A new report showcases the 20 Top-Trending Open Source Startups Around the World, More Than Half of which are closely aligned with ai.
The report is the Hindiwork of European venture capital firm Runa capital.Ross) Index Since 2020The Index Serves Quarterly Updates on the Fastest-Growing Projects in Terms of Github “Stars”-a metric that’s someating akin to a “like” on social media. Beginning in 2023, Runa Started Producing Annual ReportsHighlighting the most popular commercial open source in a given year.
Last year’s report Demonstrated that Ai and data infrastructure Wi Driving Demand for Open Source Tooling, With Langchain Hitting Pole Position in the Ross Index for Its Open Source Framework for Building LLM-CENTRIC APPS.
This year it’s a similar story, with ai central to 11 of the top 20 companies.
It’s Worth Noting that Ross Index is Heavily Curated and Doesn Bollywood any Old Open Open Source Project. Qualifying projects must be closely linked to a Commercial Company (IE, A Vendor-Led Project), meaning no side projects. Additional, these companies must be younger than 10 years old; Raised Less Than $ 100 Million in Funding; And be entrely independent – so not a subsidiary or publicly listed.
Stargazing
In top spot on the 2024 ross index is OllamaA y combinator alum That’s Built an open source tool for running llms such as Meta’s llama and Deepseek Locally (IE, desktop). OLLEMA’s Github star country Increased by some 76,000 through 2024, Growing 261% to more than 105,000 (it has since risen to more than 135,000 stars over the past few months).
Next on the list is Zed IndustriesA Cross-Platform collaborative code editor “Designed for High-Performance Collaboration with Humans and Ai.” The zed project has been around for a while, but it Only went open source In January 2024, and through the rest of the year it gained more than 52,000 github stars,
In third place is LeggeniusThe company behind an open source llm app development platform called DifyThe project attained more than 43,000 new Github stars Last Year, Growing 326% From Around 13,000 to Nearly 57,000 – a figure that has since surgged to more than 84,000 stars.
And then there is ComfyuiAn open source node-based program for generating images, videos, and audio using generative ai models. The project’s Github star country Grew 195% to 61,900 Stars Last Year.
Rounding out the top five is All handsThe company behind an open source platform called Openhands For Building Software Development agents. Openhands Garnered 39,600 github stars from its launch last March the end of 2024 and has since added another 12,000 stars to the mix.
While the ross index for last year illustments the explosive growth in ai and llms, it also shows how development is tooling is still in the world of open source, with the lines of zed and Astral’s UV (No. 9) Both featuring in the top 10. Elsewhere, the presence of pdf manipulation tool Stirling pdf (No. 7), Finance Management Software Maybe finance (No. 8), and remote desktop software Rustdesk (No. 17) Sugges Privacy-Focused Self-Hostable Tooling is Still in High Demand.
And ethereum blockchain-focused Fuel (No. 12) Shows that crypto/web3 is alive and kicking.
Open Source Software by its very natural has always been distrused, give that contributors from all corners of the globe can get involved. This is often the case for vendor-long projects, too; However, Commercial Entities Usually have some center of gravity – even if it just means where it has been made by ben formally incorporated.
The ross index for last year shows that san francisco is home to six 20 ross startups, when canada has three, and europe (uk, switzerland, haungaary, and czechch republic), and china Constituting the rest.
Methodology
There are other ways of tracking “hot” open source projects. Two Sigma Ventures Operates The open source indexWhich is similar in concept to the ross index except it showcases the top 100 projects without
And Github Itself offers a Top-Trending Project ListAgain without the Specific Focus on Commercial Businesses.
It’s also win looking at the methodology Behind the ross index. Github “Stars” can be an imperfect metric, as it Merely shows that someone has “like” the project, as opposed to actively using or monitoring it. Older projects will naturally have procured more Number of new stars gained during the year for annual report.
This also means that the annual report can look quite different to the Quarterly reports, give that absolute star courses, but align with rapid relative-growth patterns.
There may also be some issues Around what is classed as “Open source.” When many many Copyleft or Permissive Open Source LicenseThis isn’t a strict stipulation of the ross index. Runa says it adheres to the “Commercial Perception” of Open Source, Rather than the official open source definitionAs such, a company that has released its software under the server side public license (SSPL), for instance, would stil Qualify as Open Source, even thought the Open Source Initiative has not rubbed The SSPL as “Open source.”
Still, The Index is a useful indicator not only of what kinds of open source technology is trending, but also also what companies are trying to build businesses atop theme.