Category: OSGrid

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OpenSim grids register 4k new users, add land area, but usage falls

OpenSim virtual land area continued to increase this month, adding 942 new regions since we reported the stats, as well as registering 4,098 new users. However, the number of active users fell by 3,806 this month as the December holidays came to a close. Generally, there are fewer seasonal events in January than in December, which partly explains the drop in active users. Service interruptions in a few grids also affected this month’s usage total. For example, MetaverseLife grid’s active users dropped by 1,676 due to service interruption issues.

The public OpenSim grids now have a total of 103,859 standard-sized regions in virtual land area. The OpenSim metaverse is now a virtual home to 480,003 registered users.

All grids without a publicly accessible website, social media page, OpenSimWorld listing, or other public presence are now marked as private in the Hypergrid Business database. Please submit the link to the grid’s public page through a direct email or this form in case you find that your grid is marked as private and you want it to be back on our lists.

We are now tracking a total of 2,516 OpenSim grids, 406 of which were active, public grids, and 280 of which published their stats this month.

OpenSim land area. (Hypergrid Business Data.).

OpenSim virtual land area chart. (Hypergrid Business Data.).OSgrid, which is OpenSim’s test grid, leads in size with 23,697 total standard region equivalents. Kitely is second with 18,307, followed by Wolf Territories Grid with 13,184 regions, ZetaWorlds with 8,037, and Alternate Metaverse with 7,584 regions. Scroll to the bottom of this article for a full list of the top 40 largest grids.

Our stats also do not include most of the grids running on OutWorldz DreamGrid — a distribution of OpenSim used by many people to create virtual worlds on personal computers, private company grids, or school grids.

DreamGrid reports a total of 8,519 grids with a total land area of 65,638 standard regions. Micro Technology Services owns both DreamGrid and OutWorldz.

With the free-to-use DreamGrid software, users can easily create virtual worlds through a graphical interface and one-click install feature. They can also use it to easily and quickly manage their grids using graphical interfaces. This includes adding new regions, banning users, deleting regions, auto restarting,  tracking usage stats, and shutting down entire grids or unoccupied regions to save computing power.

OutWorldz offers free OARs — complete region files — which you can add to your new grid easily. The software saved its users a combined total of over $35 million in setup and land rental fees in 2022 when compared to the Second Life price equivalents, according to the latest presentation by CEO of Micro Technology Services Fred Beckhusen at the developer AvaCon conference last month.

DreamGrid now supports 3D VR view for OpenSim in Beta 5.28. Examples can be viewed on this page. With it, users can save Firestorm Photos in a folder and they appear on the viewer. Another new feature — the Terms and Conditions Pop Up — which was in beta testing, has also been finalized. It includes a TOS editor and integration with the Diva Panel TOS. As promised, it does not depend on Diva or Apache to be enabled, Beckhusen told Hypergrid Business. 

OpenSim-as-a-service which enables users to run a grid on boot, and grid-wide classified ads is also one of the latest features from the team. It is live on http://ostworld-os.com:8002 and http://www.outworldz.com:9000 grids.

Fred Beckhusen

“The user interface controls between foreground and background modes are being updated,” said Beckhusen. “Beta version is coming by the end of January. It includes Terminal for regions and robust while running as a service, and you can install a .exe file on any machine and connect to  the Region and Robust remotely and securely.”

Yet another new feature known as Classified Ads is still not complete and is a low priority for DreamGrid right now.

OpenSim is a free open-source, virtual world platform, that’s similar to Second Life and allows people with no technical skills to quickly and cheaply create virtual worlds and teleport to other virtual worlds. Those with technical skills can run OpenSim worlds on their own servers for free using either DreamGrid, or the official OpenSim installer for those who are more technically inclined, or any other distribution, while commercial hosting starts at less than $5 a region.

A list of OpenSim hosting providers is here. Download the recommended Firestorm viewer here and find out where to get content for your OpenSim world or region here.

Top 25 grids by active users

When it comes to general-purpose social grids, especially closed grids, the rule of thumb is the busier the better. People looking to make new friends look for grids that already have the most users. Merchants looking to sell content will go to the grids with the most potential customers. Event organizers looking for the biggest audience — you get the idea.

Top 25 most popular grids this month:

  1. OSgrid: 4,888 active users
  2. AviTron: 3,047 active users
  3. DigiWorldz: 2,023 active users
  4. GBG World: 1,713 active users
  5. Alternate Metaverse: 1,617 active users
  6. ZetaWorlds: 1,341 active users
  7. AviWorlds: 1,254 active users
  8. Soul Grid: 1,106 active users
  9. Eureka World: 1,090 active users
  10. Exo-Life: 991 active users
  11. Neverworld: 983 active users
  12. Moonrose: 956 active users
  13. Party Destination Grid: 880 active users
  14. WaterSplash: 825 active users
  15. Kitely: 805 active users
  16. Craft World: 744 active users
  17. Wolf Territories Grid: 686 active users
  18. Barefoot Dreamers: 639 active users
  19. Dorena’s World: 552 active users
  20. Offworld: 550 active users
  21. Astralia: 511 active users
  22. DreamNation: 486 active users
  23. Littlefield: 430 active users
  24. Youth Nation: 419 active users
  25. Gentle Fire Grid: 393 active users

The active list is based on active, unique 30-day user login numbers that grids report on their stats pages. Those grids that don’t report their numbers might be just as popular, but we wouldn’t know.

The active user stats are used to generate the popular hypergrid destinations list, which is useful if you have a hypergrid teleport and want to put up gates to the most popular grids, or include the most popular grids in an in-world directory. This list is also a good place to start if you want to open up new stores, hold events, or are just looking for places to visit.

Here’s some information on how and why you should set up a stats page for your grid. Not all grids need a stats page — especially grids that aren’t open to the public like school grids, private company grids, small family grids, and so on. From prior surveys, this dark metaverse of OpenSim grids might actually be bigger than the one we know about, because those grids don’t need to promote themselves, and we never hear about them.

Online marketplaces for OpenSim content

There are currently 19,813 product listings in Kitely Market containing 38,695 product variations, 33,623 of which are exportable.

Kitely Market data — total listing, variations, and exportables. (Image courtesy Kitely Market.).

Kitely Market has delivered orders to 570 OpenSim grids to date. The Kitely Market is the largest collection of legal content available in OpenSim. It is accessible to both hypergrid-enabled and closed, private grids. The instructions for how to configure the Kitely Market for closed grids are here.

As seen from the above chart, nearly all the growth in Kitely Market has been in content that can be exported to other grids — that is the green area in the chart. The red area, of non-exportable content, has stayed level for the past seven years.

Offering a convenient and low-cost way for OpenSim users to buy legitimate, legal content not only offers creators sales opportunities that they wouldn’t have otherwise but reduces the need for pirated content, similar to the way that Netflix and other streaming services have reduced the amount of illegal video streaming.

In addition, restricting content to closed grids does little to stop piracy. Most stolen content is ripped from Second Life, the original closed grid. The only time that being on a closed grid offers additional security for content creators is when the content involves high-end scripts or proprietary animations.

Speaking of closed grids — where users are not able to teleport to other grids — the biggest such grid, Tag, also has its own online marketplace.

Products on sale on The Adult Grid. (Image courtesy TAG grid.).

The Tag grid marketplace, the only other OpenSim marketplace comparable to the Kitely Market, lists and sells a total of 28,286 virtual items including apparel, avatar accessories, avatar appearances, and other items. From the marketplace’s website, anyone is able to list their products or items on the marketplace to promote them either for sale or as a freebie, but the content can only be purchased and used within the Tag grid and can’t be taken or delivered to other grids.

Logicamp grid upgrades tech, seeks funding

Logicamp grid has successfully repaired and upgraded its OpenSim server and website following service interruptions and crashes that happened in May 2022 and July 2022.

“As part of the upgrade process, we also had to modify our code to accommodate the transition from MySQL to MySQLi,” the company wrote in a press release sent to Hypergrid Business. “We are confident that these updates will significantly improve the performance and stability of our platform.”

The grid also encountered a router crash that required a complete reconfiguration of the network infrastructure, but this too has been fixed.

Profiles and grids are also working well after the team upgraded the OpenSim version. The team has also configured a mail server with a digital signature to improve the security and authenticity of their outgoing emails.

The team is now seeking funding to further update servers and hire more people to improve user experience.

“While there is still much work to be done, we are committed to continuously improving and expanding our platform,” the company wrote in a press release. “We are currently seeking funding or rental of land in order to update our servers and hire more team members to organize events that will enhance the user experience in our metaverse.”

Logicamp was founded in 2010 as a French-language grid with a focus on Belgian tourism, but has since become more of an educational grid, with regular classes in OpenSim, design, building, and LSL scripting.

Free land offer on OffWorld grid

(Image courtesy OffWorld.).

OffWorld grid is giving out free residential OpenSim land plots measuring 5,184 square meters and 949 prims to anyone who joins the grid. This is their usual offer to attract new residents and the admin will help to set up the land.

Visit the grid for more information or contact Bella Fegte or Genie Fegte in-world.

The hypergrid address is offworld.eu:8002.

Erasmus explores virtual worlds for teaching math

Mathesis grid. (Image courtesy Mathesis.)

Mathesis — a new private grid that surfaced in November of 2022 — is exploring the use of virtual worlds in attracting students into math and science subjects and improving their skills in these subjects. The grid is run by the Department of Computer Engineering & Informatics in the School of Engineering at the University of Patras, which is based in Greece.

According to the Mathesis project explainer page, one of the hardest parts of teaching math to students is keeping them interested in the topics and the project will target covering math classes with various learning activities offered in the 3D virtual worlds. It adds that these environments are more attractive, engaging, and entertaining for school pupils and hence will improve learning efficiency.

One of the specific objectives of the project is to promote and implement 3D worlds as an innovative teaching method in schools in partner countries. The project will design learning materials and a series of learning activities which will then be administered by teachers to students in 3D and web.  The project will avail 3D objects scripts, and guides to students during its 2-year duration.

Nara’s Nook grid has a new YouTube channel

Nara’s Nook grid is introducing a new Next Dimension Tales YouTube channel that will focus on 3D story telling.

The team will use the channel to tell 3D stories and release animated content. The team will release further details on the project.

Kalasiddhi closes to transition to Meta’s Oculus platform

The Kalasiddhi grid, which focuses on Buddhism in virtual reality, has been taken down because it is transitioning to Oculus — the VR platform owned by Meta.

The team is now building on Unity and will decide later how to present it on the platform, grid coordinator Drang Po told Hypergrid Business.

New grids

The following grids were added to our database this month: Alterlifes, Arielle’s Grid, Cajun Grid, Calypso, Chubelz Grid, Dead Frog, E-LIVE Virtual World, Fresh MetaVers, Land of Sinners, Legacy, Omnopolis, Piggy Bank Grid World, Virtual Melody, and WaterSplash.

Suspended grids

The following 20 grids were marked as suspended this month: Ampleverse, Ancient Rome, Clone Fantasy, Concadia, Creatrix World, Destinationz, EasterHome, GridPlay Grid, Hasengang, Insanity Grid, KittyBlue, MisFitz Grid, OB, PrimGrass, Savannah Grid, Second Meta , Test Grid, Tropical Isle, and Your Worlds.

Top 40 grids by land area

The list below is a small subset of existing OpenSim grids. We are now tracking a total of 2,516 different publicly-accessible grids, 407 of which were active this month, and 280 of which published their statistics.

All region counts on this list are, whenever available, in terms of standard region equivalents. Active user counts include hypergrid visitors whenever possible.

Many school, company, or personal grids do not publish their numbers.

The raw data for this month’s report is here. A list of all active grids is here. And here is a list of all the hypergrid-enabled grids and their hypergrid addresses, sorted by popularity. This is very useful if you are creating a hyperport.

You can see all the historical OpenSim statistics here, including polls and surveys, dating all the way back to 2009.

Do you know of any other grids that are open to the public but that we don’t have in our database? Email me at david@hypergridbusiness.com. 

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OpenSim hits new record usage at holiday season

OpenSim added 2,061 active users this past month, hitting a new record high of 47,169 unique monthly users.

Some of the increase could be due to the recently-concluded OpenSimulator Community Conference , or due to the fact that people are home from work or school for the holidays, and have time to go into virtual worlds.

The public OpenSim grids now have a total of 102,917 standard-sized regions in virtual land area. The OpenSim metaverse is also home to 475,905 registered users.

All grids without a publicly accessible website, social media page, OpenSimWorld listing, or other page are now marked as private in the Hypergrid Business database. Please submit the link to the grid’s public page through a direct email or this form in case you find that your grid is marked as private and you want it to be back on our lists. Despite that, the number of active grids in our database is 407 — another record high.

OSgrid and Kitely are still largest grids by total regions and registered user numbers.

OpenSim land area has been increasing on average over the years. (Hypergrid Business Data.).

OSgrid has 23,117 hosted regions in total followed by Kitely with 18,390, Wolf Territories Grid with 13,168 regions, ZetaWorlds with 8,035, and Alternate Metaverse with 7,507 regions. Scroll at the bottom of this page for a full list of top 40 largest grids.

The largest land area gainer this month is OSgrid at 885 new regions, followed by Alternate Metaverse with 488, ZetaWorlds with 143, Groovy Verse with 63, and Discovery Grid with 48 new standard 256 by 256 regions hosted.

These stats also do not include most of the grids running on OutWorldz DreamGrid — a distribution of OpenSim used by many people to create virtual worlds on personal computers, private company grids, or school grids.

DreamGrid is now tracking a total of 8,519 grids all time. 331 new DreamGrids were created with the software in October this year based on the unique DNS name.

DreamGrid now also hosts a total of 6,743 regions — both var and standard ones — all of which have a total size equaling 65,638 standard 256 by 256 Second Life regions, said Fred Beckhusen, the CEO of Micro Technology Services Inc which owns both DreamGrid and OutWorldz.

Fred Beckhusen

With the free-to-use DreamGrid software, users can easily create virtual worlds through a graphical interface and one-click install feature. They can also use it to easily and quickly manage their grids using graphical interfaces. This includes adding new regions, banning users, deleting regions, auto restarting,  tracking usage stats, and shutting down entire grids or unoccupied regions to save computing power.

The total list of grids tracked by OutWorldz is available here. DreamGrid offers 230 free OARs which you can add to your new regions easily. The software has saved its users a combined total of over $35 million in setup and estate purchase/rental fees this year when compared to Second Life prices, according to the latest presentation by Beckhusen at the developer AvaCon conference this month.

DreamGrid is working on new features including support for 3D VR view for OpenSim in Beta 5.28, OpenSim-as-a-service which enables users to run a grid on boot, and grid-wide classified ads. It is also now beta-testing a GDPR or terms of service pop-up at LostWorld-os.com:8002.

“It is built into DreamGrid, and does not require Apache or PHP or changes to OpenSim,” he told Hypergrid Business. “It uses the same terms of service as is shown on the Diva page. It has a built-in web page editor to make it simple to use.”

OpenSim is a free open-source, virtual world platform, that’s similar to Second Life and allows people with no technical skills to quickly and cheaply create virtual worlds and teleport to other virtual worlds. Those with technical skills can run OpenSim worlds on their own servers for free using either DreamGrid, the official OpenSim installer for those who are more technically inclined, or any other distribution, while commercial hosting starts at less than $5 a region.

A list of OpenSim hosting providers is here. Download the recommended Firestorm viewer here and find out where to get content for your OpenSim world or region here.

Top 25 grids by active users

When it comes to general-purpose social grids, especially closed grids, the rule of thumb is the busier the better. People looking to make new friends look for grids that already have the most users. Merchants looking to sell content will go to the grids with the most potential customers. Event organizers looking for the biggest audience — you get the idea.

Top 25 most popular grids this month:

  1. OSgrid: 5,447 active users
  2. AviTron: 3,585 active users
  3. DigiWorldz: 2,054 active users
  4. MetaverseLife Grid: 1,758 active users
  5. Alternate Metaverse: 1,690 active users
  6. GBG World: 1,684 active users
  7. ZetaWorlds: 1,356 active users
  8. Eureka World: 1,202 active users
  9. AviWorlds: 1,184 active users
  10. Soul Grid: 1,050 active users
  11. Kitely: 1,005 active users
  12. Exo-Life: 990 active users
  13. Neverworld: 915 active users
  14. Party Destination Grid: 912 active users
  15. Moonrose: 889 active users
  16. Craft World: 798 active users
  17. Dorena’s World: 751 active users
  18. The City: 696 active users
  19. Wolf Territories Grid: 686 active users
  20. Kid Grid: 663 active users
  21. Littlefield: 550 active users
  22. Astralia: 545 active users
  23. DreamNation: 508 active users
  24. OpenSimulator Community Conference: 486 active users
  25. Gentle Fire Grid: 423 active users

The active list is based on active, unique 30-day user login numbers that grids report on their stats pages. Those grids that don’t report their numbers might be just as popular, but we wouldn’t know.

AviTron has of late accelerated registrations and this month — for the second time in a row — earned the top spot by number of newly registered users at 390. Kid Grid, MetaverseLife, and OpenSimulator Community Conference grids also reported significant increases in activity.

The active user stats are used to generate the popular hypergrid destinations list, which is useful if you have a hypergrid teleport and want to put up gates to the most popular grids, or include the most popular grids in an in-world directory. This list is also a good place to start if you want to open up new stores, hold events, or are just looking for places to visit.

Here’s some information on how and why you should set up a stats page for your grid. Not all grids need a stats page — especially grids that aren’t open to the public like school grids, private company grids, small family grids, and so on. From prior surveys, this dark metaverse of OpenSim grids might actually be bigger than the one we know about, because those grids don’t need to promote themselves, and we never hear about them.

Online marketplaces for OpenSim content

There are currently 19,780 product listings in Kitely Market, containing 38,548 product variations, 33,476 of which are sold with export permission.

Kitely market product listing, variations, and exportables have been increasing over the years. (Kitely Market Data December 2022.)

Kitely Market has delivered orders to 569 OpenSim grids to date. The Kitely Market is the largest collection of legal content available in OpenSim. It is accessible to both hypergrid-enabled and closed, private grids. The instructions for how to configure the Kitely Market for closed grids are here.

As seen from the above chart, nearly all the growth in Kitely Market has been in content that can be exported to other grids — that is the green area in the chart. The red area, of non-exportable content, has stayed level for the past seven years.

Offering a convenient and low-cost way for OpenSim users to buy legitimate, legal content not only offers creators sales opportunities that they wouldn’t have otherwise but reduces the need for pirated content, similar to the way that Netflix and other streaming services have reduced the amount of illegal video streaming.

In addition, restricting content to closed grids does little to stop piracy. Most stolen content is ripped from Second Life, the original closed grid. The only time that being on a closed grid offers additional security for content creators is when the content involves high-end scripts or proprietary animations.

Speaking of closed grids — where users are not able to teleport to other grids — the biggest such grid, Tag, also has its own online marketplace.

Products on sale on The Adult Grid. (Image courtesy TAG grid.).

The Tag grid marketplace, the only other OpenSim marketplace comparable to the Kitely Market, lists and sells a total of 28,286 virtual items including apparel, avatar accessories, avatar appearances, and other items. From the marketplace’s website, anyone is able to list their products or items on the marketplace to promote them either for sale or as a freebie, but the content can only be purchased and used within the Tag grid and can’t be taken or delivered to other grids.

Catch up with discussions at this year’s OpenSimulator Community Conference

The OpenSimulator Community Conference, an annual event that brings together OpenSim developers and users took place on Saturday, Dec. 10, and Sunday, Dec. 11, and in case you missed anything, you can catch up with the discussions from the conference’s YouTube page as streamed from the event.

This year’s event attracted over 400 hypergrid users, over 100 OpenSim expert speakers, and multiple workshops and exhibitions by sponsors and other users. It hosted interesting discussions on how AI is being used to generate art, collaboration in the metaverse, how to detect and prevent copybots, teaching and learning in metaverse, gaming in metaverse, matrix game system for team play, among many topics.

OSCC is the largest developer and user conference in OpenSim.

Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve, and Christmas Stream at Littlefield Grid

(Image courtesy Littlefield Grid.).

Littlefield Grid will be hosting Christmas Eve and Christmas Night Dance parties from 9.00 p.m. Pacific Time on December 24 and 8.00 p.m. Pacific Time on December 25 at Christmas Island.

There will be rides, ice skating, a Christmas shopping area,  and a dance with DJeeing with DJ Walter Balazic.

The hypergrid address is lfgrid.com:8002:Christmas Island.  

(Image courtesy Littlefield Grid.).

The annual New Year’s Eve Formal Dance Party will also take place on New Year’s Eve on New Year’s Island. Activities scheduled include rides, skating, and New Year’s Party favors. There also will be a Formalwear Shop that offers free tuxedos and gowns and dance with DJ Walter Balazic.

The hypergrid address is lfgrid.com:New Years Island.

LEAD Technologies Inc. V1.01

The grid will also be running the Christmas Stream throughout the holiday until January 6, playing your favorite holiday classics throughout the day and night, Littlefield Grid co-owner Walter Balazic told Hypergrid Business.

The hypergrid address is holiday.littlefieldgrid.com:9950.

Winterfest in Alternate Metaverse this month

Wintervale. (image courtesy Alternate Metaverse.).

The Alternate Metaverse grid will host a Winterfest starting on December 22 through January 1 at the Wintervale region.

There will be winter events including skiing, ice skating, snowboarding, fantasy snow globes, Wintervale Palace, ice fishing, cafe on ice, sledding, winter carriage riding, snowman builds, a winter ballroom, and a photo booth. Other activities and events include a carnival, karaoke, a tree decorating contest, belly dancing, live performances, and DJing.

The hypergrid address is alternatemetaverse.com:8002:Wintervale.

New grids

The following grids were added to our database this month: Freya’s Shadow World, Grid Land, Kid Grid, Konecta Radio, OsDreaming, Sovaria Estates, and Trianon World.

Top 40 grids by land area

The list below is a small subset of existing OpenSim grids. We are now tracking a total of 2,497 different publicly-accessible grids, 407 of which were active this month, and 277 of which published their statistics.

All region counts on this list are, whenever available, in terms of standard region equivalents. Active user counts include hypergrid visitors whenever possible.

Many school, company, or personal grids do not publish their numbers.

The raw data for this month’s report is here. A list of all active grids is here. And here is a list of all the hypergrid-enabled grids and their hypergrid addresses, sorted by popularity. This is very useful if you are creating a hyperport.

You can see all the historical OpenSim statistics here, including polls and surveys, dating all the way back to 2009.

Do you know of any other grids that are open to the public but that we don’t have in our database? Email me at david@hypergridbusiness.com. 

Posted on

OpenSim grids hit record usage as grids prepare for holidays

OpenSim grids added 2,897 active users for a new record high of 45,108 this month. The grids also registered 1,950 new local users within the past 30 days.

The active user numbers include both local residents and hypergrid visitors, which means that some users may be counted twice — however, users would also be counted twice if they visited other grids by creating new local user accounts there.

Meanwhile, land area fell by 16,896 standard regions during the same period. The reduction in the land area was almost entirely due to administrative housekeeping at OSgrid.

OSgrid co-owner Dan Banner confirmed that a cleanup was responsible for a 16,449 drop in their region count this month. Since OSgrid is a “free-to-attach” grid, anyone can run a region on their home computer and have it be part of OSgrid just by running OSgrid’s region installer software. These regions are only up, however, while their owners are running them on their computers. If the computer is shut off, the region disappears. To keep other regions from grabbing their map locations, the locations are reserved. Every so often, the grid cleans out old reservations for regions that haven’t been seen for a long time.

Despite the cleanup, OSgrid remains the largest grid in land area with 22,232 regions in total, and is the most popular in terms of active users with a total of 5,461. Kitely is the second largest grid with 18,394 regions in total, followed by Wolf Territories Grid with 13,200, ZetaWorlds with 7,892, and Alternate Metaverse with 7,019. Scroll to the bottom of the page to find the top 40 largest grids by total land area.

The public OpenSim grids now have a total of 103,180 standard-sized regions in virtual land area. The OpenSim metaverse now is home to 475,167 registered users.

 

OpenSim land area has been increasing on average over the years. (Hypergrid Business Data.).

Alternate Metaverse, reported the biggest growth in land area this month, with 397 new regions. Serenity was second with 177 new regions, followed by The Verse with 47 regions, ArtDestiny with 45 regions, and Littlefield with 32 new regions.

These stats also do not include most of the grids running on OutWorldz DreamGrid — a distribution of OpenSim used by many people to create virtual worlds on personal computers, private company grids, or school grids.

The total number of DreamGrids — or home grids created with the software — has grown from slightly more than 2,000 in September 2020 to more than 7,000 today.  Beckhusen is CEO of Micro Technology Services Inc which owns both DreamGrid and OutWorldz.

Fred Beckhusen

With the free-to-use DreamGrid software, users can easily create virtual worlds through a graphical interface and one-click install feature. They can also use it to easily and quickly manage their grids using graphical interfaces. This includes adding new regions, banning users, deleting regions, auto restarting,  tracking usage stats, and shutting down entire grids or unoccupied regions to save computing power.

The total list of grids tracked by OutWorldz is available here.

OpenSim is a free open-source, virtual world platform, that’s similar to Second Life and allows people with no technical skills to quickly and cheaply create virtual worlds and teleport to other virtual worlds. Those with technical skills can run OpenSim worlds on their own servers for free using either DreamGrid, the official OpenSim installer for those who are more technically inclined, or any other distribution, while commercial hosting starts at less than $5 a region. A list of hosting providers is here. Download the recommended Firestorm viewer here and find out where to get content for your OpenSim world or region here.

Top 25 grids by active users

When it comes to general-purpose social grids, especially closed grids, the rule of thumb is the busier the better. People looking to make new friends look for grids that already have the most users. Merchants looking to sell content will go to the grids with the most potential customers. Event organizers looking for the biggest audience — you get the idea.

Top 25 most popular grids this month:

  1. OSgrid: 5,461 active users
  2. AviTron: 3,915 active users
  3. DigiWorldz: 1,939 active users
  4. GBG World: 1,784 active users
  5. Alternate Metaverse: 1,751 active users
  6. ZetaWorlds: 1,474 active users
  7. MetaverseLife Grid: 1,194 active users
  8. AviWorlds: 1,128 active users
  9. Soul Grid: 1,125 active users
  10. Eureka World: 1,078 active users
  11. Kitely: 1,031 active users
  12. Exo-Life: 989 active users
  13. Party Destination Grid: 949 active users
  14. Moonrose: 940 active users
  15. Neverworld: 926 active users
  16. The City: 850 active users
  17. Dorena’s World: 742 active users
  18. Wolf Territories Grid: 686 active users
  19. Craft World: 682 active users
  20. Astralia: 612 active users
  21. Discovery Grid: 552 active users
  22. Barefoot Dreamers: 517 active users
  23. DreamNation: 502 active users
  24. Littlefield: 497 active users
  25. Gentle Fire Grid: 426 active users

The active list is based on active, unique 30-day user login numbers that grids report on their stats pages. Those grids that don’t report their numbers might be just as popular, but we wouldn’t know.

MetaverseLife Grid added the most active users this month, growing from 80 to 1,194 actives. However, the grid has never had more than 100 actives in one month before, and we couldn’t find any record of major events on the grid this past month, so this statistic may be an administrative error.

Eureka World showed the second-most growth in actives, with a 384 increase, followed by Alternate Metaverse with a 279 increase, OSgrid with 250, and Discovery Grid with 188.

The active user stats are used to generate the popular hypergrid destinations list, which is useful if you have a hypergrid teleport and want to put up gates to the most popular grids, or include the most popular grids in an in-world directory. This list is also a good place to start if you want to open up new stores, hold events, or are just looking for places to visit.

Here’s some information on how and why you should set up a stats page for your grid. Not all grids need a stats page — especially grids that aren’t open to the public like school grids, private company grids, small family grids, and so on. From prior surveys, this dark metaverse of OpenSim grids might actually be bigger than the one we know about, because those grids don’t need to promote themselves, and we never hear about them.

Online marketplaces for OpenSim content

There are currently 19,689 product listings in Kitely Market, containing 38,322 product variations, 33,256 of which are sold with export permission.

(Kitely Market Data.)

Kitely Market has delivered orders to 565 OpenSim grids to date. The Kitely Market is the largest collection of legal content available in OpenSim. It is accessible to both hypergrid-enabled and closed, private grids. The instructions for how to configure the Kitely Market for closed grids are here.

As seen from the above chart, nearly all the growth in Kitely Market has been in content that can be exported to other grids — that is the green area in the chart. The red area, of non-exportable content, has stayed level for the past seven years.

Offering a convenient and low-cost way for OpenSim users to buy legitimate, legal content not only offers creators sales opportunities that they wouldn’t have otherwise but reduces the need for pirated content, similar to the way that Netflix and other streaming services have reduced the amount of illegal video streaming.

In addition, restricting content to closed grids does little to stop piracy. Most stolen content is ripped from Second Life, the original closed grid. The only time that being on a closed grid offers additional security for content creators is when the content involves high-end scripts or proprietary animations.

Speaking of closed grids — where users are not able to teleport to other grids — the biggest such grid, Tag, also has its own online marketplace.

The Tag grid marketplace, the only other OpenSim marketplace comparable to the Kitely Market, lists and sells a total of 28,286 virtual items including apparel, avatar accessories, avatar appearances, and other items. From the marketplace’s website, anyone is able to list their products or items on the marketplace to promote them either for sale or as a freebie, but the content can only be purchased and used within the Tag grid and can’t be taken or delivered to other grids.

Littlefield upgrades server, finds undocumented issue

Littlefield has upgraded to OpenSim 0.9.2.1 after seven years on an earlier version of the software.

Although the upgrade went well, the grid would like to let everyone know about a vital setting that is not in the sample Robust.ini files, is undocumented, and may prevent a successful upgrade to the latest OpenSim version, said Chuck Simmons, Littlefield’s chief technology officer and grid architect. He is also known in-world as Ashton Nobilis.

Chuck Simmons.

“There were a few small issues during the upgrade that other grids should be mindful of when going from 0.8x to 0.9x, but the one that really sticks out is the change in the format of the fsassets datastore directory tree,” he told Hypergrid Business. “In older versions of OpenSimulator, an asset with the UUID of 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 would be stored in a path similar to /data/000/000/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000.gz. Somewhere in the 0.9x development cycle, it was decided that asset should reside at /data/00/00/00/0000/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000.gz, which is a completely different directory path which can prevent the existing asset datastore from being able to be seen by OpenSimulator.”

“Fortunately, there is a setting that can be placed in the Robust configuration files to specify the older format so that the asset datastore doesn’t have to be converted,” he added. “For the benefit of your readers that may still be on 0.x, using fsassets, and wanting to upgrade to 0.9x, the UseOsgridFormat = true command should be placed in the [AssetService] section of the Robust.ini to preserve the older format.”

Simmons was able to do this after parsing the source code but many users may be unable to do this which could interfere with a successful upgrade.

“I’m not sure why this feature is not documented, perhaps it is an oversight, but I don’t see any reason for it to be tucked aside considering the amount of frustration that can be caused,” he said. “We appreciate all the hard work the OpenSimulator developers have done and continue to do, but I think it might be beneficial to the OpenSimulator community to help ensure information is easily available to all.”

The grid is now back up and running on a new server with multiple Robust instances serving its multi-terabyte database and asset datastore to the residents in a safe, stable environment, he said.

The grid has also made minor changes to its region pricing structure., adding a new 15,000-prim region for $10 a month.

Littlefield to host ninth annual Thanksgiving event next week

(Image courtesy Littlefield grid.).

Littlefield’s ninth Thanksgiving — a recreation of the WKRP Turkey Drop, a classic Thanksgiving TV bit from the 70s in the United States — kicks off at 3.00 a.m. Pacific Time on Thursday, November 24.

The hypergrid address is lfgrid.com:8002:Littlefield.

A Thanksgiving dinner is also among the activities prepared and is open to anyone including hypergrid visitors. It will take place at the Stonehaven Region.

The hypergrid address is lfgrid.com:8002:Stonehaven. 

The Thanksgiving Dance Party will be held at the Speakeasy Dance Club starting at 8.00 p.m. Pacific Time.

The hypergrid address is lfgrid.com:8002:Speakeasy. 

WLFG Radio will be playing Alice’s Restaurant and several Thanksgiving-related tunes all day long.

The annual WLFG Holiday Radio stream will be opened on November 25. The stream, which is open for anyone to tune into, will be playing Christmas Music all day and every week until January 6, 2023, Littlefield grid co-founder Walter Balazic told Hypergrid Business.

The hypergrid address is holiday.littlefieldgrid.com:8050. 

(Image courtesy Littlefield grid.).

Littlefield’s Christmas Island will be opened on Friday, November 25. The region will be offering free Christmas decorations that visitors can take away and use to decorate their own areas; free sleigh rides, and other attractions.

The hypergrid address is lfgrid.com:8002:Christmas Island.

Winterfest in Alternate Metaverse next month

Wintervale. (image courtesy Alternate Metaverse.).

The Alternate Metaverse will host a Winterfest starting on December 22 through January 1 at the Wintervale region.

There will be winter events including skiing, ice skating, snowboarding, fantasy snow globes, Wintervale Palace, ice fishing, cafe on ice, sledding, winter carriage riding, snowman builds, a winter ballroom, and a photo booth. Other activities and events include a carnival, karaoke, a tree decorating contest, belly dancing, live performances, and DJing.

The hypergrid address is alternatemetaverse.com:8002:Wintervale.

Monentes Jewelry closes down

The Monentes Jewelry store — which offers free and full perm customizable virtual jewelry in OutWordz and Virtual-HG grids– will be closing down temporarily this month until January 2023 for remodeling. The owner also offers a free Monentes Jewelry Store OAR as a gift to the community so that anyone who wishes can rez their very own jewelry store at their own grid, and will continue to do so.

The remodeling will result into a cozier store and new jewelry designs, said Monentes Jewelry owner and designer Marianna Monentes.

Marianna Monentes

“My main store was in need of a bit of a remodel that it seemed so huge I am thinking of something a bit cozier,” she told Hypergrid Business. “We will see. I am still pondering. January I will open a little satellite store where I will present new pieces so those store owners who rez their jewelry stores at their own grids can pick up and add new pieces to their own store collections. I am also considering making exclusive pieces for each individual store for whoever asks me so that each store will be unique to the owners.”

The Monentes Jewelry store OAR can be picked up at Outworldz.

“I decided to make the jewelry free so that people could check out the jewelry prior to any purchase they might make,” she said. “Giving the store OAR seemed logical and I love that others can have the store on their grids.”

The hypergrid addresses is virtual-hg.com:8002:Monentes Jewelry.

Winter and Christmas shopping at Free Souls

Lunaria has an already set Christmas area, gifts boxes and other gifts, Christmas tree, and decorations. (Image courtesy Lunaria.).

The Lunaria region of the Free Souls grid is themed for the winter season with beautiful winter sceneries and events, including cross-country skiing and skating.

It also has Christmas decorations and Christmas markets where visitors can go shopping for Christmas. There are areas for exploring, trolling, and driving the carousels.

The hypergrid address is free-souls.de:8002:Lunaria.

Winter and holiday events and music at New Hope

The Aria region of the New Hope Grid is ready for winter holiday events and is themed for them with an ice rink, Christmas trees, lighting, and winter blossoms.

The region also hosts regular live music and entertainment events that feature different OpenSim and real-life artists including Rogue Galaxy and Clairde Dirval.

The hypergrid address is login.newhopegrid.com:8002:Aria.

Novale preparing for winter after successful autumn activity

(Image courtesy Novale.).

The Novale region of the CreaNovale grid is preparing for winter events this November after concluding its successful autumn season events and activities.

The Novale’s autumn season — which ended on November 12 — had a host of activities including cereal and fruit growing and harvesting, horse riding, boat tours, a guided tour of the Halloween attractions, and a Caves Hunt.

The hypergrid address is hg.creanovale.ca:8052:NOVALE.

Metaverselife opens new winter store

The iPleasure region at the Metaverselife grid has a new Winter Store which will start offering new winter items as freebies. The region has a new Skin Store for skin freebies. It offers female and male fashion freebies and animations freebies.

The hypergrid address is metaverselife.org:8002:iPleasure. 

New grids

The following grids were added to our database this month: Mathesis and Nymph Paradise.

Top 40 grids by land area

The list below is a small subset of existing OpenSim grids. We are now tracking a total of 2,491 different publicly-accessible grids, 369 of which were active this month, and 267 of which published their statistics.

All region counts on this list are, whenever available, in terms of standard region equivalents. Active user counts include hypergrid visitors whenever possible.

Many school, company, or personal grids do not publish their numbers.

The raw data for this month’s report is here. A list of all active grids is here. And here is a list of all the hypergrid-enabled grids and their hypergrid addresses, sorted by popularity. This is very useful if you are creating a hyperport.

You can see all the historical OpenSim statistics here, including polls and surveys, dating all the way back to 2009.

Do you know of any other grids that are open to the public but that we don’t have in our database? Email me at david@hypergridbusiness.com. 

Posted on

Wyldwood Bayou, Littlefield get perfect scores in 13th annual OpenSim grid survey

More than 300 valid responses came in for the 13th Annual OpenSim Grid Survey, and Wyldwood Bayou and Littlefield, two write-in grids, received perfect scores from their residents. Craft World and Terra Nova, also write-ins, were close behind.

Meanwhile, Alternate Metaverse deserves a mention at the top of this story. It wasn’t the highest-rated grid, or the grid with the most respondents — it was in second place after AviTron — but it did have the most effusive comments from its residents. Scroll to the bottom of this article to read just some of the praise its residents have heaped on this grid and its owners.

Most years, there’s at least one smaller grid that does well in this user survey, because small startup grids typically have close-knit and supportive communities. Plus, on smaller grids, it’s easier for the grid owners to provide support. On larger grids, support can start lagging behind, people can feel lost in the crowd, and there might be challenges scaling the technology.

Overall scores of the ten grids that had the most responses. (Hypergrid Business data.)

Where do OpenSimmers live and visit?

Between them, the respondents had visited 93 different grids and named 40 different grids as their primary homes.

AviTron was the grid that was home to the most respondents, followed by Alternate Metaverse, Kitely, and OSgrid.

Where do OpenSim users make their home? (Hypergrid Business data.)

 

We also asked our readers about the grids that they had visited, other than their own home grid.

OSgrid, OpenSim’s largest and oldest grid, was the most visited — 68 percent of our readers had been to that grid, not counting the 8 percent who make it their permanent home. The next most visited was DigiWorldz with 38 percent, followed by Kitely, with 37 percent.

Where do OpenSim users like to travel? (Hypergrid Business data.)

The numbers add up to more than 100 percent because most people have visited more than one grid. In fact, the average OpenSim users has been to three other grids. At least, they could immediately recall the names of three other grids. Several respondents said that the number of grids they visited was “too high to count.”

Most residents said they were very happy with their grids — 93 percent would “absolutely” recommend them to others. Just 5 percent said “maybe” and fewer than 2 percent said they would not recommend.

Technology, support, community, and content

I did not ask people to compare different grids and tell me which one is better. After all, nobody out there has visited all the grids and tried them all out. Instead, what I do every year is ask people what they think about the grid that they spend the most time on.

Typically, people rate their home grid highly. And that makes sense — after all, that’s the grid where they decided to spend their time. That’s why most grids score as 4 and 5, in every category. If people don’t like a grid, they leave and go live somewhere else.

As grids get larger, however, they also get more people who are generally discontented. In addition, larger grids may have problems maintaining their technology or support. As a result, smaller grids often do very well in these annual surveys.

You’ll notice that the difference between grids is often a fraction of a percent, so please do not take these results as pure gospel. Plus, with the relatively small number of users we have in OpenSim, the margin of error is high — one highly dissatisfied resident can skew the results quite a bit.

Technology

This year, when our readers were asked how they would grade their grid’s technology. Littlefield and Wyldwood Bayou had perfect scores, while Utopia Skye was close behind.

Wyldwood Bayou was also the top-scoring grid in last year’s survey, with Utopia Skye in second place.

OSgrid had the lowest for technology. OSgrid is the largest OpenSim grid, allows people to connect regions that they host at home, for free, on their own computers, and all of its management is by a team of volunteers. OSgrid is also the testing ground for new OpenSim features and releases. All these factors combined mean that any particular region might be running slowly on a home Internet connection, or be using an older version of OpenSim.

These survey results also only show how users feel about the technology — not about the effort that the grids have put into their platform. Kitely, for example, has done a great deal of work on custom code, in addition to contributing code fixes back to the community. And OSgrid is where the OpenSim developers do their testing. Neither of these contributions are necessarily reflected in the poll numbers.

How readers rated their home grids on technology. (Hypergrid Business data.)

 

Support

In support, three grids received perfect scores from their residents — Littlefield, Wyldwood Bayou, and Craft World.

OSgrid scored lowest, but, again, the grid is all volunteer-run and regions are hosted on home computers. And there’s only so much that volunteers can do to help since everybody’s home computer and networking configuration is different.

How readers rated their home grids on support. (Hypergrid Business data.)

Community

For community, Littlefield, Wyldwood Bayou, and Terra Nova had perfect scores, followed closely by Utopia Skye.

How readers rated their home grids on community. (Hypergrid Business data.)

Content

In content, Littlefield and Wyldwood Bayou received perfect scores, followed closely by Craft World and Terra Nova.

How readers rated their home grids on content. (Hypergrid Business data.)

For the latest list of all grids on the OpenSim platform — or some fork of it — check out our Active Grids List.

If you would like to see a full list of results — minus any identifiable information — please email me at maria@hypergridbusiness.com.

Additional comments from the respondents

The following are representative comments about the grids. There were more than 130 comments in all, much higher than last year, some of them quite lengthy, and if anyone wants to see them, or use them on their websites, just email me. Again, I won’t include any personally identifiable information.

In addition to leaving out some of the repetitive comments, I’ve also skipped those that had negative personal attacks or that seemed libelous. And, of course, I also edited out any personally identifying information. The comments have also been very lightly edited for spelling and grammar.

Alternate Metaverse

“Alternate Metaverse has the nicest people and there seems to always be someone on to chat with. They are also very helpful when you run into a problem. Love being there.”

“Alternate Metaverse is far and away the most fun, supportive, and fair-minded grid I’ve ever been a part of.”

“Alternate Metaverse is the most caring and helpful place that anyone could come to.”

“Alternative Metaverse is home for me.. I am from Second Life, I’ve tried other grids, and AMV is by far the most relaxed… peaceful.. fun.. friendly.. supportive grid I’ve yet to experience… will I invite others to AMV? Yes! I have been — I take my family and friends to the best.”

“AMV is likely the best run grid I’ve been on thus far. When my Sir and I arrived here, it was like we had found where we were meant to be. We have one word for Alternate Metaverse — home.”

“Cliff and Cat make the grid welcoming and fun for everyone!”

“Excellent grid management, very good support and a very active community.”

“Great work — keep doing what you do, guys, you’re better then OSgrid. They lose their assets and try to fix it now for a year. I’m happy in AMV and it’s my preferred location for almost everything OpenSim.”

“I have moved six times in the past six years. AMV has been there when the others fail and crash.”

“I spend almost all of my time here at AMV. I was astounded by the way the grid owners — Cat and Cliff — get involved in all the events here. I am also amazed at the way both Cat and Cliff take a sincere interest in the well-being of their residents and on a one-to-one basis. They sincerely show how much they care for each of their residents by going that extra mile to ensure their happiness, contentment, well-being and utmost safety.They ensure a no-tolerance harassment policy and take us, residents, at face value! Thank you both Cat and Cliff for being the best of the best grid owners around!”

“I have been to other grids and to be honest with you, I have found nothing worthy to even compare with Alternate Metaverse’s quality of virtual life. I see this grid growing in leaps and bounds and I don’t think that will stop anytime soon or at all.”

“I would recommend Alternate Metaverse Grid for having the best service and no grid issues and the grid owner knows his stuff from behind the scenes, also the team are friendly and also its community has fun and outgoing people to hang out with. Plus — the Dinkies have arrived on the Alternate Metaverse Grid so now it is more fun and many new activities for all Dinkies to check out and hangout and feel safe at.”

“I tried a couple of other grids and they were nothing compared to Alternate Metaverse. I have visited a lot too when I hypergrid but nothing compares to AMV. It’s the best by far.”

“Every grid we’ve visited has something to recommend it, but when we landed at Alternate Metaverse Grid we knew we had struck gold.”

“The tech is on par with Second Life — and better, in most cases — the residents are comfortable with themselves and each other and the helpfulness, consideration and camaraderie is real, not just something stated by grid owners who hope it’s going to be that way just because they said so.”

“This is a grid worth visiting because it epitomizes everything good about OpenSim. Superior tech, terrific residents, great events and entertainment and exceptional educational opportunities.”

“The owners, Clifford Hanger and Cataplexia Numbers, have done a first- rate job here and the grid reflects who they are and the care they take with it. To say ‘we’re happy here’ is such an understatement. To say ‘we’re finally home’ sums it up so much better.”

“One of the best parts about AMV is that the owners of the grid live here with us. They are part of the entertainment, the building, the event coordination, everything. The friendly community adds to its charm, there are people here ready to participate in every type of activity you can imagine! Clan’s Band makes our home here, and we have been — almost — everywhere in the metaverse!”

“The grid owners and the community itself truly cares about each other on AMV. No better place to be.”

“They have some good learning opportunities at Koryphon Academy.”

“Alternate Metaverse and Wyldwood Bayou are by far the two very best grids in OpenSim. Aesthetically, technically, community, entertainment.”

“Alternate Metaverse Grid is technical 10/10. For builders and scripters. Entertainment for everybody, amazing regions to visit and amazing staff and residents.”

“Totally awesome grid, I love it!”

AviTron

“Avitron, the best don’t miss it..”

“Avitron el mejor lugar.” [Google translate: “Avitron is the best place.”]

“Eu vim do Second Life e graças a um amigo conheci o AviTron, nunca estive tão feliz, em um mundo sem a ganância do dinheiro, sobra tempo para a fantasia a amizade desfrutando de lugares lindos com festas maravilhosas. Problemas tem uma vez ou outra, mas vale a pena por cada alegria de estar no Avitron. Fica meu agradecimento. Patricia Maia.” [Google translate: “I came from Second Life and thanks to a friend I found AviTron. I’ve never been so happy. In a world without the greed of money, there’s time left for fantasy, friendship, enjoying beautiful places with wonderful parties. Problems have one time or another , but it’s worth it for every joy of being at Avitron. I would like to thank you.”]

“I love AviTron.”

“I’m slowly leaving AviTron, due to the owner’s greed and mistreatment.”

“Todas las cuadriculas son buenas, cada una tiene su fantasía y su encanto, gracias a todas está personas que nos hacen una segunda vida mejor, son excelentes.” [Google translate: “All the grids are good, each one has its fantasy and its charm, thanks to all these people who give us a better second life, they are excellent.”]

AviWorlds

“AviWorlds is not only managed by a great team but also has a awesome custom website.”

“Support and technology on AviWorlds is top notch! definitely the best!”

Barefoot Dreamers

“Very attentive owners. Hugabug is on top of things. I feel safe here, no drama — a friendly group.”

Craft World

“Bellissimo.” [Google translate: “Very beautiful.”]

“I am very happy to live on my favorite grid, Craft World.”

“I love my community in Craft World!”

DigiWorldz

“I found out that scripts are disabled when the items is taken off DigiWorldz unless they are full perm. That killed my business. Population on just DigiWorldz is too small to make any money. No ability to create OAR files like on Discovery Grid and Kitely. Very poor interface for land owners. This grid seems pretty stagnant. No meetings with owner to discuss needs and the grid direction like on Discovery and Kitely. No apparent growth in technology unlike Discovery and Kitely. I am probably going to leave.”

Discovery Grid

“Discovery Grid is one of only a select handful of grids I trust the grid owner and that can handle my high-end fireworks displays – support has always been top notch and very fast, extremely pro-active in the fight against the infestation of botted content, and I also consider grid owner, Balpien Hammerer, a friend.”

“Discovery is an up and coming grid that really goes all out to make their residents feel at home.”

“I really like Discovery Grid, I feel really welcomed there. Also they’re always improving things there to make the experience there even more enjoyable!”

“Small community, but very friendly and helpful. Good communication from the owner.”

Edge of Reality

“I love The Edge, it’s a peaceful grid with awesome people.”

GBG World

“GBG World is the fastest grid with only 2 second sim restarts and zero lag.”

“I love living on GBG World. Great and fast service. GBG is the best.”

Genesis

“Genesis is a new grid established 03/30/2022 by Metal Tango and Lavia Lavine, Tango’s mother in real life. Though it was meant to be primarily a role play grid, it has recently accepted a group of refugees from a grid that shut down, led by Thundergod Thor who secured them regions on Genesis.

“I am building or I should say, rebuilding, Land of Xzar on a large variable-sized region, which is a visual of a novel I am writing and when completed, visitors will be able to have an adventure, while learning the story. A huge shopping center is being built with original creations from grid members as well as quality stuff picked up from everywhere meant to be shared. From Viking villages to Starfleet Command Posts, the newly arrived builders are hammering away and we intend on making this exclusive grid — membership is strictly vetted — one of the best homes for people to spend time in, as it isn’t just a grid of random people. On this grid, we are family. Besides being unique in that there are two factions of people inhabiting this grid, some have become friends with the newcomers, and we will be having regular meetings to include both groups so we know who is who and belongs. We may be a small grid, but to us, we are a rising star, and I am so very thankful, I was invited to join.”

HiddenDreams

“There are some amazing creations, fun places, respectful people, and some really beautiful environments. HiddenDreams — growing slowly — has a nice balance of all those traits seen in glances as it develops. I am happy and excited to be at Hidden Dreams grid.”

Kinky Haven 

“I like Kinky Haven because I know the content is legit, the owners are real and customer service is primary.”

Kitely

“I love Kitely, not only because of it’s amazing and kind community but also because the grid owners are so involved and helpful. I also like that it has a marketplace because I’m a creator and a merchant. I recommend Kitely to everyone.”

“I like Kitely for the marketplace and the friendly, welcoming residents, admins, and owner. The only reason I only gave it 4 out of 5 for “Concurrency, stability, & feature set” is because you can’t have a single 256×256 region and put it next to another 256×256 region, and if you do get the advertised single, two-week-trial region, it’s $15 per month for 15,000 prims, while for $5 more, you get 60,000 prims but have to accept a 2×2. A 1×1 is enough to terraform — I don’t like dealing with variable-sized regions, not being able to put individual OARs on it all at once, and the way you can only texture the ground in the southwest corner. At least, that’s been my negative experience with VAR regions. But I’m renting from someone else who deals with all that stuff for me at a very affordable price.”

“I’ve been represented by the same avatar in OpenSim since 2008. I chose Kitely early on for the same reasons I returned to Kitely this past year after taking a long vacation from Second Life or OpenSim. While I was gone I used Unity and UnReal platforms and I spent time completely off the grids relearning watercolor, acrylics, textiles and the brush. While other grids in OpenSim offered this or that, my foremost reason for choosing Kitely — after experimenting with other OpenSim grids — is convenience, consistency, service and price.”

“Ilan Tochner went above and beyond helping me get established and welcomed in the community. It’s because of his assistance I have a private world in Kitely.”

“From being gifted Fluttering Wings by Shandon Loring and told where I can can buy fifties memorabilia, Koshari Mahana and the possibility of having a micro avatar built, Veritas McMaster.”

“I owe Kitely and those who live there my loyalties and support….thank you, thank you! I never thought at fifty one, this old girl could be taught new tricks but thanks to Blender’s Buddies, Mike Lorrey, Kayaker Magic, Original Ruth, Webby Merlin and Clan, I’m in school and learning something new. Its mind blowing just how big the grid really is.”

“Kitely is run with exceptional professionalism.”

“Kitely is the best by far for its moral climate and safety given to families with children. I enjoy not being treated like a piece of meat, but rather treated with respect . I wont trade this community for any other. Now as far as content , its good but always room for improvements. Smiles over all Kitely is the best.”

“Love Kitely great people lotz of fun.”

“Most reliable so far.”

“Super good to test constructions, support can’t be better, most important if copied stuff is found, this is handled in a extremely short period of time.”

Littlefield

“Great friendly place to hang out with friends great music.”

“Littlefield has the best infrastructure of any grid. The admins are attentive, supportive and professional. They make sure that the community is the best. Littlefield Grid rocks!”

“Littlefield is the best for community and is amazingly well run.”

“No other grid has the BDSM content and community that Littlefield has. The admin staff is outstanding and it’s the best running grid out there. No lag, great content, great support, and a great community!”

“The people here are absolutely the best! I can get help immediately when I ask for it, and they are always there when I need them! Great group of people who are always having fun and really care about their communtity!”

“This grid has the best community and support! They bend over backward to assist their users and now that they have upgraded to 9.2 the speed of the grid is unbelievable! I couldn’t be happier to call Littlefield my home!”

“Walter has done a great job with Littlefield.”

Mobius Grid

“I like the aesthetic and also enjoy helping create various audio content for Mobius Grid. It’d be great if more people tried the place out.”

“Mobius Grid is the best grid for content, with it’s stylish Sonic-styled regions and free cartoon avatars, and the community is friendly, but I think OpenSim in general needs a content overhaul.”

My personal grid

“I chose to start my own grid and now I have my server, I can build as much as I want and I still save money. I have never been happier. Now that’s true freedom on the grid for creativity.”

“This grid is a hobby. I’m thrilled when people stop by and look around.”

OSgrid

“Different grids have different settings, they come and go so it’s hard to define which you spend most time on. I run my own mini grid too, but it gets taken down just as easily. The hypergrid would benefit from landmarks working like in Second Life and being able to hop from one grid to another no matter what.”

“This is a good grid but there are a lot of nasty people who spread lies and rumors because they have no lives and nothing better to do with their time. Other than this, the grid is good.”

Terra Nova

“Amo estar no Terra Nova Grid.” [Google translate: “I love being on Terra Nova Grid.”]

“Experiencia, amigos.” [Google translate: “Experience, friends.”]

“Gosto mais a opensim da terra nova grid porque tenho boas pessoas para fazer amizades e conversar brincar e fazer outra coisa de diversao.” [Google translate: “I like opensim from terra nova grid better because I have good people to make friends and talk to play and do something else for fun.”]

“I Go to many other places but the Terra Nova Grid is the best of the best for me. Very happy place and people.

“I love Terra Nova grid and I also love OSgrid, where I have an island.”

“It has varieties of things for fun and lots of parties.”

“Me sinto super bem em terra nova todos são bem amigos prontos a ajudar um ao outro todos empenhados e ajudar.”  [Google translate: “I feel really good in Terra Nova. Everyone is very friendly ready to help each other, everyone committed and helping.”]

“Terra Nova e exelente lugar muito bom ,pessoal la sao maravilhosa começando pelos donos da grid sao 10, gosto muito de Terra nova eles estao de parabens.” [Google translate: “Terra Nova is an excellent place, very good, the people there are wonderful, starting with the owners of the grid are a 10. I really like Terra Nova, they are to be congratulated.”]

“The grid works 24 hours a day, every day of the week, with frequent backups to maintain the entire integrity of the islands and residents.”

“Terra Nova Grid the best at the moment.”

“Terra Nova Grid, o melhor em recepção, o melhor local de paz.”  [Google translate: “Terra Nova Grid, the best in welcoming, the best place of peace.”]

“The activities we have, the parties, combat events among others… and the reception.”

Trianon World

“Trianon World is a new grid, but with Essensual McMahon at the helm, it surely will be great for entertainment and unique custom clothing.”

Utopia Skye

“Utopia Skye Grid is one of only a select handful of grids I trust the grid owner and that can handle my high-end fireworks displays – support is very prompt and professional, the grid is extremely pro-active in the fight against the infestation of botted content, and I also consider grid owners, Mike Chase and Calliope Andel, friends.”

“Anyone who used to be on InWorldz should check out Utopia Skye. Building a real community here.”

“At Utopia Skye, I found a home and friends. I found a place where i could let my creativity loose.”

“Really love their philosophy and ethical values.”

“The owners, Calli and Mike, have gone above and beyond to offer me friendship and a sincere sense of kindness. It seems clear that they care for their residents beyond the ‘Oh I love you cause I want my grid to grow.’ It’s a very comforting feeling when you know your grid owners are not there to use you. I feel at home.”

“Utopia Skye Grid is run by people that care about the community and its residents — full stop. At the technology helm is Mike Chase, leader of the NGC project which focuses on security and stability in the virtual world’s space which creates a trusted environment. Many grids now run the software he has fixed, or added enhancements to, which stems from the OpenSim core codebase. With the changes he’s made, Utopia Skye grid — and any other grid running this software — enjoys more security and increased functionality as well as a stable operating base. On top of that, as we’ve grown over the years, we’ve created a welcoming environment, increased the holistic offerings that we’ve had since inception and worked with special needs groups to create safe spaces. One of the biggest tenets of Utopia Skye Grid is the respect for content and the merchants who create it. And as far as our customers go, we are always available to them in several ways. We provide resources, compassion, technology and the result is community. I would not be anywhere else.”

Wyldwood Bayou

“Great people, great community, great support. They say when you’re here you’re family and they mean it.”

“Wonderful group of people, great role players.”

“Wyldwood Bayou is an amazing grid with wonderful people, quality original builds, great role play, stellar support, and some of the best entertainment on the hypergrid.”

“Wyldwood Bayou Grid is a small community of friends dedicated to providing excellent music venues, roleplay venues, exploration and fun on a non-commercial grid. It’s a fantastic, welcoming place full of really good folks and a great destination if you are looking for hospitality and entertainment. They have a calendar of their events on their website so you don’t miss anything!”

“Wyldwood Bayou has a close knit and warm community, great music events and two active roleplay groups. There is lots to explore and great people to hang out with.”

“Wyldwood Bayou is a friendly place with great music, an adventure park, and fun roleplay.”

ZetaWorlds

“OpenSim is better than Second Life!”

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OpenSim users, land area hit record highs

OpenSim reported land area growth for the third month in a row with the addition of more than 1,400 new regions, for a new record high of 114,567 standard region equivalents. Active monthly users went up by 525, for a new record high of 44,061.

Logicamp and Creatrix World — two major grids that were offline last month — are back up online after downtime and severe crashes.

Tomi’s World grew the most in terms of region count added in the past 30 days with 413 new regions, followed by ZetaWorlds with 199, Alternate Metaverse with 153, Serenity with 112, and Virtual Worlds Zone with 99 new regions.

OpenSim land area by time. (Hypergrid Business Data.).

OSgrid is still the largest grid by land area with a total of 36,942 standard regions followed by Kitely with 18,761, Wolf Territories Grid with 11,600, ZetaWorlds with 7,995, and Alternate Metaverse with 7,401 regions. Scroll down to the bottom of this article to see the list of the 40 largest grids by land area.

These stats do not include most of the grids running on OutWorldz DreamGrid, which is a distribution of OpenSim used by many people to create virtual worlds on personal computers, private company grids, or school grids. With the free-to-use software, customers can easily create virtual worlds through a graphical interface and one-click install feature. They can also use it to easily and quickly manage their grids using graphical interfaces. This includes adding new regions, banning users, deleting regions, auto restarting, shutting down entire grids or unoccupied regions to save computing power, and tracking usage stats.

OutWorldz now has over 1,100 users, Fred Beckhusen, CEO at Micro Technology Services Inc. that runs both DreamGrid and OutWorldz, told Hypergrid Business. 

DreamGrid continues to grow each month with a total of 6,241 unique grids, which is about 92% of all hypergridable grids. A total of 3,504 grids, an average of 292 new grids per month, were crawled in 2021 alone by Hyperica software, which has now been integrated into OutWorldz.

In 2022 so far, there are an average of 285 per month or a total of 1,423 new grids crawled. This is according to a table from the Outworldz Dynamic DNS system, which is an easy-to-use, free service for grids for the Outworldz.net and Inworldz.net domains that make a “grid of grids.”

“Hyperica.com, which was purchased from Maria Korolov some years ago, has now been integrated into Outworldz.com,” said Beckhusen. “There are currently 8,145 distinct items listed — ignoring duplicates — at outworldz.com/search along with links to 115 grids, 581 regions, 127 parcels, and 105 events — it appears in the viewer in ‘Search.'”

“Only assets, regions, parcels, and grids marked ‘Show in Search,’ along with an enabled ‘Publicity’ checkbox in DreamGrid will appear,” he said. ” This also populates the Destination Guide, which was also a part of Hyperica.com.”

The total list of grids tracked by OutWorldz is available here. Anyone can also create a grid with the software and add it manually in the stats via the same link if it is not being crawled by OutWorldz. Outworldz DreamGrids have access to over 170 free OpenSim Archives. The Hyperica events listing also lists current and future online events directly published to OpenSim viewers.

OpenSim is a free open-source virtual world platform that’s similar to Second Life and allows people with no technical skills to quickly and cheaply create virtual worlds and teleport to other virtual worlds. Those with technical skills can run OpenSim worlds on their own servers for free, while commercial hosting starts at less than $5 a region. A list of hosting providers is here. Download the recommended Firestorm viewer here and find out where to get content for your OpenSim world or region here.

Top 25 grids by active users

When it comes to general-purpose social grids, especially closed grids, the rule of thumb is the busier the better. People looking to make new friends look for grids that already have the most users. Merchants looking to sell content will go to the grids with the most potential customers. Event organizers looking for the biggest audience — you get the idea.

Top 25 most popular grids this month:

  1. OSgrid: 4,676 active users
  2. AviTron: 2,716 active users
  3. DigiWorldz: 2,082 active users
  4. Metropolis: 1,842 active users
  5. AviWorlds: 1,500 active users
  6. ZetaWorlds: 1,456 active users
  7. Kitely: 1,338 active users
  8. GBG World: 1,333 active users
  9. Alternate Metaverse: 1,037 active users
  10. Party Destination Grid: 996 active users
  11. Exo-Life: 935 active users
  12. Neverworld: 845 active users
  13. Eureka World: 826 active users
  14. Soul Grid: 808 active users
  15. The City: 778 active users
  16. Craft World: 758 active users
  17. Wolf Territories Grid: 686 active users
  18. Astralia: 676 active users
  19. Quintonia: 584 active users
  20. Freedom Grid: 573 active users
  21. Moonrose: 524 active users
  22. Dorena’s World: 517 active users
  23. DreamNation: 517 active users
  24. Free Life: 487 active users
  25. Arkham Grid: 480 active users

The actives list is based on active, unique 30-day user login numbers that grids report on their stats pages. Those grids that don’t report their numbers might be just as popular, but we wouldn’t know.

These are the most popular grids as of now but aren’t necessarily the fastest growing in terms of new active users. The Wolf Territories Grid gained the most new active users at 463 new, followed by Serenity with 291 new active users, New Hope Grid with 228, Metropolis with 180, and AviTron with 171 new active users.

The active user stats are also used to generate the popular hypergrid destinations list, which is useful if you have a hyperport and want to put up gates to the most popular grids, or include the most popular grids in an in-world directory. This list is also a good place to start if you want to open up new stores, hold events, or are just looking for places to visit.

Here’s some information on how and why you should set up a stats page for your grid. Not all grids need a stats page — especially grids that aren’t open to the public like school grids, private company grids, small family grids, and so on. From prior surveys, this dark metaverse of OpenSim grids might actually be bigger than the one we know about, because those grids don’t need to promote themselves, and we never hear about them.

Online marketplaces for OpenSim content

There are currently 19,512 product listings in Kitely Market containing 38,587 product variations, 33,431 of which are sold with the export permission.

Exportables, product listing and variations in Kitely over the years. (Kitely Market Data)

Kitely Market has delivered orders to 552 OpenSim grids to date, which includes both public grids listed here as well as private grids that are not accessible to the public, don’t report their stats, and don’t make it into our reports.

The Kitely Market is the largest collection of legal content available in OpenSim. It is accessible to both hypergrid-enabled and closed, private grids. The instructions for how to configure the Kitely Market for closed grids are here.

As seen from the above chart, nearly all the growth on Kitely Market has been in content that can be exported to other grids — that is the green area in the chart. The red area, of non-exportable content, has stayed level for the past five years.

Offering a convenient and low-cost way for OpenSim users to buy legitimate, legal content not only offers creators sales opportunities that they wouldn’t have otherwise but reduces the need for pirated content, similar to the way that Netflix and other streaming services have reduced the amount of illegal video streaming.

In addition, restricting content to closed grids does little to stop piracy. Most stolen content is ripped from Second Life, the original closed grid. The only time that being on a closed grid offers additional security for content creators is when the content involves high-end scripts or proprietary animations.

Speaking of closed grids — where users are not able to teleport to other grids — the biggest such grid, Tag, also has its own online marketplace.

The Tag grid marketplace, the only other OpenSim marketplace comparable to the Kitely Market, also lists over 2,000 items including apparel, avatar accessories, avatar appearances, and other items. From the marketplace’s website, anyone is able to list their products or items on the marketplace to promote them either for sale or as a freebie, but the content can only be purchased and used within the Tag grid and can’t be taken or delivered to other grids.

DreamGrid 5.0 to allow running of over 160 regions on home computers

The DreamGrid team is also in the final stages of testing DreamGrid version 5. Tests for 160 regions have been successful and the newer version will allow people to run a large number of regions, said Micro Technology Services’ Beckhusen.

“I’ve successfully run 160 regions on a 2-core — no hyperthreads — Windows 10 PC with 4 GB of DRAM,” he said. “This is far below the recommended amount of RAM, which normally would require 48 GB.”

The ability to freeze and thaw a region for almost instant teleports is new and no CPU is used when no one is in the region, he said.

“On a personal note, I bought control of Micro Technology Services Inc., and am now the CEO,” he added.

Phantom Rose Grid to sponsor OpenSim Fest 2022

Phantom Rose Grid will be one of the sponsors of the OpenSim Fest 2022, with an exhibit on their Welcome region.

“The exhibit space is 128 by 64, so I have recreated The Square from my Phantom Rose Steam region,” Phantom Rose Grid owner Lannorra Sion told Hypergrid Business. “In addition, I have a small interactive Gothic Role Play from my PR Bayou Region, with a special Amulet made just for the OpenSim Fest in presentation box as a prize, and a look at my almost open new Region, Phantom Rose Medieval.”

The exhibit space has information about the Grid as a whole and there are elevator balloon rides at the Square, she added.

The OpenSim Fest, one of the largest OpenSim event with thousands of attendees and volunteers, celebrates creative talents in virtual worlds. This year, it will run from July 8 to 25. The hosts were offering 30 parcels — 25 of which were already occupied as of last month on the OpenSim Fest grid for building exhibitions. Building is ongoing and expected to be complete on June 30.

Also, there will be a preview party on July 1 and build testing from July 2 to 7. The event is hosted by the Infinite Metaverse Alliance. Other sponsors of the event include Laxton Consulting, LLC, which is part of the Infinite Metaverse Alliance. The host is also calling for more sponsors and volunteers.

The organizers, who include entertainers, merchants, tech architects, code maintainers, and graphic artists, are offering free parcels for exhibitors and merchants to start building their exhibits. To get a free parcel, contact the organizers via Facebook, Twitter, or their Discord group. Musicians, DJs, poets, and entertainers wishing to perform at the event can also contact the organizers. The group is also calling for sponsors and volunteers to join them in hosting the event.

Phantom Rose Grid’s new underwater region mimics the ancient Minoan city of Atlantis

Akrotiri in Phantom Rose grid. (Image courtesy Lannorra Sion.)

Phantom Rose Grid has a new region open, known as Akrotiri, which is the start of the Phantom Rose Mer Nation, said Phantom Rose Grid’s Sion.

Each of the eight Mer folk areas in the nation is explored underwater when a visitor lands in the new region. They can then explore mimics of the ruins of Atlantis, the ancient Minoan city which was swallowed into the sea after a volcanic eruption.

“The name Akrotiri is taken from the ancient city of the Minoans, which was on the island now known as Santorini, in Greece,” wrote Sion in a post. “As you may know, the legend of Atlantis talks about a prosperous ancient city, named Atlantis, that sunk into the sea in a catastrophe. Many scholars believe this was based on the destruction of the Minoan empire by the eruption of a volcano on Thíra or Santorini, which buried Akrotiri and caused a huge tidal wave that destroyed Knossos on Crete and other Minoan port cities and led to the downfall of this once-mighty kingdom.”

Adventure Sailboat Race on Discovery grid

Boat sailing in Discovery grid. (Image courtesy Spirit Rock Ranch.).

At 9:30 a.m. Pacific Time on Saturday, June 18, The Spirit Rock Ranch region on Discovery grid hosted the Adventure Sailboat Race for sailing enthusiasts. Winners who clocked the best times against other competitors received cash prizes in Gloebits currency.

The region hosts adventures of different kinds including surfing, archery, big game hunting, horseback riding, and kayaking, every Saturday morning.

The hypergrid address is discoverygrid.net:8002:Spirit Rock Ranch.

Want to hear the full story of the most studied actions in the history of the U.S. military?

Mato Spa will be presenting “Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors,” by bestselling historian Stephen E. Ambrose, at 6 p.m. Pacific Time on Saturday, July 2 at the Paha Sapa region on Kitely.

You need to have your voice activated to hear the full story about Crazy Horse, leader of the Oglala Sioux, and General George Armstrong Custer of the Seventh Cavalry. On June 25, 1876, Custer led 611 U.S. army soldiers toward the banks of the Little Bighorn in the Montana Territory to face 3,000 Native American warriors, led by Crazy Horse, who stood there waiting for battle.

The hypergrid address is grid grid.kitely.com:8002:Paha Sapa.

Pangea Art and Culture Festival 2022 ongoing and calling for artists

Terra Merhyem’s Excalibur. (Image courtesy Pangea grid.)

The hosts of Pangea grid’s Art and Culture Festival 2022 are calling for applications from any international or local German artists who would like to exhibit their art and culture at the festival. The applications should be submitted to info@pangea-grid.com or in-world.

The event kicked off in May with Terra Merhyem’s Excalibur exhibitions. Her multimedia installation based on the Arthurian legends included music, a group dance performance, text, and 3D art. The next big event will be by Rage Darkstone, with many more events to come over the next months.

New grids

The following grids were added to our database this month: Ardiva, Mystic Bermuda, Proud Rainbow, Rainbow World.

Do you know of any other grids that are open to the public but that we don’t have in our database? Email me at david@hypergridbusiness.com.

Top 40 grids by land area

The list below is a small subset of existing OpenSim grids. We are now tracking a total of 1,760 different publicly-accessible grids, 354 of which were active this month, and 294 of which published their statistics.

All region counts on this list are, whenever available, in terms of standard region equivalents. Active user counts include hypergrid visitors whenever possible.

Many school, company, or personal grids do not publish their numbers.

The raw data for this month’s report is here. A list of all active grids is here. And here is a list of all the hypergrid-enabled grids and their hypergrid addresses, sorted by popularity. This is very useful if you are creating a hyperport.

You can see all the historical OpenSim statistics here, including polls and surveys, dating all the way back to 2009.

Below are the 40 largest grids by total land area, in terms of standard region equivalents.

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Metropolis grid closes down so owners can focus on education project

Summer of Arts 2012 exhibitions at Metropolis. (Image courtesy Metropolis.)

Metropolis, one of the three oldest OpenSim major grids is shutting down on June 30 so that the owners can focus on another project, the educational Yunis grid.

In May, Metropolis reported more than 1,600 active users, nearly 20,000 registered users, and the equivalent of more than 800 standard regions. It was the fourth most popular grid by active users, the fifth-largest by registered users, and the 12th largest by land area. This was down a bit since its peak. In 2015, the grid reported more than 3,600 active users and more than 7,000 standard region equivalents.

The owners and administrators have been shifting their focus to Yunis, which is not open to the public, said Peter Jacob, spokesman for Hypergrid Virtual Solutions, which runs the Metropolis grid.

Peter Jacob

“The admins don’t have the time anymore to take care of the users in an appropriate way,” he told Hypergrid Business. “For example, there is no time to hold art events. In the end, we have less and less time to take care of the educational projects in the non-public Yunis grid.

“In addition, OpenSim no longer meets the demands of the education sector for more flexibility, simplicity and portability,” he said. “Here we are breaking new ground with our partner from the education sector.”

Virtual educational platforms are different from ordinary OpenSim grids in terms of technology in that they must be safe and offer protected areas for children and young people, he said. They also must be fault-tolerant and very easy to operate.

“The learning content should interest the students and encourage them to participate,” he said. “We have to think more in terms of serious gaming. And of course the integration of content systems and national educational platforms.”

“Yunis will never reach the size of Metropolis grid but we can utilize our experience in the Yunis grid,” he said.

The grid admins — who include Wanda Shigella, Lena Vanilli, Uncle CM, Zak Spot, and Neovo Geesink — have asked residents to make OAR and IAR backups of their regions and inventories and export them to another grid or to pack them into objects and gift them to friends before June 30.

The decision to close down has disappointed the entire OpenSim community because the German-based grid was one of the most active, played a vital role in OpenSim growth, and helped many connect their small home-run grids to the metaverse.  It was founded in 2008 and was the three oldest grids, along with OSgrid, and 3rd Rock Grid.

“Thanks Metropolis for your years of service to the community,” said Spax Orio, owner of Atrius region in Xoaox grid, in a comment this week at OpenSimWorld. “I hosted a few regions there a long time ago…it would be nice to see more open grids become available. So sad to see them go.”

“Lots of server creation and help and other things came out of Metro over the years,” said KrisTina, owner of Whispering Palms Events region in OSgrid, in a comment. “Many years of memories in Metro!”

Profitability issues

Several OpenSim grids are currently struggling to make or maintain profitability and five more grids closed down last month for the same reason. But finances were not the main reason for closure, said Jacob. However, income from virtual land rent and donations have not been covering the grid’s costs, he admitted.

“Regions were rented out, but ultimately they could not absorb the costs of the grid,” he said. “We also received donations. But at the end of the month, the admins had to dip into their pockets once again. The problem actually always existed. But it wasn’t the reason why Metropolis is closing now after 14 years. ”

Metropolis, on its part, had become very expansive and expensive to run.

“I recall the admins constant struggles to make donations to pay for the grid servers,” Discovery grid’s Rene Vega aka Balpien Hammerer told Hypergrid Business. “They switched to a pay-to-connect model to make ends meet, and I wonder if the freebies mentality finally grew too tiresome for them.”

Antonia Ling, who owns and runs The Art Factory region in OSgrid, recalled that the owners and admins put in a lot of their time and own money to run the grid because they loved what they did but many people had left the grid or stopped being in OpenSim, leaving it lonely.

“Unfortunately, the income of the Metropolis grid crumbled away but the costs stayed the same,” Ling told Hypergrid Business.

Ling first came to Metropolis on January 3, 2010 because Second Life was very expensive. There she built two exhibition halls for the Summer of Arts 2012. She now runs a closed grid.

She recalled that Metropolis sponsored her region for years.  The Art Factory exhibits artworks influenced by Andy Warhol and Rene Magritte as well as small exhibition of posters from the 1927 film Metropolis by Fritz Lang.

Thirza Ember

“It had a very long decline, but in a way for the best reasons – the admins were all busy in real life and having success,” Hypergrid Safari’s Thirza Ember told Hypergrid Business. “I believe they are closing mostly so they can focus completely on Yunis grid, which is a platform for education. So it is all good.”

“The archipelago of German language grids is solid and full of creativity. OpenSim is resilient, and nothing is lost forever,” she added.

She recalled that Metropolis was one of the grids he visited back in 2009 and 2014 when OSgrid was down for many months and her Safari Clubhouse region was attached to Metropolis for about six months.

Inflation is hitting grids hard

Meanwhile, many grids are bearing the blunt of inflation which has led to increasing costs that have forced customers to cut down on virtual land ownership and has reduced profitability of grids because they rarely increase prices, said Kitely grid CEO Ilan Tochner.

Kitely CEO, Ilan Tochner.

“The OpenSim community is quite small and doesn’t have a lot of money to spread around so I expect additional grids will shut down until people wind up at the more financially viable grids that can weather the economic downturn the world is entering,” he told Hypergrid Business.

Alternatively, some people will switch to using self-hosted OpenSim instances, he said, but this will also reduce the size of the OpenSim economy.

“It is really up to the OpenSim community to decide what path they prefer to take,” said Tochner. “People who want to help keep the OpenSim ecosystem alive should consider getting land on the grids they believe have the most staying power.”

He hailed Metropolis as one of the more popular in OpenSim for a very long time.

“It is sad to see them closing down,” he said. “I hope their residents will not give up on OpenSim and instead move to other grids.”

Zetamex Network CEO Vincent Sylvester said that operating a grid can be a massive undertaking.

Vincent Sylvester

“I like to compare to opening a restaurant,” he told Hypergrid Business. “It can be a logistical and administrative nightmare if not for the right people and tools.”

Grids targeted by cyberattacks and griefers

But it’s not just the economy that’s hurting grids.

OpenSim grids are also struggling due to increased cyber attacks and threats from griefers, said Fire and Ice owner Sara Payne.

“Recently there has been another spate of a user using multiple grids’ avatars to grief other grids,” she told Hypergrid Business. “Some of that is the random stuff every server gets, but there is a noticeable amount specifically aimed at stopping their ability to run OpenSimulator.”

The OpenSim software also is volatile and undergoes little maintenance, she said, adding that a huge skill set is required to run a grid and many people are currently not doing it for money as they can make more elsewhere.

“Unless OpenSim changes dramatically to modernize the framework, it has limited lifespan,” said Payne. “It is already not meeting the needs to meet many data protection and copyright legislations.”

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OpenSim land area hits new record high as all stats rise this month

OpenSim land area is up by more than 12,000 standard regions this month compared to last month, bringing the total land area to a record high of 113,151 standard region equivalents.

The growth happened despite some grid outages and closures. In particular, four French grids have shut down over the course of the past two months.

The number of registered users is also up by more than 16,000, mostly due to the Tag Grid now reporting these numbers.

However, total active users dropped by a mere 200 this month.

Logicamp, which had 281 actives and 112 regions last month is down this month and did not report stats. The Social Mouse is also down. Creatrix World is still restoring user accounts and inventories following a severe crash and has not been accepting new residents.

We are now tracking a total of 1,756 grids, 366 of which are active, out of which 286 had their stats reported this month.

Wolf Territories Grid showed the biggest land area growth this month with 11,041 standard region equivalents in the course of the last 30 days, followed by Alternate Metaverse 1,373, OSgrid with 441, ZetaWorlds with 150, Kinky Haven with 132, AviTron with 103 additional regions. Discovery Grid has lost the most land area at 227 regions, followed by Serenity at 171, and Kitely at 114 regions.

OpenSim metaverse land area is now at its most expansive in history. (Hypergrid Business Data.).

OSgrid is the largest OpenSim grid in terms of land area with a total of 36,941 regions, followed by Kitely with 18,828, Wolf Territories Grid with 11,552, ZetaWorlds with 7,796, Alternate Metaverse with 7,248, and Discovery Grid with 5,646 regions. Scroll down to the bottom of this article and see the list of 40 largest grids by land area.

These stats do not include most of the grids running on OutWorldz DreamGrid, which is a distribution of OpenSim used by many people to create virtual worlds on personal computers, private company grids, or school grids.

DreamGrid lets anyone create a small home grid on their computer easily through a graphical interface and one-click install feature. The software is free to download and use. Customers can use it to easily and quickly manage their grids using graphical interfaces. They can add new regions, ban users, delete regions, auto restart and shut down entire grid or unoccupied regions to save computing power, and track usage stats.

Outworldz DreamGrids have access to over 170 free OpenSim Archives. The Hyperica events listing also lists current and future online events directly published to OpenSim viewers. So far, the Hyperica grid crawler software has tracked a total of 6,639 objects including 5,796 DreamGrids and 505 other grids as per their latest update. The total list of grids tracked by OutWorldz is available here. You can also add your grid in the stats if it is not being crawled by OutWorldz.

OpenSim is a free, open-source virtual world platform similar to Second Life that allows people with no technical skills to quickly and cheaply create virtual worlds, and to teleport to other virtual worlds. Those with technical skills can run OpenSim worlds on their own servers for free, while commercial hosting starts at less than $5 a region. A list of hosting providers is here. Download the recommended Firestorm viewer here. And find out where to get content for your OpenSim world or region here.

Top 25 grids by active users

When it comes to general-purpose social grids, especially closed grids, the rule of thumb is the busier the better. People looking to make new friends look for grids that already have the most users. Merchants looking to sell content will go to the grids with the most potential customers. Event organizers looking for the biggest audience — you get the idea.

Top 25 most popular grids this month:

  1. OSgrid: 4,780 active users
  2. AviTron: 2,545 active users
  3. DigiWorldz: 2,036 active users
  4. Metropolis: 1,662 active users
  5. Kitely: 1,434 active users
  6. AviWorlds: 1,402 active users
  7. ZetaWorlds: 1,341 active users
  8. GBG World: 1,208 active users
  9. Alternate Metaverse: 1,152 active users
  10. Party Destination Grid: 949 active users
  11. Exo-Life: 918 active users
  12. The City: 885 active users
  13. Eureka World: 804 active users
  14. Little Breath: 798 active users
  15. Craft World: 765 active users
  16. Neverworld: 750 active users
  17. Dorena’s World: 674 active users
  18. Soul Grid: 670 active users
  19. Astralia: 565 active users
  20. Freedom Grid: 556 active users
  21. DreamNation: 540 active users
  22. Quintonia: 500 active users
  23. Free Life: 490 active users
  24. Arkham Grid: 472 active users
  25. Moonrose: 457 active users

The actives list is based on active, unique 30-day user login numbers that grids report on their stats pages. Those grids that don’t report their numbers might be just as popular, but we wouldn’t know.

These are the most popular grids as at now but aren’t necessarily the fastest growing in terms of new active users. OSgrid showed the most gains with 907 new active users followed by Twisted Grid with 300, Youth Nation with 294, AviTron with 293, GBG World with 148, and Continuum with 110 new active users.

The active user stats are also used to generate the popular hypergrid destinations list, which is useful if you have a hyperport and want to put up gates to the most popular grids, or include the most popular grids in an in-world directory. This list is also a good place to start if you want to open up new stores, hold events, or are just looking for places to visit.

Here’s some information on how and why you should set up a stats page for your grid. Not all grids need a stats page — especially grids that aren’t open to the public like school grids, private company grids, small family grids, and so on. From prior surveys, this dark metaverse of OpenSim grids might actually be bigger than the one we know about, because those grids don’t need to promote themselves, and we never hear about them.

Online marketplaces for OpenSim content

There are currently 19,539 product listings in the Kitely Market containing 38,670 product variations, of which 33,527 are sold with the export permission.
Exportables on Kitely market over time. (Kitely Market Data.)
Kitely Market has delivered orders to 551 OpenSim grids to date, which includes both public grids listed here as well as private grids that are not accessible to the public, don’t report their stats, and don’t make it into our reports.

The Kitely Market is the largest collection of legal content available in OpenSim. It is accessible to both hypergrid-enabled and closed, private grids. The instructions for how to configure the Kitely Market for closed grids are here.

As seen from the above chart, nearly all the growth on Kitely Market has been in content that can be exported to other grids — that is the green area in the chart. The red area, of non-exportable content, has stayed level for the past five years.

Offering a convenient and low-cost way for OpenSim users to buy legitimate, legal content not only offers creators sales opportunities that they wouldn’t have otherwise but reduces the need for pirated content, similar to the way that Netflix and other streaming services have reduced the amount of illegal video streaming.

In addition, restricting content to closed grids does little to stop piracy. Most stolen content is ripped from Second Life, the original closed grid. The only time that being on a closed grid offers additional security for content creators is when the content involves high-end scripts or proprietary animations.

Speaking of closed grids — where users are not able to teleport to other grids — the biggest such grid, Tag, also has its own online marketplace.

The Tag grid marketplace, the only other OpenSim marketplace comparable to the Kitely Market, also lists over 2,000 items including apparel, avatar accessories, avatar appearances and other items. From the marketplace’s website, anyone is able to list their products or items on the marketplace to promote them either for sale or as a freebie, but the content can only be purchased and used within the Tag grid and can’t be taken or delivered to other grids.

BritGrid offering affordable rental regions

BritGrid is continuing to offer affordable rentals and has increased prim allowance on all new and existing regions to 30,000 primitives free of charge, grid owner Mister BritGrid told Hypergrid Business.  The prices are as follows:

  • one region, measuring 256 square meters: £5.00 or US $6.13 per month
  • two-by-two varregion, measuring 512 square meters: £7.50 GBP or US $9.2
  • three-by-three varregion, measuring 768 square meters: £10.00 GBP or US $12.27

All purchases come with extra primitive options of 45,000 or 60,000 at £2.50 or $3.07 for each additional 15,000. There is a daily backup for OARs for all the regions, a choice of X or Y script engine, daily OAR backups, optional Gloebit currency , and optional Vivox voice.  There are no setup fees.

The hypergrid address is britgrid.com:8002.

Chez-Eden grid hosts event for French users in wake of shutdowns

Francogrid, Virtual Dream, Fibia Origin , and Neros have all closed down this month and their French-speaking users have scattered to other grids, said Chez-Eden grid owner Eden Cat.

To support these users, Chez-Eden is hosting an in-world gathering for French OpenSim users. Helping organize the event are Hicks Adder and Max Hill, known in-world as Ignis Faatus.

Most of these users lost their inventories and assets after these closures some of which were unexplained.

The first meeting of the kind will take place on Wednesday, June 1 on the Chez-Eden grid.

The hypergrid address is chez-eden.venez.fr:8002:Chez-Eden.

After that, the grid will be hosting monthly events, including technical talks, to help Francophones meet, help each other, and share information about OpenSim issues.

I Love You, an OpenSim region and social network, celebrates one year annivesary

The I Love You region on the the ZetaWorlds grid will host a birthday party from 8 p.m. Pacific Time on Sunday, May 22 at the Main Event Stage to celebrate turning one year old. The event will be seven hours of fun, music, dancing, and shows. There also will be fireworks at the end of the night.

The event is sponsored by the XusYou OpenSim grid and I Love You Social, a brand new adult social network like Facebook but only open to virtual lifers and which is created for all OpenSimmers. It is free to join and use. The network allows people to make friends, post anything they like, and advertise for free.

The hypergrid address is hg.zetaworlds.com:80:I Love You.

Memorial Day at Equinox grid

(Image courtesy Club Equinox.).

Club Equinox grid will be hosting the grid’s Memorial Day celebration starting 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Time on Sunday, May 22 at the EQG Club Equinox region.

There will be music but the details of the activities are not yet announced. Contact grid owner and administrator Aubrey at Xariaaubrey1972@gmail.com to register for the event.

The hypergrid address is equinoxgrid.com:8002:EQG Club Equinox.

New grids

The following grids were added to our database this month: Darkworldz Grid, France PR, Genesis Roleplay Grid, Imperiya Grid, Love Lemon, Old Fuori Grid, SecretLifeGrid, Thug, and Youth Nation.

Do you know of any other grids that are open to the public but that we don’t have in our database? Email me at david@hypergridbusiness.com.

Top 40 grids by land area

The list below is a small subset of existing OpenSim grids. We are now tracking a total of 1,756 different publicly-accessible grids, 366 of which were active this month, and 2867 of which published their statistics.

All region counts on this list are, whenever available, in terms of standard region equivalents. Active user counts include hypergrid visitors whenever possible.

Many school, company, or personal grids do not publish their numbers.

The raw data for this month’s report is here. A list of all active grids is here. And here is a list of all the hypergrid-enabled grids and their hypergrid addresses, sorted by popularity. This is very useful if you are creating a hyperport.

You can see all the historical OpenSim statistics here, including polls and surveys, dating all the way back to 2009.

Below are the 40 largest grids by total land area, in terms of standard region equivalents.

Posted on

April stats all up despite outages

All OpenSim stats are up this month. The total land area of the public OpenSim grids increased by more than 1,000 regions, to 100,880, while the active users increased by more than 3,000, to 43,272.

Creatrix World, which reported more than 700 regions last month, is currently recovering from a server crash, and The Social Mouse is down for maintenance and reported a large drop in active users. In addition, the Great Canadian Grid did not report its land area stats this month, and Tag Grid did not report its active users.

We are now tracking a total of 1,748 grids, 361 of which are active, out of which 297 had their stats reported this month.

This month, OSgrid was the biggest gainer of land area, with the equivalent of 947 new regions, followed by Furry World with 424, Serenity with 275, Alternate Metaverse with 138, and AviTron with 75 new regions.

OSgrid is also the largest grid in terms of land area, with a total of 36,500 standard region equivalents followed by Kitely with 18,942, ZetaWorlds with 7,646, Alternate Metaverse: with 5,875, and Discovery Grid with 5,873 regions. Scroll down to the bottom of this article and see the list of 40 largest grids by land area.

Total regions, in standard region equivalents, on public OpenSim grids, as of April 2022. (Hypergrid Business data.)

These stats do not include most of the grids running on OutWorldz DreamGrid, which is a distribution of OpenSim used by many people to create virtual worlds on personal computers, private company grids, or school grids.

DreamGrid lets anyone create a small home grid on their computer easily through a graphical interface and one-click install feature. The software is free to download and use. Customers can use it to easily and quickly manage their grids using graphical interfaces. They can add new regions, ban users, delete regions, auto restart and shut down entire grid or unoccupied regions to save computing power, and track usage stats.

Outworldz DreamGrids have access to 170 free OpenSim Archives, with five more in the works.

The Hyperica events listing also lists current and future online events directly published to OpenSim viewers. According to OutWorlds and DreamGrid owner Fred Beckhusen, the Hyperica grid crawler software is tracking a total of 6,639 objects including 5,796 DreamGrids and 505 other grids.

OpenSim is a free, open-source virtual world platform similar to Second Life that allows people with no technical skills to quickly and cheaply create virtual worlds, and to teleport to other virtual worlds. Those with technical skills can run OpenSim worlds on their own servers for free, while commercial hosting starts at less than $5 a region. A list of hosting providers is here. Download the recommended Firestorm viewer here. And find out where to get content for your OpenSim world or region here.

Top 25 grids by active users

When it comes to general-purpose social grids, especially closed grids, the rule of thumb is the busier the better. People looking to make new friends look for grids that already have the most users. Merchants looking to sell content will go to the grids with the most potential customers. Event organizers looking for the biggest audience — you get the idea.

Top 25 most popular grids this month:

  1. OSgrid: 3,873 active users
  2. AviTron: 2,244 active users
  3. DigiWorldz: 2,113 active users
  4. Metropolis: 1,774 active users
  5. AviWorlds: 1,485 active users
  6. ZetaWorlds: 1,484 active users
  7. Kitely: 1,456 active users
  8. Alternate Metaverse: 1,293 active users
  9. GBG World: 1,052 active users
  10. Eureka World: 952 active users
  11. Party Destination Grid: 938 active users
  12. Exo-Life: 917 active users
  13. Craft World: 913 active users
  14. Neverworld: 876 active users
  15. The City: 772 active users
  16. Little Breath: 710 active users
  17. Dorena’s World: 658 active users
  18. Soul Grid: 644 active users
  19. Astralia: 640 active users
  20. DreamNation: 552 active users
  21. Free Life: 512 active users
  22. Arkham Grid: 498 active users
  23. Freedom Grid: 494 active users
  24. Barefoot Dreamers: 489 active users
  25. Fire and Ice Grid: 479 active users

Since last month, AviTron gained the highest number of active users with an increase of 720 actives, Fire and Ice Grid with 479, VirtuaWorld with 447, Alternate Metaverse with 261, and Dorena’s World with 255 new actives. Full details are available on this month’s full grid stats report page.

The actives list is based on active, unique 30-day user login numbers that grids report on their stats pages. Those grids that don’t report their numbers might be just as popular, but we wouldn’t know.

The active user stats are also used to generate the popular hypergrid destinations list, which is useful if you have a hyperport and want to put up gates to the most popular grids, or include the most popular grids in an in-world directory. This list is also a good place to start if you want to open up new stores, hold events, or are just looking for places to visit.

Here’s some information on how and why you should set up a stats page for your grid. Not all grids need a stats page — especially grids that aren’t open to the public like school grids, private company grids, small family grids, and so on. From prior surveys, this dark metaverse of OpenSim grids might actually be bigger than the one we know about, because those grids don’t need to promote themselves, and we never hear about them.

Online marketplaces for OpenSim content

There are currently 19,469 product listings in Kitely Market, containing 38,600 product variations, 33,469 of which are sold with the Export permission.

(Kitely Market Data.)
Kitely Market has delivered orders to 543 OpenSim grids to date, which includes both public grids listed here as well as private grids that are not accessible to the public, don’t report their stats, and don’t make it into our reports.

The Kitely Market is the largest collection of legal content available in OpenSim. It is accessible to both hypergrid-enabled and closed, private grids. The instructions for how to configure the Kitely Market for closed grids are here.

As seen from the above chart, nearly all the growth on Kitely Market has been in content that can be exported to other grids — that is the green area in the chart. The red area, of non-exportable content, has stayed level for the past five years.

Offering a convenient and low-cost way for OpenSim users to buy legitimate, legal content not only offers creators sales opportunities that they wouldn’t have otherwise but reduces the need for pirated content, similar to the way that Netflix and other streaming services have reduced the amount of illegal video streaming.

In addition, restricting content to closed grids does little to stop piracy. Most stolen content is ripped from Second Life, the original closed grid. The only time that being on a closed grid offers additional security for content creators is when the content involves high-end scripts or proprietary animations.

Speaking of closed grids — where users are not able to teleport to other grids — the biggest such grid, Tag, also has its own online marketplace.

The Tag grid marketplace, the only other OpenSim marketplace comparable to the Kitely Market, also lists apparel, avatar accessories, avatar appearances and other items. From the marketplace website, anyone is able to list their products or items on the marketplace to promote them either for sale or as a freebie, but the content can only be purchased and used within the Tag grid and can’t be taken or delivered to other grids.

Help Cream The Rabbit find Easter eggs

(Image courtesy Mobius grid.)

Cream The Rabbit is searching for missing Easter eggs in the ongoing Easter egg hunt at the Green Hill Zone region of the Mobius grid, and is inviting  you to help out in the in-world search. Starting on the Easter weekend on Sunday, April 17, you will be helping The Cream find 12 Easter eggs by April 30.

“When you approach Cream she will start talking to you,” grid head Serra Royale told Hypergrid Business. “Click the hyperlinks appearing as underlined text in the messages she sends to continue the dialogue. You may need to right click the hyperlinks and click Run this Command on some viewers.”

In this hunt game, you will need to click the eggs when you find them.

The hypergrid address is main.mobiusgrid.us:80:Green Hill Zone.

Happy Easter!

Mobius grid has also redesigned the region by replacing most of the prim builds with optimized mesh that features improved textures.

Dereos grid celebrates Easter this Sunday

The PSSMG Paradise region of the Dereos grid will host an Easter Fire 2022 event at 8 p.m. Pacific time on Sunday, April 17 featuring Easter tunes with DJ Dereos, Ly and Aki. There also will be decorations and surprises.

The hypergrid address is dereos.org:80:PSSMG Paradise.

Easter decoration ideas at the Soul Grid

(Image courtesy Soul-Ostara.)

Looking for some Easter season decoration ideas? Soul-Ostara region of the Soul Grid has some fantastic ideas you can consider this season.

The hypergrid address is soul-grid.de:8002:Soul-Ostara.

Easter eggs at Encantada

(Image courtesy Encantada.)

Need some Easter decorated eggs for your region or virtual world? The Encantada region of the OSgrid — which always houses free mesh items for home and garden — has some eggs some that you can use as is or with modification. The textures are included in the Peter Rabbit Egg.

The hypergrid address is hg.osgrid.org:80:Encantada.

Neverworld has a new continent area and free parcels

Neverworld grid now has a new continent area comprising of 37 regions currently but to be expanded shortly. The grid is also offering free water island parcels parcels at The Keys, Mariner’s Bay, and North and South Bay Estates. The free parcels range from 10,000 square meters to over 70,000 square meters in size, said grid owner Govega Sachertorte.

“We have a lot of exciting things happening soon including a collaboration with a major music or art talent, which will bring a whole new level of users to our grid and spaces, including live concert venues,” she told Hypergrid Business.

New grids

The following grids were added to our database this month: Cooperation Creative, Maze of The Mind, Nautika, and Victoria Lane.

Do you know of any other grids that are open to the public but that we don’t have in our database? Email me at david@hypergridbusiness.com.

Top 40 grids by land area

The list below is a small subset of existing OpenSim grids. We are now tracking a total of 1,748 different publicly-accessible grids, 361 of which were active this month, and 297 of which published their statistics.

All region counts on this list are, whenever available, in terms of standard region equivalents. Active user counts include hypergrid visitors whenever possible.

Many school, company, or personal grids do not publish their numbers.

The raw data for this month’s report is here. A list of all active grids is here. And here is a list of all the hypergrid-enabled grids and their hypergrid addresses, sorted by popularity. This is very useful if you are creating a hyperport.

You can see all the historical OpenSim statistics here, including polls and surveys, dating all the way back to 2009.

Below are the 40 largest grids by total land area, in terms of standard region equivalents.

Posted on

OpenSim monthly usage up, land area down on grid outages

The total number of active users was up quite a bit this month, but total land area and registered users dropped slightly. The loss of 144 standard region equivalents and 1,141 registered users was more than accounted for by the fact that FrancoGrid had server issues and didn’t report its stats this month and Russia based Caprica also didn’t report stats.

Last month FrancoGrid had nearly 8,000 registered users last month, 51 regions, and 88 active users. Caprica had 306 regions last month and 162 active users.

Overall OpenSim gained nearly 2,000 active users last month.

Fire and Ice grid didn’t report active users this month following an internally performed database rectification that came along with an interruption to stats reporting. Last month they had more than 400 active users.

The system checks for logins within 30 days and will self-heal, said grid CEO Sara Payne.

“There were a number of users showing a last login date of zero,” she told Hypergrid Business. “I forcibly updated to a current unix time stamp.”

Progress in total OpenSim land area over the years. (Hypergrid Business Data.)

OSgrid remains the most expansive spanning a total of 35,553 regions, followed by Kitely 18,937, ZetaWorlds 7,643, Discovery Grid 5,810, and Alternate Metaverse 5,737 regions. These are not necessarily the ones that earned the highest number of regions this month. The top five region earners this month are Tomi’s World with 192, Alternate Metaverse 168, GBG World 152, German World Grid 86, and MisFitz Grid with 84 new regions.

These stats do not include most of the grids running on OutWorldz DreamGrid, which is a distribution of OpenSim used by many people to create virtual worlds on personal computers, private company grids, or school grids.

DreamGrid lets anyone create a small home grid on their computer easily through a graphical interface and one-click install feature. The software is free to download and use. Customers can use it to easily and quickly manage their grids using graphical interfaces. They can add new regions, ban users, delete regions, auto restart and shut down entire grid or unoccupied regions to save computing power, and track usage stats.

Outworldz DreamGrids have access to 170 free OpenSim Archives, with 5 more in the works.

The Hyperica events listing also lists current and future online events directly published to OpenSim viewers. According to OutWorlds and DreamGrid owner Fred Beckhusen, the Hyperica grid crawler software is tracking a total of 6,639 objects including 5,796 DreamGrids and 505 other grids.

OpenSim is a free, open-source virtual world platform similar to Second Life that allows people with no technical skills to quickly and cheaply create virtual worlds, and to teleport to other virtual worlds. Those with technical skills can run OpenSim worlds on their own servers for free, while commercial hosting starts at less than $5 a region. A list of hosting providers is here. Download the recommended Firestorm viewer here. And find out where to get content for your OpenSim world or region here.

Top 25 grids by active users

When it comes to general-purpose social grids, especially closed grids, the rule of thumb is the busier the better. People looking to make new friends look for grids that already have the most users. Merchants looking to sell content will go to the grids with the most potential customers. Event organizers looking for the biggest audience — you get the idea.

Top 25 most popular grids this month:

  1. OSgrid: 4,804 active users
  2. DigiWorldz: 2,070 active users
  3. Metropolis: 1,641 active users
  4. AviTron: 1,524 active users
  5. ZetaWorlds: 1,459 active users
  6. AviWorlds: 1,393 active users
  7. Kitely: 1,263 active users
  8. GBG World: 1,046 active users
  9. Alternate Metaverse: 1,032 active users
  10. Eureka World: 1,019 active users
  11. Party Destination Grid: 954 active users
  12. Exo-Life: 910 active users
  13. Neverworld: 785 active users
  14. Craft World: 704 active users
  15. Little Breath: 622 active users
  16. The City: 571 active users
  17. DreamNation: 554 active users
  18. Astralia: 547 active users
  19. Free Life: 532 active users
  20. Moonrose: 509 active users
  21. Soul Grid: 463 active users
  22. Arkham Grid: 444 active users
  23. Barefoot Dreamers: 422 active users
  24. Freedom Grid: 409 active users
  25. Dorena’s World: 403 active users

The above are the top 25 grids in terms of total active users over 30 days. We compared this figure with the previous month’s tally for each grid to generate a list of most active grids or a list of grids that gained most active users in the last 30 days.

The above, however, are not necessarily the most active grids in terms of number of active users gained during the past month. This month Twisted Grid beat all the rest in terms of user acquisition at 353 new users, followed by Eureka World 317, AviTron 287, German World Grid 225, and Kitely 203 new users. Full details are available on this month’s grid stats link.

The actives list is based on active, unique 30-day user login numbers that grids report on their stats pages. Those grids that don’t report their numbers might be just as popular, but we wouldn’t know.

The active user stats are also used to generate the popular hypergrid destinations list, which is useful if you have a hyperport and want to put up gates to the most popular grids, or include the most popular grids in an in-world directory. This list is also a good place to start if you want to open up new stores, hold events, or are just looking for places to visit.

Here’s some information on how and why you should set up a stats page for your grid. Not all grids need a stats page — especially grids that aren’t open to the public like school grids, private company grids, small family grids, and so on. From prior surveys, this dark metaverse of OpenSim grids might actually be bigger than the one we know about, because those grids don’t need to promote themselves, and we never hear about them.

Online marketplaces for OpenSim content

There are currently 19,432 product listings in Kitely Market, containing 38,568 product variations, 33,431 of which are sold with the export permission.

(Kitely Market Data.)

Kitely Market has delivered orders to 540 OpenSim grids to date, which includes both public grids listed here as well as private grids that are not accessible to the public, don’t report their stats, and don’t make it into our reports.

The Kitely Market is the largest collection of legal content available in OpenSim. It is accessible to both hypergrid-enabled and closed, private grids. The instructions for how to configure the Kitely Market for closed grids are here.

As seen from the above chart, nearly all the growth on Kitely Market has been in content that can be exported to other grids — that is the green area in the chart. The red area, of non-exportable content, has stayed level for the past five years.

Offering a convenient and low-cost way for OpenSim users to buy legitimate, legal content not only offers creators sales opportunities that they wouldn’t have otherwise but reduces the need for pirated content, similar to the way that Netflix and other streaming services have reduced the amount of illegal video streaming.

In addition, restricting content to closed grids does little to stop piracy. Most stolen content is ripped from Second Life, the original closed grid. The only time that being on a closed grid offers additional security for content creators is when the content involves high-end scripts or proprietary animations.

Speaking of closed grids — where users are not able to teleport to other grids — the biggest such grid, Tag, also has its own online marketplace.

The Tag grid marketplace, the only other OpenSim marketplace comparable to the Kitely Market, also lists apparel, avatar accessories, avatar appearances and other items. From the marketplace website, anyone is able to list their products or items on the marketplace to promote them either for sale or as a freebie, but the content can only be purchased and used within the Tag grid and can’t be taken or delivered to other grids.

OpenSim grids uninterrupted by sanctions

(Image courtesy Sacrarium.)

We didn’t find any OpenSim grid that has been closed as a result of sanctions against Russia or the war in Ukraine. Owners of Sacrarium and Caprica OpenSim grids, for instance, told Hypergrid Business that they are working normally despite sanctions. Most grids do not have an official statement about whether they support Ukraine or Russia, but quite a number of OpenSim grids have expressed support for Ukraine and condemned the war.

Caprica grid is openly supporting Russia following the invasion of Ukraine and according to a March 1 post on its website, the grid fully supports the action to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine.

 Littlefield to celebrate 9th birthday next month

(Image courtesy Littlefield Grid.)

Littlefield Grid will host its 9th birthday anniversary party on Saturday, April 2 in the grid’s special birthday region. The event will feature live performers and a dance. The grid is also giving free regions to and inviting anyone who wants to build anything for exhibition during the entire month of April following the celebrations.

The grid will also celebrate St. Patrick’s Day on March 17, and Easter Sunday and Monday on Apr 17 and 18 respectively.

The hypergrid addess is lfgrid.com:8002.

FrancoGrid no more after server host failure

Internet 3 Solutions office on Rochegude region in FrancoGrid (Image courtesy FrancoGrid.).

FrancoGrid has disappeared following a breakdown of Scaleway Online company servers where the grid was hosted. The data on the servers cannot be retrieved. Customers are invited to retrieve any Dedibackup service linked to the servers by the end of this month since the backup services will also be removed then. The host was unwilling to resolve the problem and thus the grid cannot rebuild said Cherry Manga, the grid’s owner. However, the association still remains and on standby.

“Assets are lost after 2020, assets from before 2020 are safe,” he said. “Our technical admin is thinking about a solution to provide .iar to people who want them. For any information, please contact ssm by email at contact@francogrid.org.”

The team is working on refunding money paid for hosting for the month of February.

For any information regarding cash, or for paid hosting to mount simulators on the grid of your choice, please contact Nino by email at fgagod@gmail.com.”

DreamGrid Version 5 releases this coming weekend

(Image courtesy DreamGrid.)

The current operational version of OutWorld’s DreamGrid is 4.99 but Version 5 will be released this weekend. The update is coming following a last minute change to the Text-To-Speech feature which lets users convert text to a female or male sound as they wish. It can be used to convert typed text into sound files for uploading or using in scripts in a grid.

“It makes mp3 files on demand that play with media on a prim and makes uploadable .wav files for scripted use,” OutWorldz and DreamGrid’s CEO Beckhusen told Hypergrid Business. “I added a bunch of these voices to my region this weekend and found a bug when I did it.”

The bug has since been fixed.

People using the DreamGrid software can do an optional update to the latest version through an update notice that will pop up when the software opens. The software now has a Smart Suspend mode that suspends unoccupied regions automatically. This reduces their CPU usage to 0% but leaves them some memory just in case someone teleports there.  They are swapped to disk when memory is needed for other regions.

“Teleports are almost instant as if the region is always on,” said Beckhusen. 

Mal Ban is back

The Mal Ban’s Hypergrid Safari is back and will be visiting the OutWorldz grid to close the first season and the team will then meet with Diva Canto on her University grid to talk about the future of OpenSim.

JokaydiaGrid goes offline

JokaydiaGrid is now permanently closed following a natural phasing out since 2020 when the public side of the grid was closed. The grid was no longer necessary as some of the larger services like Kitely and Dreamland now provide good options for educators who want to use a public virtual space, grid owner Jo Kay said.

“My work has always focused on virtual spaces and their use in education, and progressed to mostly Minecraft projects,” she told Hypergrid Business.”

Get a free parcel and start building for the OpenSim Fest exhibition

(Image courtesy OpenSim Fest.)

OpenSim Fest — a festival that celebrates creative talents on virtual worlds — will run from July 8 to 25 this year. Building on the host OpenSim Fest grid is expected to be complete on June 30. There also will be a preview party on July 1 and build testing from July 2 to 7. The event is hosted by the Infinite Metaverse Alliance.

The organizers, who include entertainers, merchants, tech architects, code maintainers, and graphic artists, are offering free parcels for exhibitors and merchants to start building their exhibits. To get a free parcel, contact the organizers via Facebook, Twitter, or their Discord group. Musicians, DJs, poets, and entertainers wishing to perform at the event can also contact the organizers. The group is also calling for sponsors and volunteers to join them in hosting the event.

New grids

The following grids were added to our database this month: Continuum, Dark Sim, Migrating Coconuts, Neros, NewOffworld, XTalent.

Do you know of any other grids that are open to the public but that we don’t have in our database? Email me at david@hypergridbusiness.com.

Top 40 grids by land area

The list below is a small subset of existing OpenSim grids. We are now tracking a total of 1,744 different publicly-accessible grids, 369 of which were active this month, and 293 of which published their statistics.

All region counts on this list are, whenever available, in terms of standard region equivalents. Active user counts include hypergrid visitors whenever possible.

Many school, company, or personal grids do not publish their numbers.

The raw data for this month’s report is here. A list of all active grids is here. And here is a list of all the hypergrid-enabled grids and their hypergrid addresses, sorted by popularity. This is very useful if you are creating a hyperport.

You can see all the historical OpenSim statistics here, including polls and surveys, dating all the way back to 2009.

Below are the 40 largest grids by total land area, in terms of standard region equivalents.

Posted on

Grids stand with Ukraine following Russian invasion

(Image courtesy Craft World.)

Most OpenSim grids have not given an official statement regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but quite a few are standing with Ukraine, with the exception of Russian grids Caprica and Sacrarium. Some grids are showing support for Ukraine by holding fundraisers, posting banners, supporting Ukrainian content creators, and calling for an end to the war. Other grids are openly expressing dissatisfaction against any war — whether in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, or another country — no matter  the circumstances.

Here are the ways different grids are getting involved.

ZetaWorlds sanctions and stops business with Russians

(Image courtesy ZetaWorlds.)

ZetaWorlds grid announced last month that it won’t be doing business with any Russian nationals, saying this is in adherence to the NATO states’ directives on sanctioning Russia. The grid is condemning the war in Ukraine by calling it an unprovoked invasion by Russia and said it’s removing all users located in Russia.

No to war calls and donations on Ocean Grid

(Image courtesy Ocean Grid.)

The Ocean Grid is running a No To War post on its blog and in the grid’s welcome area with an outright condemnation of all wars including that in Ukraine. The grid says it welcomes all Russians and Ukrainians but not supporters of war.

Not only does the grid condemn war and what it calls authoritarian administrations in Russia and Belarus, but also the far-right paramilitary group called the Pskov Regiment in Ukraine, and racism in Ukraine during this time of war.

“I have put up a No To War sign in Ukrainian and Russian in the welcome area linking to the site https://vostok-sos.org/en/, where people can donate to those in need in the Ukraine,” says the post. “Please remember that not all of those in need are Ukrainians — there are people of other nationalities, including Russians and also refugees from Syria and residents who are from Asian and African countries. The latter are facing racial discrimination in some cases and being denied the same rights to asylum in neighboring countries as Europeans are receiving.”

Ukraine-themed shopping on OSgrid

(Image courtesy The Big Easy.)

The shop by PaulineNOVA19 is offering Ukraine-themed items in support for Ukraine at the OSgrid’s Big Easy region.

The hypergrid address is hg.osgrid.org:80:The Big Easy.

Ukraine flags in Littlefield

(Image courtesy Ruritania.)

The Ruritania region of Littlefield is displaying a Ukrainian flag in support for Ukrainians and to bring awareness to the suffering they are undergoing during this time of war. The hypergrid address is lfgrid.com:8002:Ruritania.

Lots of Ukrainian sunflowers in Alternate Metaverse and OSgrid

(Image courtesy Flora.)

You can get up to 90 yellow sunflowers, the national flower of Ukraine, free of charge for one single prim region in support for Ukrainians. The full perm items are available at the Garden Area of the Flora region in the Alternate Metaverse grid. Jimmy Olsen, the region’s owner, is not against Russia specifically but is against war in general.

The hypergrid address is alternatemetaverse.com:8002:FLORA.

The Art Factory in OSgrid is also themed with yellow sunflowers to show support for Ukrainians.

Donation calls, calls to submit peace content at the Art Factory in OSgrid

(Image courtesy The Art Factory.)

The Art Factory of the OSgrid held a fundraiser on February 27 in support for Ukraine and set up a special room called The Picasso Peace Room where people can sit down to meditate peacefully and reflect. People can also send flowers, notes, messages, candles, and wishes of peace to Ukraine.

The Art Gallery of Peace is another place you can find captivating content that captures the war in Ukraine. You can also submit your peace art about the war in Ukraine, or other wars, for people to see.

One of the images displayed at the Art Gallery of Peace (Image courtesy The Art Factory.)

The Moma Gallery at The Art Factory region is also exhibiting art in support for Ukraine and against the war.

“And so it goes that for every Goliath there is a stone,” say the banners on OSgrid.

The OSgrid is also calling for continued donations through these pages:

https://donate.redcross.org.uk/appeal/ukraine-crisis-appea…
https://www.unicef.org.uk/donate/donate-now-to-protect-chi…
https://help.rescue-uk.org/ukraine-crisis-se
https://unitedhelpukraine.org
https://www.facebook.com/sunflowerofpeace

The hypergrid address is hg.osgrid.org:80:The Art Factory.

Littlefield’s Pray For Ukraine splash page

(Image courtesy Littlefield.)

Littlefield is calling for anyone to pray for Ukraine and keep the country in their thoughts through a splash page titled Pray For Ukraine.  The Littlefield region of the grid is also themed with yellow sunflowers in support for the country. You can pick these as freebies in the region and put them on your own virtual region or grid.

The hypergrid address is lfgrid.com:8002:Littlefield.

Craft World’s peace events

The Craft World grid held an in-world Stop The War campaign on March 4, a special women’s day on March 9 with a thought for Ukrainian women fighting or fleeing the war ,and a Hypergrid Safari adventure on March 10 with Thirza Ember where some attendees wore attire with Ukrainian flags in support for Ukraine.

Peace festivals on Dorena’s World

The Dorena’s World grid is in full support for Ukranians and is hosting a series of peace festivals this week. The first event was held on Tuesday, March 15. The next event will be held at 12 noon Pacific Time featuring peace music sung by Ukrainian musicians with DJ DJane Loru Destiny. Attendees will then move to the Club GridTalk at the Dereos Grid.

The grid’s Bluewave Club will host peace tunes sung by Ukrainian musicians with DJ Akira Sonoda at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time on Wednesday, March 16.

The events will be streamed on Shoutcast server.

The hypergrid addresses are Dorenas-World.de:8002. radio-rote-dora.org:8000.

Caprica grid supporting Russia’s actions

(Image courtesy Sacrarium.)

Russian grid Caprica is in full support of Russia’s actions to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine, according to a post on the grid’s website. The post says it’s a strong statement and a demonstration of a valid point of view.

PayPal, however, has refused to process the grid’s payment according to a post on March 5 . The grid called the move barbaric and said it’s a flagrant violation of the contract and calls into question the sanity of the owners of PayPal. The grid is however continuing to serve users without failures or interruptions and has put into place a crisis solution with the server’s service providers, according to the post.

Sacrarium grid blocked

German-based Dorena’s World grid announced that it blocked Sacrarium grid, saying the grid was silent about the war in Ukraine yet continued to operate under the .su domain. Sacrarium grid responded on March 1 that everyone waiving No To War posts or condemning Russia did not know the facts. The grid wrote that it supports peace in Ukraine but will not condemn Russia and Putin because history puts Ukrainian administrations in a very bad position regarding this war.

AviTron also announced on March 12 that it had lost access to the Russian-based Sacrarium grid due to the events in Ukraine and Russia but it has enabled hypergrid travel.