TL;DR: Of 11,000 open-source projects, only about 1 in 3 gets a score. The rest aren't hidden: each one is listed with a plain reason, like "no recent activity" or "most outside pull requests go unanswered".
In Porchlamp's October 2026 snapshot, 3,833 of 11,000 GitHub projects received a score; the other 7,167 are listed with the reason they were not ranked.
How are open-source projects ranked fairly?
A ranking is only useful if every project in it is a real choice for a contributor. A project that's archived, has no license, or hasn't had a commit in months isn't one, however good its numbers look.
So before scoring, every project goes through a few simple checks. Fail one, and the project is listed with the reason instead of a rank.
The checks, in plain words
- Is it software? Docs-only repos, awesome lists and data dumps are left out. (1,067 projects)
- Is it still a real project? Archived repos, mirrors and most forks are left out. (624)
- Does it have an open-source license? Without one, you can't safely contribute. (491)
- Is anyone still working on it? No human commits in six months means it's stale. This is the biggest group. (2,475)
- Does anyone answer outside PRs? If most pull requests from outsiders get no human response within two weeks, it's a black hole. (1,133)
Then there's a last group: projects that pass every check, but where too little could be measured to score them fairly. They're listed as unrated (1,377).
That leaves 3,833 ranked projects.
The black-hole check is careful on purpose
Calling a project a black hole is a strong statement, so the check leans towards giving projects the benefit of the doubt:
- It needs at least ten outside PRs. With fewer, there's no verdict.
- PRs younger than two weeks don't count yet.
- Bots, drafts, maintainers' own PRs and brand-new accounts are ignored.
- The rule only fires when the data clearly says "most go unanswered", not on a borderline case.
Undecided isn't failed
Some projects do their reviews somewhere else, on Gerrit or a mailing list, and their GitHub PRs only point there. Porchlamp spots those and leaves them undecided rather than calling them silent. Eight projects are handled that way.
See the reasons yourself
The Not ranked list on Porchlamp shows every project that didn't get a score, with its reason. If you think a check treats a project unfairly, open an issue and say why.
Which of these checks would you loosen, and which would you make stricter?
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