A new report shows a 20 top-trending open source startup worldwide, more than half of which is closely aligned with AI.
The report is the making of European Venture Capital Firm Runa Capitalwho ran Runa Open Source Startup (Ross) Index Since 2020. The Index serves a quarterly update on the fastest growing projects in terms of “star” —a measure that is something similar to a “like” on social media. Starting in 2023 Runa started making annual reportsThe most popular commercial open source startup is featured in a given year.
Report of last year AI and Data Infrastructure showed that was driving demand for open tooling resources, with Langchain Pressing the pole position in the Ross Index for the open framework for the development of LLM-Sentric apps.
This year it is a similar story, with AI center at 11 among the top 20 companies.
It is noteworthy that the ROSS index is heavy -curated and excludes any old open source project. Qualified projects should be closely linked to a commercial company (i.e., a vendor -led project), which means there are no side projects. In addition, these companies should be younger than 10 years old; Raised less than $ 100 million in funding; And be completely independent – so not a subsidiary or publicly listed.
Stargazing
At the top area in the 2024 Ross Index is OLLAMAA Y combinator alum developed by an open resource tool for running LLMs such as Meta's calls and Deepseek Local (ie desktop). OLLAMA'S GITHUB STAR COUNT increased by about 76,000 to 2024, growing 261% to more than 105,000 (from its rise to more than 135,000 stars over the past few months).
Next to the list is Zed Industriesa cross-platform Collaborative Code Editor “Designed for the cooperation of high performance with people and AI.” ZED project is short, but it The resource only opens In January 2024, and for the rest of the year it gained more than 52,000 Github stars.
In the third place is LangniusThe company behind an open source LLM App Development Platform called It's hard. The project has achieved more than 43,000 before Github stars Last year, 326% increased from nearly 13,000 to nearly 57,000 – a figure from up to 84,000 stars.
And then there is ComfyuiAn open node -based node program for developing images, videos, and audio using AI generative models. The project GITHUB STAR COUNT grew 195% to 61,900 stars last year.
Rotating the top five is All handsthe company behind an open resource platform called Open -handed For the development of software development agents. Openhands gained 39,600 github stars from its launch in March to the end of 2024 and since added another 12,000 stars to the mix.
While the ROSS index for last year describes explosive growth in AI and LLMs, it also shows how hot the developer's tooling in the world of open resources is still hot, with Zed's wishes and UV by Astral (No. 9) Both features the top 10. Elsewhere, the presence of PDF Manipulation Tool Stirling pdf (No. 7), financial management software Maybe finance (No. 8), and remote desktop software Rustdesk (No. 17) Privacy dedicated to the tool hosted in privacy suggests is still in high demand.
And Ethereum blockchain focused Gasoline (No. 12) It is shown that the crypto/web3 is alive and kicking.
The open source of software by its very nature is always distributed, given that those contributing from all corners of the world can engage. This is usually the case for projects led by the vendor, also; However, commercial creatures usually have some centers of gravity – even if it simply means which is formally integrated.
The Ross Index for last year shows that San Francisco is home of six of the top 20 Ross startups, while Canada has three, and Europe (UK, Switzerland, Hungary, and Czech Republic), Singapore, and China make up the rest.
Procedure
There are other ways of monitoring “hot” open resource projects. Two Sigma Ventures operate The open source index.
And Github himself offers a Top Project Listagain without a specific focus on commercial businesses.
It is also worth looking at the Procedure Behind the Ross Index. The Github “stars” can be a non -mischievous measure, as it simply shows that a person “likes” the project, compared to its active use or monitoring. Older projects naturally get more “stars,” also, which is why Runa focuses on the relative growth of repositors during the 90-day period for its quarterly reports, and with the full number of new stars obtained in the year for its annual report.
It also means that the annual report may look different in quarterly reports, as the full number of star does not always align with rapid relative growth patterns.
There may also be some issues around what is classified as “open resources.” While many of the projects on the list are actually released under a recognized Copy or permitted open resource licenseThis is not a strict stipulation of the Ross index. Runa said it followed the “commercial understanding” of the open resource, rather than Official definition of open resource. Like this, a company that has released its software under a public server public license (Sspl), for example, will still qualify as an open resource, even if the The Open Source Initiative is not rubber The Sspl as “open resource.”
However, the index is a unique indicator not only what kinds of open resource technology are trending, but also what companies are trying to build businesses with them.
