The self-gravitating gas in the Newtonian limit is studied in the presence of dark energy with a linear and constant equation of state. Entropy extremization associates to the isothermal Boltzmann distribution an effective density that includes `dark energy particles, which either strengthen or weaken mutual gravitational attraction, in case of quintessence or phantom dark energy, respectively, that satisfy a linear equation of state. Stability is studied for microcanonical (fixed energy) and canonical (fixed temperature) ensembles. Compared to the previously studied cosmological constant case, in the present work it is found that quintessence increases, while phantom dark energy decreases the instability domain under gravitational collapse. Thus, structures are more easily formed in a quintessence rather than in a phantom dominated Universe. Assuming that galaxy clusters are spherical, nearly isothermal and in hydrostatic equilibrium we find that dark energy with a linear and constant equation of state, for fixed radius, mass and temperature, steepens their total density profile. In case of a cosmological constant, this effect accounts for a 1.5% increase in the density contrast, that is the center to edge density ratio of the cluster. We also propose a method to constrain phantom dark energy.
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