--- title: "More Open Source Benchmarks, the ROSS Index and the Fastest-Growing OSS Startups" date: 2020-10-21 description: "Discover more open-source growth benchmarks which are relevant for OSS startups, including insights on programming languages, and the introduction of the Runa Open Source Startup (ROSS) index" --- After the success of my previous post on [open-source benchmarks](https://kvinogradov.com/open-source-growth-benchmarks/), it has become clear that: (1) tech companies and VCs eager to monitor fresh fast-growing OSS startups, and (2) repos based on various programming languages need additional benchmarks. So this article extends the benchmarks, introduces such a monitoring tool and unveil a new set of 20 fastest-growing open-source startups (based on Q3 2020 data). ## ⚙️ Programming Language Matters One of the missing parts of open-source growth benchmarks were metrics for various programming languages. Obviously, it's better to compare apples to apples, not JavaScript to C++ repos. So I analyzed the distribution of star growth for repositories depending on their main language. ![Programming languages distribution](/images/more-oss-benchmarks/languages.webp) One could use data on ~26K Github repos having 1K+ stars at the beginning of Q2 2020 and examine their growth by stars over the following 6 months. ![alt text](/images/more-oss-benchmarks/medium-article.webp) For the sake of convenience, let's focus only on the most popular languages representing ~3/4 of the dataset. They are JavaScript, Python, Java, Go, C, C++, PHP Objective-C, Ruby. Like [last time](https://medium.com/runacapital/open-source-growth-benchmarks-and-the-20-fastest-growing-oss-startups-d3556a669fe6), we will use an annualised growth rate [AGR = (value now / value 2 quarters ago)² — 1] to represent growth of stars in the year-over-year format. One can plot the distribution chart, showing for every language [legend] that X% of its repos [x-axis] grow ![Star benchmarks](/images/more-oss-benchmarks/star-benchmarks.webp)For instance, 60% of Java repos grow slower than 10% annually, 55% of Go repos grow slower than 20% annually. The extreme cases of the fastest (about 90% quantile) and the slowest (below 10% quantile) repos are intentionally excluded to show the general picture. Surprisingly, 3 clear groups appear among the top languages: - **Group A** (Go, Python, C++, C) includes trendy languages mostly used for back-end software development. A repo based on any of these languages grows better than the average if its annual growth rate exceeds 17%. - **Group B** (Java, JavaScript, PHP) combines a couple of popular web development languages and Java, which seems to have much more common with JavaScript besides its name 🙂 - **Group C** (Ruby, Objective-C) is the slowest growing set of languages losing popularity in the developer community. According to [Github Language Stats](https://madnight.github.io/githut/#/pull_requests/2020/2) share of Ruby pull requests at Github has dropped 3 times from its peak in 2012 to 6.5% in 2020. Objective-C dropped 5x since 2014. ![Star Fork language groups](/images/more-oss-benchmarks/star-fork-groups.webp)For those who care: Fork Growth = 0.97 x Stars Growth (R² = 98%) In a nutshell, the propagation of Github popularity really depends on programming languages and corresponding development cultures. ## 📈 Meet our Open Source Startup Index The idea of the software-focused index is not radically new. There are 2 well-known stock market indexes by venture funds ([Bessemer](https://www.bvp.com/bvp-nasdaq-emerging-cloud-index), [OpenView](https://openviewpartners.com/product-led-growth-index/)), and even a few projects about private open-source companies. They all are cool for selected niches, but miss a combo of features required for being an OSS startup index: focus on startups and a measurable approach to creating/updating a list: - In 2013 Joseph Jacks (OSS Capital) introduced the [COSS Index](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17nKMpi_Dh5slCqzLSFBoWMxNvWiwt2R-t4e_l7LPLhU/edit#gid=0) featuring the companies with $100M+ revenues heavily relying on open source. It is a perfect hall of fame for commercial OSS but is not about startups. - In 2017 Battery Ventures published own [BOSS Index](https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/07/tracking-the-explosive-growth-of-open-source-software/). It had a nice name and original quantitative method for the selection, but the index's first release was the last one. The project is dead for years. It also focused more on open-source projects (not companies) and mixed startups (like Nginx) with large established corporations (like RedHat) in one list. - In 2020 Accel launched the [Open100](https://www.accel.com/noteworthy/the-future-of-open-source-launching-the-open100), a collection of the fastest-growing OSS startups. No measurable methodology or an update period was introduced, so I hardly can call it an index (while the list is very good!). So let me introduce the **Runa Capital's Open Source Startup (ROSS) Index (see at** [**runacap.com/ross-index**](https://runacap.com/ross-index/)**)** having all the required features above. It is transparent, measurable and fully focused on open-source startups. ![ROSS Index table](/images/more-oss-benchmarks/ross-table.webp) The ROSS Index consists of the 20 fastest-growing OSS startups and uses a methodology, which was introduced [previously](https://kvinogradov.com/open-source-growth-benchmarks/) and based on AGR for Github stars. We will update the ROSS index every quarter. While Github stars are not a perfect parameter for open-source project evaluation, they highlight new fast-growing startups on top of developers' mind. This is a quantitative metric we could start with. Note that, our index is a live evolving project and fully open for contributions from the OSS community. Don't hesitate to share your comments and ideas regarding its development with [me](https://kvinogradov.com). Finally, let's take a look at the recent catch of the ROSS Index in Q3 2020. ## 🦄 Top-20 startups by Github star growth (Q3 2020) The leaderboard is highly dynamic, and only 4 companies (Hugging Face, Meili, Prisma, Framer) have remained in the index since last quarter. Hugging Face even managed to make it with its another repo. Also, two fast-growing startups were excluded from the list because they were acquired in Q3 by large companies ([Rancher](https://rancher.com/) — by SUSE in July, [Lens](https://k8slens.dev/) — by Mirantis in August). 1. [**Plausible**](https://plausible.io/) **(plausible/analytics, 2.9K stars, 2527% AGR).** Web analytics service (an open-source alternative to Google Analytics). Founded in 2018 in Estonia. Noteworthy, its founders [do not raise external funding](https://plausible.io/about) to remain a fully independent analytics company. 2. [**Hugging Face**](https://huggingface.co/) **(huggingface/datasets, 3.4K stars, 2471% AGR)**. The developer of the NLP-library Transformers, that debuted in the previous issue of our index. Founded in 2016 in Paris and raised $20.2M from Lux Capital, SV Angel, A.Capital, etc. 3. [**Gitpod**](https://gitpod.io/) **(gitpod-io/gitpod, 2.5K stars, 1383% AGR)**. Cloud integrated development environment (IDE). Founded in 2019 in Kiel, Germany and raised $3M from Speedinvest, Crane Venture Partners, Vertex Ventures. 4. [**Prefect**](https://www.prefect.io/) **(prefecthq/prefect, 5.1K stars, 923% AGR)**. Data workflow automation platform. Founded in 2018 in Washington, D.C., and raised $2.5M from unknown investors. 5. [**Passbolt**](https://www.passbolt.com/) **(passbolt/passbolt_api, 2.2K stars, 503% AGR)**. Password manager for teams. Founded in 2016 in Luxembourg and raised ~$0.74M from Expon Capital. 6. [**Meili**](https://meilisearch.com/) **(meilisearch/meilisearch, 9.2K stars, 385% AGR)**. API-focused fast search engine (an alternative to ElasticSearch and Algolia). Founded in 2018 in Paris and raised $1.5M from LocalGlobe, Seedcamp, Kima, etc. 7. [**QAWolf**](https://www.qawolf.com/) **(qawolf/qawolf, 2.1K stars, 374% AGR)**. Browser testing service. Founded in 2019 in New York and has no known external funding to date. 8. [**VESoft**](https://www.nebula-cloud.io/) **(vesoft-inc/nebula, 4.5K stars, 351% AGR)**. The developer of distributed and fast graph database [NebulaGraph](https://nebula-graph.io/). Founded in 2018 in Hangzhou, China and raised $8M from Redpoint and Matrix Partners. 9. [**Frontity**](https://frontity.org/) **(frontity/frontity, 1.5K stars, 299% AGR**). React framework for building headless WordPress websites. Founded in 2015 in Madrid and raised $1.6M from K Fund. 10. [**Checkly**](https://www.checklyhq.com/) **(checkly/headless-recorder, 10K stars, 283% AGR)**. Active monitoring and end-to-end-testing platform for developers. Founded in 2018 in Berlin and raised $2.3M from Accel, etc. 11. [**Prisma**](https://www.prisma.io/) **(prisma/prisma, 5.5K stars, 262% AGR)**. Database toolkit for TypeScript and Node.js. Founded in 2016 in Berlin raised $16.5M from Kleiner Perkins, Mango Capital, Amplify Partners, etc. 12. [**ORY**](https://www.ory.sh/) **(ory/kratos, 1.4K stars, 209% AGR)**. Identity and access control infrastructure for cloud developers. Founded in 2015 in Munich and has no known external funding to date. 13. [**Supabase**](https://supabase.io/) **(supabase/supabase, 2.3K stars, 207% AGR)**. Low-code API solution for PostgreSQL database (an open-source alternative to Firebase). Founded in 2020 in Singapore and raised $125k from Y Combinator. 14. [**Chaosix**](https://www.chaosix.com/) **(relativty/relativty, 4.9K stars, 199% AGR)**. Stealth-mode VR startup by creators of open-source VR headset [Relativty](https://www.relativty.com/). Founded in 2020 in Paris and raised the unknown amount from The Family. 15. [**BoostIO**](https://boostio.co/) **(boostio/boostnote.next, 1.8K stars, 175% AGR)**. The creator of Boosthub, a collaborative platform for developers. Founded in 2014 in Tokyo and raised ~$0.95M from ANRI, F Ventures, etc. 16. [**BentoML**](https://www.bentoml.ai/) **(bentoml/bentoml, 1.7K stars, 171% AGR)**. A platform for high-performance ML model serving. Founded in 2018 in San Francisco and raised the unknown amount from Alchemist Accelerator. 17. [**Framer**](https://framer.com/) **(framer/motion, 7.3K stars, 169% AGR)**. Prototyping tools for teams trending with its OS library Motion. Founded in 2013 in Amsterdam and raised $33M by from Atomico, Accel, Foundation Capital, etc. 18. [**Uno Platform**](https://platform.uno/) **(unoplatform/uno, 2.9K stars, 161% AGR)**. An app development platform for C# and WinUI. Founded in 2011 in Montreal and has no known external funding to date. 19. [**Alegro**](https://allegro.ai/) **(allegroai/trains, 1.8K stars, 148% AGR)**. A platform for the management of ML products life-cycle. Founded in 2016 in Tel Aviv and raised $11M from MizMaa Ventures, Samsung Catalyst, Hyundai, etc. 20. [**PostHog**](https://posthog.com/) **(posthog/posthog, 3.2K stars, 148% AGR)**. Product analytics service (an open-source alternative to Mixpanel). Founded in 2020 in London and raised $3M from 1984 Ventures, Y Combinator, etc. ![ROSS Index logos](/images/more-oss-benchmarks/ross-logos.webp)

Update (22 Oct 2020). The initial version of Q3 index missed 2 companies (Checkly, Alegro) due to imperfect manual detection process of 20 startups out of 1000+ fastest-growing repos. Thanks to the bug report, it was quickly fixed, while we will add more checks in the future and improve the process.

The companies shifted to #21 and #22 positions are:

  1. Pomerium (pomerium/pomerium, 1.9K stars, 141% AGR). Identity and access security for cloud applications. Founded in 2019 in San Diego and raised $1.5M from Haystack.
  2. Parity (paritytech/substrate, 3K stars, 135% AGR). A blockchain infrastructure developer, mostly known for its involvement in Polkadot blockchain. Founded in 2015 in London and raised $5.8M from Fenbushi Capital, Blockchain Capital, etc. (Polkadot has separated large funding).
Are you a founder of an open-source startup or a VC investor willing to collaborate on OSS investments? Don't hesitate to email me: kv@runacap.com.
Special thanks to all people who reviewed the draft of this article, provided meaningful comments to the previous one and reported bugs, including Andrew Alexeev (Co-founder @ Nginx), Joseph Jacks (Partner @ OSS Capital), Matvey Kukuy (CEO & Founder @ Amixr), Alexander Vidiborskiy (Principal @ Atomico) and Hannes Lenke (CEO & Founder @ Checkly).