GitHub Statistics 2024: Key Trends, User Growth, and Popular Repositories
Barry Elad
Updated · Nov 29, 2024
In the ever-evolving world of software development, GitHub continues to stand as a vital platform, driving innovation, collaboration, and code-sharing on a global scale. Founded in 2008, GitHub has transformed from a small startup into a key pillar of the development ecosystem, hosting millions of repositories and empowering developers worldwide. As we look towards 2024, understanding the trends and data surrounding GitHub’s growth, usage, and impact becomes essential for businesses and developers alike. Let’s dive into the key statistics shaping GitHub’s present and future landscape.
Editor’s Choice: Key Milestones
- 100 million developers are projected to be using GitHub by the end of 2024, continuing its trend of exponential growth.
- GitHub crossed a major milestone of hosting 372 million repositories globally, showcasing a 20% increase over the past year.
- The open-source movement has thrived on GitHub, with 87 million new projects initiated in 2023 alone, up from 78 million in 2022.
- GitHub Sponsors, launched to support developers financially, saw a 65% increase in participation over the last year, indicating rising support for the open-source community.
- GitHub Copilot, the AI-powered code assistant, is now used by more than 1.2 million developers, helping automate code suggestions and boosting productivity.
- The GitHub Marketplace now features over 1,000 tools, a 15% growth from the previous year, enhancing automation and collaboration for developers.
- GitHub Actions usage has surged, with over 4 million workflows run daily in 2023, an increase of 35% year-over-year.
GitHub Stats & Trends
- GitHub’s user base grew by 18% in 2023, reaching over 94 million developers worldwide.
- There has been a 30% growth in the number of repositories using GitHub Actions for continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD), underlining its increasing importance in DevOps workflows.
- JavaScript remains the most popular language on GitHub, with over 20 million repositories written in it as of 2023.
- 43% of Fortune 500 companies now use GitHub Enterprise, highlighting its adoption by major corporations globally.
- The United States, China, and India represent the top three countries by GitHub user base, collectively contributing to over 50 million developers.
- In 2023, GitHub facilitated over 1.5 billion pull requests, illustrating its critical role in collaborative coding and project management.
- GitHub’s open-source repository growth outpaced private repositories, growing by 25%, showing the continued importance of open collaboration.
User Growth and Global Distribution
- GitHub’s user base in India grew by an impressive 40% in 2023, making it the fastest-growing country for developers on the platform.
- North America continues to lead with the highest number of active developers, accounting for over 28% of GitHub’s total users.
- The Asia-Pacific region saw a 35% increase in GitHub user growth in 2023, fueled by emerging markets such as Vietnam, Indonesia, and Bangladesh.
- Europe remains a significant contributor to GitHub, with over 25 million developers, up 12% from 2022.
- Latin America saw a surge in developer activity, with a 20% increase in new repositories being created in 2023, largely driven by tech growth in Brazil and Mexico.
- GitHub’s user base in Africa grew by 22% in 2023, reflecting the continent’s rising focus on tech development and open-source participation.
- Over 80% of the top 10,000 repositories on GitHub are now maintained by developers from outside the United States, demonstrating the platform’s global impact.
Repository and Contribution Statistics
- GitHub hosted over 1.5 billion contributions (pull requests, comments, issues) in 2023, showcasing a 28% increase from the previous year.
- The platform recorded 250 million merged pull requests in 2023, indicating a 15% growth in collaborative coding.
- Private repositories on GitHub have grown by 18% year-over-year, reaching 160 million in 2023 as companies and individual developers adopt GitHub for more secure and proprietary work.
- The average number of daily commits has grown by 22%, with 35 million commits being pushed to repositories every day.
- GitHub Issues, the platform’s tool for managing work and tracking progress, saw over 1.8 billion issues open in 2023, reflecting the intense activity of development teams.
- The most-starred repository on GitHub, freeCodeCamp, has reached 350,000 stars, demonstrating a strong interest in free educational tools.
- Open-source contributions have increased by 25%, with GitHub Discussions also gaining momentum as a collaborative tool, with over 10 million discussions started in 2023.
Most Popular GitHub Repositories
- freeCodeCamp continues to lead as the most popular GitHub repository, with 350,000 stars, offering an array of resources for learning to code for free.
- TensorFlow remains the most popular AI and machine learning repository on GitHub, with over 170,000 stars.
- The Vue.js framework, favored for building user interfaces, crossed the 200,000 stars milestone in 2023.
- Django, a high-level Python framework for web development, saw 80,000 new stars in 2023, reflecting growing interest in Python.
- React remains one of the top repositories for front-end development, with 200,000 stars and continuous updates from its vibrant community.
- Kubernetes, the open-source container orchestration tool, hit 150,000 stars and remains central to cloud-native application development.
- Linux, the world’s leading open-source operating system, reached 150,000 stars, proving its enduring significance in the software community.
Top Programming Languages on GitHub
- JavaScript continues to dominate GitHub with over 20 million repositories utilizing it, making it the most widely used language on the platform in 2023.
- Python holds second place with more than 12 million repositories, bolstered by its widespread use in data science, machine learning, and web development.
- TypeScript is growing rapidly, with a 30% increase in usage, reaching over 5 million repositories in 2023.
- Java maintains a strong presence, being used in over 7 million repositories, especially within enterprise applications and Android development.
- C++ saw significant growth, with 4 million repositories using it, driven by the demand for performance-critical applications such as gaming engines and IoT devices.
- Go, favored for cloud applications and microservices, experienced a 25% increase, crossing 2.5 million repositories on GitHub.
- Rust, known for its memory safety and performance, reached 2 million repositories in 2023, a 40% growth year-over-year.
GitHub Usage
- GitHub Actions remains one of the platform’s most-used features, with 45 million actions executed monthly, enabling developers to automate their workflows and CI/CD pipelines.
- Dependabot, GitHub’s automated security feature, scanned over 50 million repositories in 2023, identifying vulnerabilities in over 6 million of them.
- GitHub Pages saw 5 million sites hosted as of 2023, supporting personal projects, blogs, and documentation for open-source software.
- The number of developers using GitHub Copilot increased by 50% in 2023, with over 1.5 million active users leveraging the AI-powered tool to boost coding efficiency.
- Codespaces, GitHub’s instant development environment feature, experienced a 30% rise in usage, with 300,000 new environments spun up each month in 2023.
- The GitHub Discussions feature saw 15 million new threads created in 2023, enabling more open collaboration among developers beyond traditional pull requests.
- Markdown support continues to be a critical feature, with 10 million repositories using Markdown files to format project documentation, READMEs, and more.
GitHub Enterprise and Monetization
- GitHub Enterprise is now used by 75% of Fortune 100 companies, showcasing its relevance to large-scale organizations.
- GitHub’s Enterprise Server version was deployed in over 30,000 companies globally, a 20% increase from 2022, signaling strong adoption in secure, private environments.
- GitHub’s Marketplace saw $30 million in transactions in 2023, with an increasing number of developers and companies monetizing their tools and integrations.
- The GitHub Sponsors program helped over 12,000 developers raise funding in 2023, totaling $10 million in contributions.
- GitHub Advanced Security saw a 45% growth in enterprise clients, offering enhanced vulnerability detection and secret scanning across repositories.
- GitHub Premium Support gained traction, with 20% of enterprise customers opting for the enhanced service package to ensure smoother operations.
- Monetization of GitHub Actions workflows has become a notable trend, with more companies opting for custom solutions and paying for advanced CI/CD features.
GitHub Actions and CI/CD Trends
- 4 million workflows are executed daily through GitHub Actions, demonstrating its role as a core automation tool for developers worldwide.
- Containerization and Kubernetes integration via GitHub Actions saw a 40% rise in usage as of 2023, with companies automating complex deployments at scale.
- Self-hosted runners, which allow users to run actions on their own infrastructure, increased by 35%, reflecting the growing demand for tailored, on-premise CI/CD solutions.
- GitHub Actions Marketplace now features over 15,000 actions, making it easier for developers to find pre-built workflows and integrations.
- Continuous deployment via GitHub Actions grew by 50%, with developers automating releases to production in real-time, minimizing human intervention.
- The use of Docker and Kubernetes within GitHub Actions workflows increased by 25%, with 1 million workflows now integrating containerized applications.
- GitHub Actions helped reduce deployment time by an average of 30% for enterprise users, increasing the efficiency and speed of software delivery.
| Metric | Value |
| Containerization and Kubernetes | 40% |
| Self-hosted runners | 35% |
| Continuous deployment growth | 50% |
| Docker/Kubernetes | 25% |
Security and Vulnerabilities on GitHub
- GitHub’s security features helped resolve over 10 million vulnerabilities in public and private repositories in 2023.
- Dependabot alerts were sent for 5 million repositories, aiding in quick detection and remediation of security issues.
- The GitHub Security Advisory Database has grown to include 50,000+ advisories, making it one of the most comprehensive sources for security vulnerabilities in open-source projects.
- Code scanning detected 4 million critical vulnerabilities in 2023, with over 85% being resolved within a week of detection.
- Secret scanning, a tool that detects sensitive data like API keys, was used by 3 million repositories, preventing the exposure of critical credentials.
- GitHub’s adoption of 2FA (two-factor authentication) grew by 35%, with over 75% of developers using it to secure their accounts.
- GitHub’s Bug Bounty program paid out $3 million in rewards to ethical hackers, reinforcing its commitment to maintaining a secure platform.
Recent Developments
- GitHub introduced Copilot Chat, an enhanced version of Copilot, allowing developers to interact with the AI assistant in natural language for a more intuitive coding experience.
- GitHub Next, an experimental initiative, is exploring ways to integrate AI more deeply into the development workflow, focusing on features like code explanation and auto-documentation.
- GitHub Universe 2023 announced several key updates, including enhanced container support in GitHub Actions and new features in Codespaces for faster development setups.
- The introduction of GitHub Projects as a flexible tool for project management has seen a 20% increase in adoption, helping teams collaborate more effectively on the platform.
- GitHub’s Secret Scanning was expanded to cover more than 70 partners, helping prevent the accidental exposure of API keys and other sensitive information.
- GraphQL API improvements were announced, giving developers more flexibility and control over their queries on the platform.
- GitHub Sponsors for Teams was launched, enabling open-source teams to receive funding collectively, marking a new way for developers to support large, collaborative projects.
Conclusion
GitHub’s influence in the world of software development continues to grow, with its user base expanding globally, contributions reaching new heights, and innovative features like GitHub Actions and Copilot enhancing the developer experience. The platform’s focus on security, collaboration, and automation solidifies its position as a critical tool for both individual developers and large enterprises. As we move forward into 2024, the statistics and trends surrounding GitHub demonstrate a robust and thriving ecosystem that will continue to shape the future of software development.
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Barry Elad
Barry Elad is a dedicated tech and finance enthusiast, passionate about making technology and fintech concepts accessible to everyone. He specializes in collecting key statistics and breaking down complex information, focusing on the benefits that software and financial tools bring to everyday life. Figuring out how software works and sharing its value with users is his favorite pastime. When he's not analyzing apps or programs, Barry enjoys creating healthy recipes, practicing yoga, meditating, and spending time in nature with his child. His mission is to simplify finance and tech insights to help people make informed decisions.
