Study of 189 Repos Finds Only 3.4% Actually Embed eBPF Code

A source-level census of 189 top-starred open-source repositories found that only 6 out of 174 general-population projects genuinely embed eBPF by compiling and loading their own BPF programs, a rate of just 3.4%. The study was prompted by seven recent academic papers, all of which claimed eBPF was 'widely adopted' in their introductions without providing any supporting measurement. Researchers drew a key distinction between projects that deploy eBPF-based tools — such as running Cilium in a Kubernetes cluster — and those that actually ship their own BPF programs, a difference the industry frequently conflates. Even Kubernetes itself, which depends heavily on eBPF-capable networking plugins, was classified as a user rather than an embedder since it ships no BPF programs of its own. The census concluded that while eBPF adoption is durable and growing within its dedicated ecosystem, the 'widely adopted' label reflects a by-construction sample of purpose-built eBPF projects rather than broad uptake across software at large.