Deadlocked at 995: Armin van Buuren Leads David Guetta as Charlotte de Witte Closes In

There is no daylight at the top of the DJ Radar worldwide rankings. Armin van Buuren and David Guetta both have a credit score of 995, and Charlotte de Witte sits on 992. Three points separate first from third, and fewer than 1,000 votes separate all three. Few global top threes get closer than this.

Credit score alone doesn't split the two leaders. The gap shows up in the vote count: Armin van Buuren holds 86,057 votes to David Guetta's 85,688, a margin of 369. That's slim, but in a field this close, slim is all anyone gets.

Armin van Buuren is the only trance artist in this top three, and the numbers are broad rather than towering: 15,152,615 Spotify monthly listeners, 4,796,482 Spotify followers, 6,200,000 YouTube subscribers, 1,187,795 SoundCloud followers, 5,030,332 on Instagram and 1,738,312 Last.fm listeners. Mixcloud is the one platform where Armin beats Guetta, with 99,646 followers to 17,892.

David Guetta's platform numbers sit in a different bracket. Representing the commercial dance/pop lane, Guetta posts 82,502,263 Spotify monthly listeners, 28,686,423 Spotify followers, 27,900,000 YouTube subscribers, 12,439,658 Instagram followers, 7,000,000 on TikTok and 5,185,692 Last.fm listeners. Guetta leads this trio on every platform in the data except Mixcloud, including Resident Advisor at 152,250 followers.

And yet all that reach buys a share of first place, not first place outright. Whatever goes into a credit score, raw follower totals clearly don't decide it. If they did, this wouldn't be a race at all.

Charlotte de Witte's 992 may be the most telling number on the board. Representing Belgium and techno, de Witte has a far smaller streaming base: 1,805,792 Spotify monthly listeners, 1,467,545 Spotify followers, 1,010,000 YouTube subscribers, 498,388 SoundCloud followers and 194,193 Last.fm listeners. Even so, de Witte finishes three points off the top with 85,330 votes, just 358 behind Guetta.

On Resident Advisor, de Witte's 60,037 followers edge past Armin's 58,187, and the profile also lists a festival count of 202. Taken together, this is a standing built on more than streaming volume.

The best thing about this top three is its range. Trance, dance/pop and techno each claim a spot, with the Netherlands, France and Belgium represented. No single scene owns the top. With three points between first and third on credit score and 727 votes between them, no lane is pulling clear.

For now, the order stands: Armin van Buuren first, David Guetta level on points but second, and Charlotte de Witte close enough to make every vote count.