Rarest Sorting Algorithm — All 39 Answers Ranked by Rarity

39 answers are accepted for “Name a sorting algorithm”. Multi-key quicksort is the rarest sorting algorithm in this ranking, with 1,016 monthly Wikipedia views (rarity 1.000, Legendary). Kirkpatrick–Reisch sort is the second-rarest with 1,057 monthly Wikipedia views, about the same as Multi-key quicksort. Quicksort is the most common sorting algorithm in this ranking, with 191,264 monthly Wikipedia views, 188.3× the figure for the rarest. Combined monthly Wikipedia views across the 39 answers: 1,053,571. Multi-key quicksort is under 0.1% of that total. 8 answers are Epic or Legendary: Multi-key quicksort (Legendary), Kirkpatrick–Reisch sort (Legendary), Proxmap sort (Legendary), and 5 more.

Quick answer

Monthly English Wikipedia pageviews. Source: Wikidata + Wikipedia pageviews (2026-10).

Ranked answers

39 answers to “Name a sorting algorithm”, rarest first. A rarity of 1 is the rarest answer in this prompt.
Rank	Answer	Tier	Rarity	Monthly Wikipedia views
1	Multi-key quicksort on Wikipedia	Legendary	1.000	1,016
2	Kirkpatrick–Reisch sort on Wikipedia	Legendary	0.974	1,057
3	Proxmap sort on Wikipedia	Legendary	0.947	1,358
4	Strand sort on Wikipedia	Epic	0.921	1,366
5	Burstsort on Wikipedia	Epic	0.895	1,868
6	Pairwise sorting network on Wikipedia	Epic	0.868	2,327
7	Cubesort on Wikipedia	Epic	0.842	2,498
8	Library sort on Wikipedia	Epic	0.816	3,909
9	Tournament sort on Wikipedia	Rare	0.789	4,093
10	Samplesort on Wikipedia	Rare	0.763	4,165
11	Spaghetti sort on Wikipedia	Rare	0.737	5,317
12	Batcher odd–even mergesort on Wikipedia	Rare	0.711	6,449
13	Odd–even sort on Wikipedia	Rare	0.684	6,936
14	Tree sort on Wikipedia	Rare	0.658	6,944
15	Bead sort on Wikipedia	Rare	0.632	6,948
16	Pigeonhole sort on Wikipedia	Rare	0.605	7,022
17	Smoothsort on Wikipedia	Uncommon	0.579	7,089
18	Patience sorting on Wikipedia	Uncommon	0.553	8,068
19	Cycle sort on Wikipedia	Uncommon	0.526	8,309
20	Comb sort on Wikipedia	Uncommon	0.500	8,633
21	Stooge sort on Wikipedia	Uncommon	0.474	11,565
22	Cocktail shaker sort on Wikipedia	Uncommon	0.447	12,185
23	Slowsort on Wikipedia	Uncommon	0.421	12,787
24	Merge-insertion sort on Wikipedia	Familiar	0.395	15,004
25	Pancake sorting on Wikipedia	Familiar	0.368	20,748
26	Introsort on Wikipedia	Familiar	0.342	22,189
27	Bitonic sorter on Wikipedia	Familiar	0.316	22,619
28	Counting sort on Wikipedia	Familiar	0.289	26,045
29	Shellsort on Wikipedia	Familiar	0.263	27,872
30	Bucket sort on Wikipedia	Familiar	0.237	28,869
31	Powersort on Wikipedia	Familiar	0.211	31,496
32	Selection sort on Wikipedia	Common	0.184	48,636
33	Heapsort on Wikipedia	Common	0.158	63,701
34	Timsort on Wikipedia	Common	0.132	64,266
35	Bogosort on Wikipedia	Common	0.105	69,844
36	Radix sort on Wikipedia	Common	0.079	71,399
37	Insertion sort on Wikipedia	Common	0.053	100,723
38	Bubble sort on Wikipedia	Common	0.026	116,987
39	Quicksort on Wikipedia	Common	0.000	191,264

FAQ

What is the rarest sorting algorithm?

Multi-key quicksort is the rarest sorting algorithm in this ranking, with 1,016 monthly Wikipedia views (rarity 1.000, Legendary).

How many sorting algorithms are there?

There are 39 sorting algorithms in this ranking, from Multi-key quicksort (rarest) to Quicksort (most common).

What is the most common sorting algorithm?

Quicksort is the most common sorting algorithm in this ranking, with 191,264 monthly Wikipedia views (Common).

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Sources

Recorded source: Wikidata + Wikipedia pageviews (2026-10). The answer list is compiled from Wikidata (CC0), and the view counts are monthly English Wikipedia pageviews. Rarity is the percentile of the popularity figure inside this prompt: 1 is the rarest and 0 is the most common. Linked names open the English Wikipedia article stored on that answer.