A new report shows 20 top open source startups around the world, more than half of which are closely matched by AI.
The report is European Venture Capital Company Runa CapitalRuna open source startup (Rose) Index Since 2020. The index provides quarterly updates to the fastest growing project on GitHub “Star”, which is similar to “similar” on social media. Starting in 2023, Runa begins Annual Production Reporthighlighting the most popular commercial open source startups of the year.
Last year’s report Proof of AI and data infrastructure The need for open source tools is being promoted. Langchain Hit the pole position in the Ross index for an open source framework for building LLM-centric applications.
This year, this is a similar story, with AI centers being 11 of the top 20 companies.
It is worth noting that the Ross index is carefully planned and does not include any old open source projects. Qualified projects must be closely related to commercial companies (i.e., supplier-led projects), meaning there are no accompanying projects. In addition, these companies must be 10 years younger. Less than $100 million raised; and completely independent – therefore not a subsidiary or publicly listed.
Star Watch
The highest point of the Rose Index in 2024 is HoramaY combinationist alum This is an open source tool for running LLM, e.g. Yuan’s camel and DeepSeek Local (i.e. desktop). Olama’s Github Star Number It increased by about 76,000 to 2024, up 261% to over 105,000 (it has since risen to 135,000 stars in the past few months).
The next one in the list is Zed Industriescross-platform Collaborative Code Editor “Specially designed for high-performance collaboration with humans and AI.” The ZED project has been around for some time, but Only open source In January 2024, over the remaining year, it gained more than 52,000 Github Stars.
The third place is LangenusThe company behind the open source LLM application development platform is called Dify. The project has reached more than 43,000 new Github Stars Last year, the number soared to 84,000 stars from about 13,000 to nearly 57,000.
Then there is comfyuian open source node-based program for generating images, videos, and audio using a generated AI model. project Github Star Number Last year it grew 195% to 61,900 stars.
The top five are Full handa company called behind the open source platform Open Used to build software development agents. OpenHands received 39,600 Github Stars from its launch from March last year to the end of 2024, adding another 12,000 stars since then.
While last year’s Ross index illustrates the explosive growth of AI and LLM, it also shows that developer tools are still hot in the open source world, while ZED and ZED and Ultraviolet rays of the star (No. 9) Both are in the top 10. Elsewhere, the existence of PDF manipulation tools Stirling PDF (No. 7), Financial Management Software Maybe it’s finance (No. 8) and Remote Desktop Software Rustsk (No. 17) It is recommended that privacy-centered autonomous tools are still in high demand.
Focus on Ethereum blockchain fuel (No. 12) Indicates that cryptocurrency/Web3 is still alive and kicking.
Given that contributors from all corners of the world can participate, the nature of open source software has always been distributed. The same is often true for supplier-led projects. However, commercial entities often have a certain center of gravity – even if it just means that it has been formally merged.
Last year’s Ross index showed that San Francisco was home to six of Ross’ top 20 startups, while Canada has three, Europe (UK, Switzerland, Hungary and the Czech Republic), and Singapore and China make up the rest.
Methodology
There are other ways to track “hot” open source projects. Two Sigma Ventures operate Open Source Indexwhich is conceptually similar to the Ross index, except that it shows the top 100 projects without focusing specifically on commercial startups (it also provides different ways to filter data).
Gitub itself provides Top project listagain there is no specific focus on commercial business.
Worth seeing too Methodology Behind the Rose Index. Github “Stars” can be an imperfect measure because it only indicates that someone “likes” the project, rather than actively using or monitoring it. Older projects will naturally purchase more “stars” too, which is why Runa focuses on introducing the relative growth of the repository in its 90-day quarterly report, as well as the absolute amount obtained in its annual report.
This also means that annual reports look very different from quarterly reports, as absolute stellar counts are not always consistent with fast relative growth patterns.
There may also be some problems with the problem classified as “open source”. Although many items on the list are indeed recognized CopyLeft or loose open source licensethis is not a strict rule of the Ross index. Runa says it adheres to the “business perception” of open source, rather than Official open source definition. Therefore, a company that publishes software under a server-side public license (SSPLFor example), even Open Source Initiative has not reached the garbage SSPL as “open source”.
Nevertheless, the index is not only a useful indicator of which open source technology trend, but also what companies are trying to build their business on it.
