GitHub is one of the leading AI-powered developer platforms in the world. The Microsoft subsidiary is a software development platform where developers can create, manage, share, and store code. It was launched in 2009 in the U.S. and is used by developers across the globe.
GitHub is incredibly popular, with approximately 100 million developers using it in countries ranging from the United States to France and Indonesia. Its statistics and trends show that it will continue to be a force in the software development world, with ever-growing numbers of users and contributors. It is popular with big tech companies, which use the platform to host and develop their open-source software projects.
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What Is GitHub?
GitHub is a software development platform that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to allow developers to create, store, manage, and share code. Its primary purpose is to make it easier to track issues and facilitate version control when developing software. It uses labels, responsibility assignments, milestones, and search engines for issue tracking, while users can perform pull requests for version control.
It is based on Git software. GitHub offers Git plus access control, software feature requests, task management, bug tracking, continuous integration, and wikis for every project. It supports several features, including documentation, GitHub Codespaces, graphs, email notifications, and more.
GitHub is often used to host open-source software development projects. GitHub projects can be accessed and managed using the Git command-line interface. Anyone can browse public repositories, but only registered users can contribute to these repositories. Users can also install desktop clients and Git plugins. The site offers many networking functions, including discussions, contributions, and code change reviews.
Based in California, GitHub was founded in 2007 and launched in 2009. In 2018, it became a Microsoft subsidiary. The company acquired GitHub after becoming a major platform user to host open-source projects and tools like MSBuild, Windows Calculator, and .NET Core.
GitHub Stats & Trends
GitHub is one of the most popular platforms in the world for storing and sharing code. With GitHub, developers from anywhere in the world can create code repositories and collaborate on code for open-source projects.
GitHub Usage Statistics
GitHub statistics demonstrate just how in-demand the platform is for software developers. As of January 2023, there are more than 100 million developers worldwide. Most of these developers were based in the United States, followed by India, China, and Brazil.
Outside of the United States, GitHub’s popularity is growing considerably. Between 2021 and 2022, the GitHub developer community in the following countries has seen massive spikes:
| Country | Users & Growth Rate |
| India | 2.5 million (a 32.4% increase) |
| China | 1.2 million (a 15.6% increase) |
| Brazil | 924,000 (an 11.6% increase) |
| Russia | 528,000 (a 7.3% increase) |
| Indonesia | 582,000 (a 7.3% increase) |
| United Kingdom | 488,000 (a 6.1% increase) |
| Germany | 426,000 (a 5.3% increase) |
| Japan | 413,000 (a 5.2% increase) |
| France | 373,000 (a 4.7% increase) |
| Canada | 366,000 (a 4.6% increase) |
While the United States remains a dominant force, GitHub predicts that if trends continue, then Indian users will match the United States GitHub community by 2025. Of course, total users and activity levels can differ. The total public contributions for the top 1,000 users on GitHub by country can be found in the table below.
|
Country |
Total Contributions Of Top 1,000 Users |
|
Germany |
604,420 Contributions |
|
France |
523,996 Contributions |
|
Japan |
509,673 Contributions |
|
Kenya |
446,375 Contributions |
|
Netherlands |
432701 Contributions |
|
United States |
408,883 Contributions |
|
Canada |
401,534 Contributions |
|
United Kingdom |
390,159 Contributions |
|
Spain |
380,487 Contributions |
|
Switzerland |
372,556 Contributions |
|
Australia |
372,318 Contributions |
|
Italy |
362,386 Contributions |
|
Ethiopia |
356,901 Contributions |
|
Poland |
349,320 Contributions |
|
China |
347,793 Contributions |
|
Indonesia |
336,767 Contributions |
|
Austria |
319,210 Contributions |
|
Czechia |
318,669 Contributions |
|
Belgium |
318,314 Contributions |
|
Sweden |
317,761 Contributions |
|
South Korea |
304,749 Contributions |
|
Philippines |
301,349 Contributions |
|
Taiwan |
300,192 Contributions |
|
Norway |
293,771 Contributions |
|
Ghana |
288,958 Contributions |
|
India |
283,848 Contributions |
|
Finland |
276,230 Contributions |
|
Nigeria |
270,881 Contributions |
|
Denmark |
270,757 Contributions |
|
Morocco |
269,710 Contributions |
|
Portugal |
269,404 Contributions |
|
Egypt |
252,672 Contributions |
|
Iran |
251,522 Contributions |
|
Rwanda |
243,635 Contributions |
|
Brazil |
240,798 Contributions |
|
Ukraine |
238,353 Contributions |
|
Russia |
238,055 Contributions |
|
Bangladesh |
230,986 Contributions |
|
Israel |
230,984 Contributions |
|
Bulgaria |
218,053 Contributions |
|
Singapore |
216,432 Contributions |
|
Thailand |
207,162 Contributions |
|
Vietnam |
202,529 Contributions |
|
Hungary |
202,523 Contributions |
|
Pakistan |
200,481 Contributions |
|
Uganda |
199,757 Contributions |
|
HongKong |
192,333 Contributions |
|
Turkey |
185,430 Contributions |
|
Argentina |
181,149 Contributions |
|
Romania |
181,067 Contributions |
|
Nepal |
175,953 Contributions |
|
Ireland |
170,716 Contributions |
|
Uzbekistan |
162,820 Contributions |
|
Greece |
162,097 Contributions |
|
Serbia |
159,538 Contributions |
|
SriLanka |
156,161 Contributions |
|
NewZealand |
153,261 Contributions |
|
Malaysia |
152,064 Contributions |
|
Colombia |
146,794 Contributions |
|
Croatia |
145,363 Contributions |
|
SouthAfrica |
145,257 Contributions |
|
Georgia |
144,101 Contributions |
|
Mexico |
141,533 Contributions |
|
Chile |
141,013 Contributions |
|
Cameroon |
139,577 Contributions |
|
Slovakia |
132,573 Contributions |
|
Estonia |
132,343 Contributions |
|
Afghanistan |
127,149 Contributions |
|
Ecuador |
120,049 Contributions |
|
Venezuela |
119,944 Contributions |
|
Algeria |
118,835 Contributions |
|
Tunisia |
117,086 Contributions |
|
Tanzania |
111,711 Contributions |
|
Uruguay |
111,494 Contributions |
|
Azerbaijan |
110,832 Contributions |
|
Peru |
110,641 Contributions |
|
Slovenia |
106,652 Contributions |
|
Nicaragua |
102,508 Contributions |
|
Myanmar |
99,736 Contributions |
|
Belarus |
97,366 Contributions |
|
Madagascar |
96,629 Contributions |
|
Armenia |
95,564 Contributions |
|
Palestine |
94,727 Contributions |
|
Cyprus |
89,762 Contributions |
|
Lithuania |
85,953 Contributions |
|
Guatemala |
82,563 Contributions |
|
Kazakhstan |
80,827 Contributions |
|
Cuba |
72,109 Contributions |
|
Angola |
69,237 Contributions |
|
Bolivia |
65,871 Contributions |
|
Benin |
62,867 Contributions |
|
Jordan |
62,029 Contributions |
|
Luxembourg |
62,001 Contributions |
|
Latvia |
61,668 Contributions |
|
Iraq |
61,085 Contributions |
|
Iceland |
58,038 Contributions |
|
Cambodia |
57,498 Contributions |
|
Paraguay |
57,455 Contributions |
|
Yemen |
55,724 Contributions |
|
Montenegro |
54,604 Contributions |
|
Moldova |
54,040 Contributions |
|
Senegal |
53,896 Contributions |
|
Jamaica |
53,017 Contributions |
|
Zambia |
52,292 Contributions |
|
ElSalvador |
50,579 Contributions |
|
Zambia |
49,528 Contributions |
|
Malawi |
47,318 Contributions |
|
Mozambique |
46,837 Contributions |
|
Sudan |
45,065 Contributions |
|
Honduras |
42,139 Contributions |
|
SaudiArabia |
40,079 Contributions |
|
Malta |
39,734 Contributions |
|
Mongolia |
38,197 Contributions |
|
DominicanRep |
38,034 Contributions |
|
Albania |
36,619 Contributions |
|
Syria |
35,859 Contributions |
|
Panama |
29,952 Contributions |
|
Mauritius |
29,009 Contributions |
|
Congo |
26,674 Contributions |
|
Qatar |
19,574 Contributions |
|
Botswana |
19,394 Contributions |
|
Oman |
19,315 Contributions |
|
Bahrain |
18,428 Contributions |
|
Kuwait |
17,086 Contributions |
|
Namibia |
15,821 Contributions |
|
Andorra |
15,371 Contributions |
|
Mali |
15,169 Contributions |
|
Burundi |
14,650 Contributions |
|
Bhutan |
11,330 Contributions |
|
Maldives |
8,703 Contributions |
|
BurkinaFaso |
6,421 Contributions |
|
SierraLeone |
6,201 Contributions |
|
Chad |
5,968 Contributions |
|
Laos |
5,915 Contributions |
|
Mauritania |
4,821 Contributions |
|
SanMarino |
2,066 Contributions |
|
UnitedArabEmirates |
758 Contributions |
|
BosniaandHerz |
357 Contributions |
The platform has seen continued growth, with 20.5 million new developers joining GitHub in 2022 alone. These developers contributed to 85.7 million repositories, with 3.5 billion total contributions to all projects on GitHub.
The Most Popular Coding Languages On GitHub
Developers on GitHub use a variety of programming languages. JavaScript is the most used language, but developers used more than 500 primary languages to build software in 2023. The top 15 languages by pull request in 2023 were as follows:
|
Language |
Pull Request Percentage |
|
Python |
17.380% |
|
Java |
11.770% |
|
Go |
10.000% |
|
JavaScript |
9.949% |
|
C++ |
9.656% |
|
TypeScript |
7.460% |
|
PHP |
5.480% |
|
C |
4.576% |
|
Ruby |
4.533% |
|
C# |
3.437% |
|
Nix |
2.804% |
|
Shell |
2.286% |
|
Rust |
1.827% |
|
Scala |
1.563% |
|
Kotlin |
1.403% |
In addition, the Hashicorp Configuration Language (HCL), Rust, Go, and Shell all saw big leaps in usage across the platform.
Most Popular Open-Source Projects
One of the best features of GitHub is the ability for developers to contribute to open-source projects. The top open-source projects, based on the number of contributors, were mostly commercially based efforts:
|
Project |
Contributors |
|
19,800 contributors |
|
|
13,500 contributors |
|
|
12,400 contributors |
|
|
12,300 contributors |
|
|
7,500 contributors |
|
|
5,900 contributors |
|
|
4,800 contributors |
|
|
4,560 contributors |
|
|
4,530 contributors |
|
|
4,400 contributors |
However, one of the fastest-growing projects in terms of contributors - home-assistant/core - is an independent project. This demonstrates the growing interest in home automation. Other top-growing projects include:
|
Project |
Contributors |
|
3,340 contributors |
|
|
2,240 contributors |
|
|
1,920 contributors |
|
|
1,770 contributors |
|
|
1,690 contributors |
|
|
1,620 contributors |
|
|
1,610 contributors |
|
|
1,440 contributors |
Notably, many first-time developers participated in these open-source projects as well as more established users. The most popular projects for new users included:
|
Project |
Contributors |
|
4,450 new contributors |
|
|
2,620 new contributors |
|
|
2,430 new contributors |
|
|
2,400 new contributors |
|
|
2,380 new contributors |
As noted above, most projects with the highest number of contributors were commercially owned. This demonstrates the importance of GitHub as a platform for companies - and how important the platform is to big tech. The corporate projects with the biggest contributor counts include:
|
Project |
Contributors |
|
19,600 contributors |
|
|
12,400 contributors |
|
|
12,200 contributors |
|
|
7,500 contributors |
|
|
5,800 contributors |
|
|
5,500 contributors |
|
|
4,900 contributors |
|
|
4,800 contributors |
|
|
4,500 contributors |
Significantly, most contributions from developers outside of these companies are comments, issues, questions, and reviewed pull requests. This means developers inside these corporations contribute code to these projects at much higher rates than external contributors.
These numbers demonstrate that GitHub remains incredibly popular as a platform for open-source hosting. It is heavily used by major corporations, particularly big tech companies. This demonstrates its broad importance to the tech community as a commercially viable community.
GitHub continues to grow in terms of number of registered users and contributors. While it is a U.S.-based company, its popularity has soared in countries worldwide. In particular, users in India may soon match the number of users in the United States - and countries like Brazil, China, and Russia aren’t far behind. This demonstrates the global impact of the platform.
Want to Build a Website? Reach Out to Inclind
Most people don’t spend time contributing to code on platforms like GitHub. But most of us use the programs created on GitHub - even if we don’t know it. This platform will continue to impact the development of critical technology for years to come.
From our offices in Delaware, Inclind works with nonprofits, e-commerce businesses, membership organizations, healthcare systems, real estate brokerages, and businesses to help them build beautiful and functional websites. We understand that most people aren’t computer scientists or software developers, which is why we work collaboratively with our clients to help them achieve their goals. If you need assistance with conversion rate optimization, accessibility, ongoing site maintenance, or any other aspect of website design and development, we can make it happen.
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