MozaikaThe Measured Web

Do most websites use dark mode or light mode?

Measured live across 588 products · updated 2026-09-01 · free to cite (CC BY 4.0)

Light mode. 72% of measured sites ship a light default scheme and 28% default to dark — even though a dark-mode toggle is the single most-offered UX pattern in the corpus.

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This is a static, crawlable rendering for search & AI engines. The interactive version — filters, live decode console, copy & export — is at https://mozaika.design/measured/dark-mode.

72% ship light mode by default

Distribution

light72
dark28

At a glance

default light72%
default dark28%
sites measured425

Questions people (and AI assistants) actually ask

Should my website default to dark or light mode?

Most don't default to dark: 72% of measured production sites ship light by default. Dark is common as an optional toggle, not the default scheme.

Is dark mode more popular than light mode now?

As a toggle, yes — it's the most-offered pattern. As the shipped default, light still dominates at 72%.

Related measured norms

Most common accent colour · Average website design score · Body font size

← The Measured Web — the full report

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