---
title: "Which came first, TikTok or Windows?"
description: "TikTok vs Windows: Windows came first, by 31 years — 1985 against 2016. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/tiktok-vs-windows/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, TikTok or Windows?

**Which came first, TikTok or Windows?: Windows**

1985 — 31 years before TikTok

Windows came first, by 31 years. Microsoft shipped Windows 1.0.

## Side by side

|  | TikTok | Windows |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 2016 | 1985 |
| Date | — | 1985-11-20 |
| Category | technology | technology |
| What happened | ByteDance launched Douyin in China; TikTok followed abroad in 2017. | Microsoft shipped Windows 1.0. |

## TikTok

The app launched in China as Douyin in September 2016 and internationally as TikTok in 2017. What made it global was the 2018 acquisition and merger of Musical.ly, a lip-sync app that had launched in 2014 and already had a large Western user base — so part of TikTok is two years older than TikTok. Douyin and TikTok remain separate apps on separate infrastructure.

## Windows

Windows 1.0 shipped in November 1985, twenty-two months after the Macintosh, and it was not an operating system — it was a graphical shell running on top of MS-DOS, and remained so until Windows NT in 1993 and the consumer transition with Windows XP in 2001. Version 1.0 could not even overlap windows: they tiled, because Apple's legal position on overlapping windows was unresolved.

## Common questions

### Which came first, TikTok or Windows?

Windows, by 31 years — 1985 against 2016.

### When did TikTok start?

2016. ByteDance launched Douyin in China; TikTok followed abroad in 2017.

### When did Windows start?

1985. Microsoft shipped Windows 1.0.

## Related pages

- [Microsoft or Windows?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/microsoft-vs-windows/)
- [Apple or Windows?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/apple-vs-windows/)
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- [the internet (ARPANET) or TikTok?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/arpanet-vs-tiktok/)
- [email or Windows?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/email-vs-windows/)
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- [the Macintosh or TikTok?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/macintosh-vs-tiktok/)
- [Windows or the World Wide Web?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/windows-vs-world-wide-web/)
- [Windows or YouTube?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/windows-vs-youtube/)
- [Python or Windows?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/python-vs-windows/)
- [Python or TikTok?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/python-vs-tiktok/)

## Sources

- Typical range compiled from manufacturer specifications — At One Place (/about/)
- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]