Download Tor Metrics Historical Data
The Tor Metrics project continuously monitors the public Tor network, archiving years of statistics that are freely available for anyone to download. Because the Tor Project operates on a philosophy of transparency and open data, researchers, developers, and the general public can access historical data regarding relay counts, bridge usage, bandwidth consumption, and performance metrics without needing an account or special permissions.
Types of Historical Data Available
Tor Metrics aggregates historical information spanning over a decade. The primary data categories include:
- User Traffic Estimates: Daily user counts connecting directly to the network or through bridges, categorized by country, transport type, and IP version.
- Relay and Bridge Statistics: Historical tallies of active relays and bridges, their flags (e.g., Exit, Guard), running versions, and platform distributions.
- Traffic and Bandwidth: Advertised bandwidth, bandwidth history, and actual read/write traffic across the entire network.
- Onion Services: Aggregated traffic estimates and total counts of active hidden services.
- Performance Metrics: Download times for standardized files through Tor over time, showing network latency and throughput trends.
How to Access and Download the Data
Anyone can retrieve Tor historical metrics through several methods depending on their technical needs:
- Direct CSV Downloads: Almost every graph on the Tor Metrics portal includes a direct link beneath the visualization allowing users to download the underlying dataset as a standard CSV file.
- The CollecTor Service: For advanced analysis, the CollecTor service acts as the central archive. It stores raw network data, including historical network consensus documents, server descriptors, and bridge statistics packaged in compressed tarballs.
- Onionoo REST API: Onionoo provides a web-based protocol to query current and historical operational data about running Tor relays and bridges in JSON format.
All archived metrics are published under open terms, ensuring that anyone can inspect, verify, or build upon the data for academic, journalistic, or technical research.