.milangaelectronica.com.ar (0 neighbours)[9] =>[9] gemini://capsula.milangaelectronica.com.ar capsule.chadobear.world (0 neighbours)[10] =>[10] gemini://capsule.chadobear.world gemini.djph.net (0 neighbours)[11] =>[11] gemini://gemini.djph.net norayr.am (0 neighbours)[12] =>[12] gemini://norayr.am ritesh.ch (0 neighbours)[13] =>[13] gemini://ritesh.ch ayushnix.com (1 neighbour)[14] =>[14] gemini://ayushnix.com clehaxze.tw (1 neighbour)[15] =>[15] gemini://clehaxze.tw cyberespacio.novoa.nagoya (1 neighbour)[16] =>[16] gemini://cyberespacio.novoa.nagoya gemini.clehaxze.tw (1 neighbour)[17] =>[17] gemini://gemini.clehaxze.tw gmi.zkbro.com (1 neighbour)[18] =>[18] gemini://gmi.zkbro.com guie.welhaba.mx (1 neighbour)[19] =>[19] gemini://guie.welhaba.mx lux.rip (1 neighbour)[20] =>[20] gemini://lux.rip nixgoat.me (1 neighbour)[21] =>[21] gemini://nixgoat.me old-home.faith (1 neighbour)[22] =>[22] gemini://old-home.faith p.projectsegfau.lt (1 neighbour)[23] =>[23] gemini://p.projectsegfau.lt sanctum.geek.nz (1 neighbour)[24] =>[24] gemini://sanctum.geek.nz -Internet Providers- Finally, let's have a look at the network operator companies that geminauts tend toward. There are over 200 distinct network providers, which is too much to list in a table below, so we will just take the first 10. To note, the column "As_org" stands for "Autonomous System Organisation". Autonomous Systems are the networks that make up the internet, with each network having its own number (ASN). | As_org | Count | % Total | |---------------------+-------+---------| | Akamai | 1559 | 48.4% | | Uunet | 559 | 17.3% | | High5! b.v. | 160 | 5.0% | | Hetzner online gmbh | 140 | 4.3% | | Digitalocean-asn | 95 | 2.9% | | Ovh sas | 62 | 1.9% | | As-vultr | 57 | 1.8% | | Orange | 51 | 1.6% | | Netcup gmbh | 40 | 1.2% | | Amazon | 30 | 0.9% | | Others (191) | 470 | 14.6% | | TOTAL | 3223 | 100.0% | Again, since Akamai seem to be the provider for flounder.online, we can have another version of the table with the capsule hosting providers reduced to one entry each: | As_org | Count | % Total | |---------------------+-------+---------| | Hetzner online gmbh | 104 | 11.3% | | Akamai | 89 | 9.6% | | High5! b.v. | 86 | 9.3% | | Digitalocean-asn | 75 | 8.1% | | Ovh sas | 54 | 5.9% | | As-vultr | 52 | 5.6% | | Netcup gmbh | 29 | 3.1% | | Amazon | 23 | 2.5% | | Oracle-bmc-31898 | 22 | 2.4% | | Ionos se | 18 | 2.0% | | Others (191) | 371 | 40.2% | | TOTAL | 923 | 100.0% | We see that the infrastructure 'market' in the case of gemini capsule providers is quite diverse, and also differs from what a more mainstream version of this table might look like, i.e., we would be more likely to see Amazon, Cloudflare, Google, etc. dominating the top spot. We also see that Hetzner appears to be the top choice when just looking at single capsules. For my own capsule, I use sr.ht for statically hosing my main gemlog, and Hetzner for the content on my dev.spool-five.com portion of the capsule. I think Hetzner offer a great service at a fair price, but part of why I went for them is also because they are a European alternative to the big tech offerings from the US. I wonder if this is also a sentiment shared by other geminauts? For a quick sense-check in terms of the suggestion that gemini is more diverse than the 'mainstream' internet, let's look at the Herfindahl–Hirschman index (HHI) of the Gemini network provider market. HHI is a score between 0 and 10,000, where anything above 2,500 indicate high market concentration. As might be expected, when we take the initial list of capsules (i.e., the flounder.online dominated list), the market appears very concentrated with a score of 2,707. However, when only counting the providers by domain (the second table), the score is 480.7, which indicates a very competitive market. Wikipedia Hirschman Index[25] =>[25] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herfindahl%E2%80%93Hirschman_index For context, the Internet Society tracks these HHI scores for the web. In the case of the "Top 1,000" websites, the web hosting HHI score is 1,323, and for the "Top 10,000" sites it is 1,119. Using this metric, Gemini (when discounting the hosting by flounder.online and others) appears to be much less concentrated and more diverse than the average, mainstream web. Internet Society Pulse[26] =>[26] https://pulse.internetsociety.org/concentration Conclusion ---------- The main thing I was surprised about was how much of geminispace is taken up by capsule hosting services, which I think is an important lesson if people are interested in 'growing' gemini. These services provide an important on-ramp onto the platform. On the other hand, higher concentration in a single provider can lead to a less resilient protocol. More research would have to be done on whether this ease-of-access leads to sustained participation and engagement. Do people just set up a "hello world" capsule out of curiosity and never return? I tried to look through some of these capsules when doing this, and I found a fairly even mix of 'abandoned' capsules, but also really fascinating journals and reflections. It would be sad if technical barriers were to keep those kind of writers from accessing this quieter, more private protocol. Gemini has some great nomenclature that links it to the early days of the space age; the gemini program, lunar travel, circumlunar orbits, capsules, and so on. But, for this analysis I hope it was interesting to return to Earth and take a look at some of the more terrestrial infrastructure that holds it all together. If you are interested in the data used for this, it is available below. Historical Counts (csv)[27] =>[27] https://spool-five.com/ref/2026-02-02_capsules_historical.csv February 2026 Capsules Data (csv)[28] =>[28] https://spool-five.com/ref/2026-02-02_capsules_snapshot.csv