Win App Update tracks the number of currently available apps in the Windows 8 store, and has reported via Twitter that the store likely passed the 20,000 app mark earlier this week. The Next Web covered the Windows 8 store on November 5th, coming in at a total of roughly 12,895 applications. That leaves today’s milestone to mean almost 8,000 apps have been added to the Windows store in a just under 3 weeks.

It’s worth noting, however, that not all apps are available in every region. Overall, Win App Update says that there are over 20,000 apps in the Windows Store, with roughly 18,000 of those being completely free.  13,000 of those are available in the US, oddly 1,000 more than that are available in Canada, and 11,000 are available in the United Kingdom.

This may seem like a huge milestone until you realize that Apple got a significant head start — the App store hit 1,000,000 available apps just 4 days ago according to App tracking service Appsfire. Microsoft has a lot of work to do if they want their store to become as successful as their direct competitors. Yes, they’re behind, but Microsoft did a great job of launching their new Surface-Windows Phone 8-Windows 8 ecosystem this month. They definitely have some great products, but they have to convince developers they’re ready.

[The Next Web]