Top 10 DJs Worldwide: Armin van Buuren and David Guetta Tie at 995

Nobody holds the top of DJ Radar's worldwide credit-score ranking alone this year. Armin van Buuren and David Guetta both sit on 995. The only difference between their cards is the vote count: Armin has 86,057 and Guetta has 85,688, a gap of 369 votes.

That pairing tells you a lot about how this list works. Armin represents Trance and the Netherlands. Guetta represents France and Dance / Pop, and his streaming numbers fit the genre: 81,957,019 Spotify monthly listeners and 27,900,000 YouTube subscribers. They took very different routes and ended up on the same score.

The votes fall into three clear groups. The top three each drew more than 85,000. Positions four to six sit between 52,796 and 53,203. The last four land between 32,523 and 33,600. Votes and credit score rise together, but not exactly in step. The whole ten covers just 29 points, from 995 down to 966.

Belgium's Charlotte de Witte is the only Techno act in the top three, on 992 with 85,330 votes. Her profile looks different from the two above her: 1,755,352 Spotify monthly listeners next to 6,475,688 Instagram followers, plus a festival count of 202. The other two podium spots went to trance and pop, so a techno act at #3 shows that the harder end of the scene can compete on the same terms.

The Netherlands holds three of the ten places, and no other country has more than two. After Armin comes Tiësto at #4, on 990 with 53,203 votes and 34,038,383 Spotify monthly listeners. Martin Garrix takes #5 on 987, and his Big Room output is backed by 15,319,988 Instagram followers and 15,200,000 YouTube subscribers.

Both American entries work in the same genre. Anyma (#6, 981) and John Summit (#7, 978) are both listed under Melodic House & Techno. That makes it one of only three main genres with two entries in the ten, along with Trance and Techno. Anyma has 6,729,482 Spotify monthly listeners and 2,500,000 TikTok followers. John Summit reaches 11,983,189 monthly listeners on 33,600 votes.

Carl Cox (#8, 977) and Fred again.. (#9, 975) are the United Kingdom's two entries, two points apart and listed under different genres. Cox's Techno profile includes 259,283 Mixcloud followers, a platform built for long-form sets. Fred again.., listed under House, has 26,933,258 Spotify monthly listeners and 162,106 Resident Advisor followers, the highest RA figure in this top ten.

South Africa's Black Coffee finishes the ten on 966 with 32,523 votes. It is the only Afro House entry and the only African one on the list. The profile shows a festival count of 371 and 5,105,386 Instagram followers. The nine-point drop from Fred again.. is the largest gap between neighbours anywhere in the countdown.

The top ten covers six genre families and six countries, with a tie at the top. Reach clearly matters, but streaming doesn't decide the order alone. Charlotte de Witte ranks above acts with far bigger Spotify audiences, and so does Carl Cox, whose 954,638 monthly listeners put him one place above Fred again.. All ten have a real claim to their spot.