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Siddharth Chandra
Siddharth Chandra

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10 Most Popular GitHub Repositories

Not Your Usual List of Repositories.

Open Source Software (OSS) has been getting a lot of traction in recent years. Right now, there are approximately 200,000 open source projects worth billions of dollar, being worked on across the globe.

GitHub hosts software for development and version control. The main repository can have many branches or forks. GitHub is widely used by developers to test code and to collaborate with other developers in the software development life cycle.

In this article, we will go through the ten most popular open-source repositories on GitHub.


FreeCodeCamp

This is one of the biggest repositories on GitHub because it offers newcomers the means to learn how to code effectively, for free. As the name suggests, it is a user-friendly and safe environment for coders to learn skills.

Any learner can build his or her own project, learn to code and adopt best practices. Since its inception, the page has collected more than 320K stars on GitHub. This community is the best example of OSS - a place where everyone can contribute and learn for free.

VSCode

Visual Studio Code is a free and open-source code editor developed by Microsoft for Windows, Linus and macOS. It is an all-purpose code editor and its focus is to provide developers with a single stop solution for all their coding needs, including editing and debugging.

VSCode is an extremely well-liked open-source repository on GitHub, with more than 110K stars and 1.4K contributors. This repository is used to work on code and can also be used as a publishing platform. It gets updated every month with bug fixes, new features and some enhancements.

Flutter

This software development kit made by Google is one of the fastest-growing open source communities on GitHub. It permits applications to be developed from a single codebase with a user interface toolkit. The applications created by Flutter are attuned with PC and mobile platforms and their appearance creates aesthetic and efficient end-user experiences.

Flutter is pushed by Skia, and the hardware-accelerated 2D graphics library by Android and Chrome. It also employs a layered architecture for building applications, which allows developers to flawlessly add text, graphics, video and animated content as overlays without disturbing the source code. Its GitHub page has over 117K stars.

Ansible

This open-source IT engine automates application operation and cloud provisioning. It was created in 2012 by AnsibleWorks and is now owned by Red Hat. Ansible is developed in Python, is lightweight and has fast deployment. As Python is used to build most Linux and UNIX systems, getting Ansible up and running is very quick, and its agentless feature makes it easy to be set up and used.

It can also be run from CLI commands without using configuration files. For comparatively difficult tasks, its configuration is handled by the YAML syntax in the configuration file known as playbook. Ansible commands can be written in any programming language and sent over in JSON format. It has also recently started supporting Windows. It has over 46K stars on GitHub.

Kubernetes

The powerful open-source system was initially developed by Google for managing containerised applications in a cluster environment. Kubernetes was launched in 2014 after more than a decade of experience running production workloads at Google with Google's internal container cluster managers Borg and Omega.

It aims to provide better ways of managing related and distributed components and services across varied infrastructures. Kubernetes has now become the de facto standard for deploying containerised applications at scale in private, public and hybrid cloud environments. The largest public cloud platforms - including AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, IBM Cloud and Oracle Cloud - now provide managed services for Kubernetes. Its repository has more than 76K stars.

React Native

React Native is a JavaScript framework that is used in many social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and so on. This framework allows the user to build native applications using JavaScript. It brings React's declarative user interface build to mobile platforms as well as allows the developer to use native UI controls to gain full access to the platforms.

React Native has a lively GitHub community with several contributors and over 94K stars. This platform understood and modified more easily. It also makes it simple to build component-based complex UIs and allows any local changes to replicate quickly on the project. Developers use the GitHub community to interact, collaborate and contribute to the program, making it a popular choice for JavaScript coders.

TensorFlow

This is a popular open-source machine learning framework. It contains a large number of useful libraries, tools, and community resources focused on making ML capabilities available for developers looking to use them in their projects. With TensorFlow, developers can easily create and deploy ML models as part of their application and also use them on their system, on the cloud or from a mobile platform.

Developed by experts working in the Google Brain team, the system is compatible with all major operating systems. The GitHub page has more than 150K stars and more than 2.9K contributors.

DefinitelyTyped

This is a library of TypeScript type definitions maintained on GitHub. In this open-source repository, developers can share and keep TypeScript type definitions for JS libraries. It mainly serves as a translator for JS developers to work with TypeScript. Using DefinitelyTyped and its declaration statements, they can discover TypeScript equivalents for existing JS libraries.

Developers can contribute to the repository by adding definitions, testing, and so on. This is an extremely popular page, with thousands of contributors and many times more users. It has more than 33K stars and 13K active contributors.

Azure

This is a cloud computing service developed by Microsoft. The GitHub repository of Microsoft Azure is devoted to its open-source documentation. The page calls developers to contribute to the project by giving feedback, reporting issues and similar helpful ways. The page has more than 7K contributors and is one of the most active repositories on the platform.

Home Assistant

This open-source home automation software is intended to the central system for controlling smart homes. The system is built using a modular approach so support for other devices or actions can be implemented easily. Homes Assistant core application software is written in Python and its main aim is local control and privacy, powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server. It has more than 42K stars and more than 2.4K active contributors.


  • Just starting your Open Source Journey? Don't forget to check Hello Open Source

  • Need inspiration or a different perspective on the Python projects or just out there to explore? Check Awesome Python Repos

  • Want to make a simple and awesome game from scratch? Check out PongPong

  • Want to ++ your GitHub Profile README? Check out Quote - README

Till next time!

Namaste 🙏

Image Credits - vectorjuice

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