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Overview
The 2024 China Open Source Annual Report, centered on comprehensive and in-depth data insights, presents the thriving open source ecosystem in China across nine chapters.
Part One: Macro Insights, reveals China's unique position and influence within the global open source ecosystem from dimensions such as foundational events, active repositories, active users, and programming languages.
Part Two: The OpenRank Rankings, provides authoritative and systematic OpenRank metric information through rankings of open source projects, companies, foundations, developers, and collaboration bots worldwide and in China, serving as a key benchmark for measuring open source contributions.
Parts Three and Four: Corporate and Foundation Insights, offer an in-depth analysis of strategic positioning and evolutionary paths of global and Chinese corporations and foundations in the open source domain through dynamic evolution charts and trend analyses.
Part Five: Technical Field Insights, focuses on Top10 lists and project changes across various fields, accurately capturing development directions and innovation trends in cutting-edge technologies.
Part Six: Open Source Project Insights, explores the diversity of project types, domains, and themes, showcasing the vitality and innovation potential of the open source ecosystem.
Part Seven: Developer Insights, illustrates the diversified characteristics and working patterns of developer communities by analyzing developer types, work time distribution, geographical distribution, and bot usage.
Part Eight: Commercial Open Source Insights, focuses on the current state of commercial open source enterprises and projects in China and globally, dissecting their growth paths and success experiences.
Part Nine: University Open Source Insights, combines the Open Source Promotion Period (OSPP) event and the OpenRank community algorithm to showcase the activity and contribution levels of university students participating in open source activities, revealing new trends in cultivating open source talent.
Overall, this data section outlines a panoramic view of the 2024 Chinese open source ecosystem with rich data dimensions and deep analytical perspectives, providing valuable insights and references for the industry.
Metric Introduction
Influence/Contribution (OpenRank)
The OpenRank metric, developed by the X-lab Open Lab, is built upon a network of developer-project collaboration relationships and offers multi-dimensional evaluation capabilities. When evaluating projects, OpenRank centers around influence, comprehensively measuring the overall development status and community engagement of a project; when evaluating developers, it uses contribution as a key indicator, precisely reflecting their collaborative value and level of activity within the open source ecosystem. Additionally, OpenRank can aggregate evaluation targets to higher-level entities such as companies, organizations, and foundations, revealing their strategic positions and core roles within the open source ecosystem and collaboration networks. Currently, OpenRank has gained widespread recognition from both industry and academia and has been incorporated into several authoritative standards and practices, including the Standardization Administration of China's open source governance standards, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's white paper on open source governance, the OpenAtom Foundation’s global open source dashboard, and governance toolkits for enterprise open source offices, establishing itself as an authoritative tool for assessing the health and collaborative value of the open source ecosystem.
OpenRank References:
[2] Zhao Shengyu: How to Evaluate an Open Source Project (III) - Value Stream Network, 2021
[3] Standardization Research Institute of MIIT: Information Technology - Open Source Governance - Part 3: Community Governance and Operations [T/CESA 1270.3-2023], Information Technology - Open Source Governance - Part 5: Open Source Contributor Evaluation Model [T/CESA 1270.5-2023], 2023
Activity
Activity is one of the core metrics developed by X-lab, used to quantitatively assess the level of activity of projects or developers. Developer activity is calculated through weighted calculations of key behaviors in the open source ecosystem (such as Issue submissions, PR creations, code reviews, etc.), accurately reflecting their participation level and intensity of contribution. Project activity is generated based on the sum of all developers' activity levels within a project, after standardization processing, comprehensively measuring the overall activity status and community participation level of the project. This metric provides a scientific and quantifiable basis for assessing the health of the open source ecosystem.
Activity References:
[2] Zhao Shengyu: How to Evaluate an Open Source Project (I)—Activity, 2021
Chapter One. General Macro Insights
1.1 Foundational Events
Foundational events are the core data sources for analyzing the open source ecosystem, referring to event log data generated by developer activity behaviors on global open source collaboration platforms (such as GitHub, Gitee, etc.). By statistically analyzing these events, we can gain macro insights into the development trends of the global open source ecosystem. This report covers data from both GitHub and Gitee platforms.
1.1.1 GitHub Global Event Trends
In 2024, the total number of GitHub global event logs reached 1.75 billion, representing an increase of approximately 10% year-over-year. Although the growth rate has slowed compared to the high-growth period between 2018 and 2023, the 10% growth rate still indicates the critical role of open source in global digital transformation. The main factors driving this growth include:
- The popularity of AI tools like GitHub Copilot: Since early 2023, the widespread adoption of AI-assisted programming tools has attracted more developers, especially those in the southern hemisphere.
- Growth in the number of developers: An increase in the global developer population directly contributed to the rise in event logs.
Figure 1.1 shows the growth trend of annual events on GitHub, highlighting the continuous vibrancy of the open source ecosystem.
1.1.2 Comparison of Event Count Trends Between GitHub and Gitee
For comparison purposes, we selected the top 30,000 active repositories on each platform (GitHub and Gitee), focusing on 8 categories of events closely related to open source participation (such as CommitCommentEvent, PullRequestEvent, etc.). The analysis results show:
- GitHub: The number of events continues to grow but fluctuates significantly, reflecting its diversity and activity as a global platform.
- Gitee: The number of events steadily increases, indicating the steady development and standardization trend of the domestic open source community.
Although the number of events on GitHub remains much higher than that on Gitee, Gitee's stable growth demonstrates the increasing enthusiasm and contribution level of domestic developers towards open source. Figure 1.2 compares the event count trends of the two platforms.
1.1.3 Detailed Event Type Analysis
Further analysis of the distribution of event types (Figures 1.3 and 1.4):
- GitHub: Watch events (i.e., Star actions) have the highest proportion, reflecting user attention and recognition of projects. Pull Request and Issue Comment events follow closely, indicating the activity of code collaboration and issue discussions.
- Gitee: Pull Request Review Comment events account for the highest proportion, primarily due to the automated review mechanism inherent in the platform's CI features. This trend reflects the transition of domestic developers from "followers" to "contributors."
1.2 Active Repositories
1.2.1 GitHub Global Active Repository Trends
The number of active repositories on GitHub continues to grow, although the growth rate slows down year by year (Figure 1.5). The surge in remote work and digital transformation during the pandemic in 2020 drove a sharp increase in repository numbers, while the slower growth after 2022 is associated with market maturity and the development of competing platforms (e.g., Gitee, GitLab).
Figure 1.6 shows the overall trend of repository activity on GitHub, reaching near historical highs in 2024.
Issue-related events (e.g., Issue Comment) and Pull Request events (e.g., PR creation and merging) are the main drivers of repository activity on GitHub (Figure 1.7). Specifically:
- Issue comment events account for 29.1%, making them the largest component of active events, indicating high user activity in problem-solving and improvement discussions.
- Pull Request events (including PR creation and merging) collectively account for 46.4%, nearly half of all active events, highlighting GitHub's central role in code collaboration and contributions.
Figure 1.7 details the composition of GitHub repository activity, further confirming the key role of Issue and PR events in advancing open source projects.
GitHub repositories experienced a rapid growth phase in their OpenRank values from 2018 to 2020, with the growth rate peaking in 2020, reflecting the dual explosion of GitHub user expansion and open source project activity during this period. From 2021 to 2022, the growth rate gradually slowed down, entering a stable phase. However, starting from 2023, the growth rate began to recover slightly, and although it declined a bit in 2024, it remained generally stable, indicating the continued vitality and attractiveness of GitHub as a leading global open source platform.
1.2.2 Gitee Global Active Repository Trends
Gitee's repository activity grew rapidly from 2018 to 2020, reaching its peak in 2020, mainly benefiting from the support of domestic open source policies and the establishment of the OpenAtom Foundation. After 2021, the growth rate slowed down, but in 2024 it still reached a new peak (Figure 1.9).
On the Gitee platform, Review Comment events dominate absolutely, accounting for 75.6% of all active events, far exceeding other event types (such as Open Issue, Issue Comment, Merged Pull, which together account for about 7%; Open Pull events account for only 5%). This distribution indicates that Gitee developers focus more on the code review stage, while showing lower activity in code submission and issue discussion compared to GitHub, reflecting a strong emphasis on code quality and the gradual maturation of standardized processes among platform users (Figure 1.10).
Gitee's OpenRank value has seen significant growth from 2018 to 2024, especially surging between 2019 and 2020, largely due to the support of domestic open source ecosystem policies and the active participation of developers in localized platforms. Although the growth rate slowed somewhat after 2021, Gitee's overall activity has continued to rise steadily, confirming its growing status among domestic open source platforms and sustained growth in community contributions and activity levels.
1.3 Active Developers
1.3.1 Overall Active User Trends on GitHub
The analysis for 2024 continues using the previous research methodologies, based on richer and more refined data sources. This study covered a sample of 12 million active developers on GitHub, of which about 2.55 million provided accurate geographic information, accounting for 2% of the total registered users on GitHub (approximately 120 million). Although the sample represents only a small portion of all users, the improved data quality provides a more representative perspective for analyzing the global developer's geographical distribution and regional collaboration patterns.
Figure 1.12 shows the growth trend of the number of annual active developers on GitHub. From 14.54 million in 2020 to 25.11 million in 2024, the number of active developers has shown an upward trend overall. Specifically:
- 2019-2021: Rapid growth, primarily driven by the remote work transformation and accelerated global digital transformation caused by the pandemic.
- 2022-2023: Slowed growth, possibly due to market maturity and base effect.
- 2024: Growth rate rebounded to 14.1%, with approximately 3.11 million new developers added, reflecting the impetus of new technological waves (such as AI, Web3, etc.) on the developer ecosystem.
Compared to repository growth, developer growth has been more stable, indicating the continuous expansion of GitHub's user base. Even during periods of slowed growth, large numbers of new developers continue to join annually, and the rebound in 2024 further proves GitHub's strong appeal as a leading global open-source platform.
1.3.2 Developer Geographic Distribution
1. Global Developer Regional Distribution
According to statistics, the geographical distribution of global developers exhibits a highly concentrated pattern, with the top 10 countries accounting for 60% of the global developer total, as detailed in the table below:
| Rank | Country | Total Count | Proportion | Developer Activity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | 435,202 | 17.11% | 4,301,051.55 |
| 2 | India | 252,054 | 9.91% | 1,099,659.73 |
| 3 | China | 184,085 | 7.23% | 1,097,116.82 |
| 4 | Brazil | 174,811 | 6.87% | 683,186.08 |
| 5 | Germany | 126,397 | 4.96% | 1,492,317.89 |
| 6 | United Kingdom | 103,061 | 4.05% | 1,140,839.73 |
| 7 | Canada | 82,627 | 3.24% | 821,240.65 |
| 8 | France | 78,288 | 3.07% | 833,038.24 |
| 9 | Russia | 60,735 | 2.38% | 310,555.47 |
| 10 | South Korea | 44,006 | 1.73% | 375,550.82 |
Key Observations:
- United States leads significantly with 435,000 developers (17.11% share), and its activity level (4,301,051.55) is also the highest globally, demonstrating its absolute dominance in the open source ecosystem.
- India (9.91%) and China (7.23%) follow closely. Although China has fewer developers than India, its activity level is almost equal, indicating high participation and contribution density of Chinese developers in open source projects.
- Germany stands out, ranking fifth in developer numbers but second in activity level (1,492,317.89), suggesting a high depth of participation among German developers.
- Brazil and Russia have many developers but relatively low per capita activity, indicating room for improvement in the quality of their participation in the open source ecosystem.
1. Global Developer Regional Distribution
According to statistics, the geographical distribution of global developers exhibits a highly concentrated pattern, with the top 10 countries accounting for 60% of the global developer total, as detailed in the table below:
| Rank | Country | Total Count | Proportion | Developer Activity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | 435,202 | 17.11% | 4,301,051.55 |
| 2 | India | 252,054 | 9.91% | 1,099,659.73 |
| 3 | China | 184,085 | 7.23% | 1,097,116.82 |
| 4 | Brazil | 174,811 | 6.87% | 683,186.08 |
| 5 | Germany | 126,397 | 4.96% | 1,492,317.89 |
| 6 | United Kingdom | 103,061 | 4.05% | 1,140,839.73 |
| 7 | Canada | 82,627 | 3.24% | 821,240.65 |
| 8 | France | 78,288 | 3.07% | 833,038.24 |
| 9 | Russia | 60,735 | 2.38% | 310,555.47 |
| 10 | South Korea | 44,006 | 1.73% | 375,550.82 |
Key Observations:
- United States leads significantly with 435,000 developers (17.11% share), and its activity level (4,301,051.55) is also the highest globally, demonstrating its absolute dominance in the open source ecosystem.
- India (9.91%) and China (7.23%) follow closely. Although China has fewer developers than India, its activity level is almost equal, indicating high participation and contribution density of Chinese developers in open source projects.
- Germany stands out, ranking fifth in developer numbers but second in activity level (1,492,317.89), suggesting a high depth of participation among German developers.
- Brazil and Russia have many developers but relatively low per capita activity, indicating room for improvement in the quality of their participation in the open source ecosystem.
2. Regional Distribution of Chinese Developers
Further analysis of the distribution of Chinese developers shows that the total number of Chinese developers is 9,404,966, with the Beijing-Shanghai-Guangzhou-Shenzhen region taking up the majority, highlighting the strong attraction of economically developed areas to open source technology.
| Rank | Province | Total Count | National Share | Actual Total (Ten Thousand) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Beijing | 38,323 | 22.04% | 207.20 |
| 2 | Shanghai | 28,393 | 16.43% | 154.86 |
| 3 | Guangdong | 24,959 | 14.49% | 136.28 |
| 4 | Taiwan | 15,894 | 9.53% | 89.62 |
| 5 | Zhejiang | 15,816 | 8.13% | 76.52 |
| 6 | Jiangsu | 9,369 | 4.90% | 46.10 |
| 7 | Sichuan | 8,186 | 4.69% | 44.03 |
| 8 | Hong Kong | 6,625 | 3.13% | 29.44 |
| 9 | Hubei | 5,732 | 2.95% | 27.75 |
| 10 | Shaanxi | 3,669 | 1.88% | 17.68 |
Key Observations:
- Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, and Shenzhen Lead: Beijing (22.04%), Shanghai (16.43%), and Guangdong (14.49%) rank in the top three, together accounting for more than 50%, reflecting the prominent position of these economic and technology hubs in the open-source ecosystem. Beijing leads with 38,323 developers (likely a misstatement from "2.072 million"), demonstrating its core advantages in technological innovation and talent aggregation.
- Taiwan and Hong Kong Play Important Roles: Taiwan (9.53%) and Hong Kong (3.13%) hold significant positions in the open-source ecosystem, with Taiwan attracting a large number of developers thanks to its high-tech industries and open policy environment.
- Strength of Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta Regions: The combined number of developers in the Yangtze River Delta region (Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu) and the Pearl River Delta region (Guangdong) exceeds 150,000, highlighting the strong innovative capacity of China's economically developed eastern coastal areas.
- Rise of Central and Western Regions: Although Sichuan (4.69%), Hubei (2.95%), and Shaanxi (1.88%) have fewer developers compared to the eastern regions, their overall growth is remarkable, indicating the gradual improvement and increasing appeal of the technological innovation ecosystem in central and western China.
Summary and Perspectives:
- Global Perspective: China is becoming increasingly important in the global open-source ecosystem. Developer activity and contribution density are approaching levels seen in India, showing rapid maturation of the open-source ecosystem. Countries like Germany and the UK exhibit higher per capita activity, offering valuable insights into deeper community engagement models that China can learn from.
- Domestic Distribution: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Shenzhen, and other coastal areas remain the core clusters for Chinese open-source developers. However, the technology ecosystem in central and western regions is rising, providing new momentum for balanced development of China’s open-source ecosystem in the future.
- Development Recommendations:
- Strengthen support and resource allocation for developers in central and western regions to promote balanced regional development.
- Learn from countries like Germany with high participation rates to improve developer community engagement and depth of contributions.
- Foster policies and technical support mechanisms to cultivate more highly active and high-contributing developers, further solidifying China’s competitiveness in the global open-source ecosystem.
1.4 Programming Languages
1.4.1 Top Programming Languages Used by Developers in 2024
The popularity of programming languages has always been a key concern for developers. Below is the list of the most popular programming languages among developers in 2024:
| Rank | Programming Language | Number of Developers Using This Language | Number of Repositories Using This Language |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | JavaScript | 591,223 | 654,037 |
| 2 | Python | 540,751 | 499,644 |
| 3 | TypeScript | 439,954 | 462,496 |
| 4 | HTML | 424,901 | 401,084 |
| 5 | Java | 281,403 | 328,123 |
| 6 | C++ | 143,135 | 106,444 |
| 7 | CSS | 137,566 | 114,166 |
| 8 | C# | 131,549 | 163,796 |
| 9 | Go | 125,521 | 121,209 |
| 10 | Jupyter Notebook | 119,874 | 79,415 |
| 11 | PHP | 100,984 | 108,019 |
| 12 | Shell | 93,726 | 76,276 |
| 13 | C | 84,253 | 60,389 |
| 14 | Rust | 68,199 | 62,969 |
| 15 | Kotlin | 53,503 | 48,013 |
Key Observations:
- JavaScript remains at the top with 590,000 developers and 650,000 repositories, being the most popular language due to its wide range of applications and mature ecosystem.
- Python follows closely with 540,000 developers, thanks to its widespread use in data science, artificial intelligence, and general-purpose programming.
- TypeScript ranks third, with the number of developers (439,000) surpassing HTML (424,000), indicating its rising importance in front-end development.
- HTML and Java rank fourth and fifth respectively, with 424,000 and 281,000 developers. However, from C++ in sixth place onwards, the number of developers drops significantly, showing a clear concentration effect among the top programming languages.
- Languages ranked from sixth to fifteenth (such as C++, Rust, Kotlin) have smaller user bases but remain influential in specific fields like system development and mobile development.
Overall, the application areas of mainstream programming languages have largely stabilized, with little change in the rankings over recent years, indicating high stability in developer choices.
1.4.2 Trends in Programming Languages Usage from 2019 to 2024
The following is a statistical analysis of trends in programming language usage from 2019 to 2024:
Data Notes:
Due to the unavailability of repository metadata after 2023, relevant data for October, November, and December 2024 is missing. Therefore, predictions for 2024 are made based on data from 2019 to 2023, with the dotted lines representing predicted results.
Key Observations:
- JavaScript, Python, HTML, TypeScript, and Java remain the primary programming languages and have maintained their leading positions for a long time.
- Rapid Growth of HTML: Predictions show that the growth rate of HTML will accelerate in 2024, significantly closing the gap with Python. This trend may be related to developers' emphasis on project presentation aesthetics and convenience, ensuring HTML's continued importance in front-end development and content display.
- Continuous Surge of TypeScript: Over the past five years, the number of TypeScript users has grown rapidly, creating a significant gap with subsequent languages by 2021, becoming one of the core choices for developers. The 2024 prediction shows it will rank fourth in terms of developer usage. TypeScript's success is attributed to static type checking introduced on top of JavaScript, strong community support, and adaptability to large projects.
- Steady Growth of JavaScript and Python: Both consistently rank in the top two positions with relatively stable growth curves, highlighting their irreplaceability in general development.
1.5 Summary and Trend Insights:
- Significant Head Effect: JavaScript and Python have long been the top two languages, with TypeScript's rapid rise further solidifying its position in front-end development. Meanwhile, HTML's growth reflects developers' demand for more intuitive and user-friendly technologies.
- Field-Driven Trends: Although languages like C++ and Rust have smaller user bases, their influence in specific fields such as system programming and high-performance computing cannot be ignored and will likely continue to serve as key technologies in vertical sectors.
- Community and Ecosystem Impact: TypeScript's success once again highlights the importance of community and ecosystems in promoting programming languages. Combining technical advantages with robust support systems can significantly boost user growth.
- Development Recommendations:
- Actively improve supporting tools and ecosystems for emerging programming languages (such as Rust and Kotlin) to attract more developers.
- Encourage developers to try HTML and TypeScript more in projects to enhance front-end development efficiency and presentation effects.
- Support the deepening application of vertical sector programming languages (such as C++ and Go) in industries to promote innovative technology implementation.
Here is the English translation, retaining the markdown format:
2. OpenRank Rankings
In the open-source domain, rankings are not only important tools for measuring project influence and activity but also windows showcasing the dynamics of the global open-source ecosystem. The 2024 China Open Source Annual Report presents key participants in the open-source community, including projects, regions, enterprises, foundations, and emerging projects' activity and influence through the OpenRank Rankings. This report integrates data from both domestic and international platforms, GitHub and Gitee, covering China's open-source ecosystem while providing a global perspective analysis. Through these rankings, we aim to further promote the popularization of open-source culture and the application of open-source technology, encouraging more active participation from enterprises and individuals in open-source projects.
2.1 Global Project Rankings
According to the Top 30 Global Projects OpenRank Rankings 2024, the Chinese open-source project OpenHarmony tops the list with an OpenRank value of 67538.71, showcasing its outstanding activity and global influence within the open-source community. Azure and .Net rank second and third respectively. Notably, the OpenRank scores of OpenHarmony and LLVM have significantly increased over the past year, indicating their substantial growth potential and community impact in specific technical fields or stacks.
Overview of Rankings:
- Covers multiple areas including operating systems, cloud computing, programming languages, IoT, big data, AI, game engines, and visualization tools.
- Demonstrates the breadth and diversity of open-source projects, reflecting key and hot directions in the technical field.
2.2 Chinese Project Rankings
The 2024 Chinese Projects OpenRank Rankings cover various technical fields, including operating systems (such as OpenHarmony), artificial intelligence (such as MindSpore), databases (such as openGauss, TiDB), and big data processing (such as Apache Flink). This indicates that the diversity and technological strength of Chinese open-source projects are continuously growing.
Key Observations:
- Huawei occupies multiple positions in the rankings (such as OpenHarmony, openEuler), showing its dominant position and significant contributions in China's open-source community.
- Outstanding AI Projects: MindSpore and PaddlePaddle rank third and fourth respectively, reflecting the rapid development of China in the AI field.
- Rise of Privacy Computing Projects: SecretFlow, representing privacy computing, has entered the ranking, indicating that emerging technology fields are gaining widespread attention.
2.3 Global Enterprise Rankings
The Global Enterprises OpenRank Rankings showcase the internationalization and globalization features of open-source projects, where American enterprises dominate. Tech giants such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon lead significantly in OpenRank scores, demonstrating their leadership in the global open-source domain.
Highlights:
- Rising Chinese Enterprises: Huawei and Alibaba rank second and eighth respectively, reflecting the continuous enhancement of Chinese enterprises' influence in the global open-source ecosystem.
- Emerging Enterprises: Companies like HashiCorp, Hugging Face, Vercel, and LangChain have also made it to the list, indicating the ongoing release of innovation vitality in the open-source field.
2.4 Chinese Enterprise Rankings
The 2024 Chinese Enterprises OpenRank Rankings are dominated by large enterprises, highlighting the crucial role of Chinese companies in promoting the development of the open-source ecosystem.
Key Observations:
- Leading companies such as Huawei, Alibaba, Ant Group, and Baidu demonstrate their core driving force status in the open-source ecosystem.
- Enterprises like Tencent, Baidu, and Alibaba not only excel domestically but also have significant influence in global open-source projects.
2.5 Open Source Foundation Rankings
In the 2024 Open Source Foundations OpenRank Rankings, the OpenAtom Foundation ranks first, indicating significant achievements by China in promoting large-scale open-source projects.
Highlights:
- High-ranking American foundations (such as Cloud Native Computing Foundation, Apache Software Foundation, and Linux Foundation) maintain strong influence.
- European foundations like the Stichting NixOS Foundation and the Godot Foundation rank fourth and seventh respectively, showcasing Europe's involvement and contribution to open-source projects.
2.6 Global Administrative Region Developer Rankings
The Global Administrative Region Rankings show higher open-source development activity in economically developed regions.
Key Observations:
- US Dominance: Regions like California (Silicon Valley), Washington State (headquarters of Microsoft, Amazon), New York State, etc., are centers of global open-source activities.
- Strong Performance of Chinese Cities: Cities like Beijing and Shanghai also perform strongly, further consolidating their positions in the global open-source ecosystem.
2.7 Chinese Administrative Region Developer Rankings
The Chinese Administrative Region Rankings indicate that first-tier cities like Beijing and Shanghai continue to dominate open-source development, while coastal cities and some western regions also show significant development potential.
2.8 Global Emerging Power Project Rankings
The Global Emerging Power Project Rankings reflect highly active core projects and development teams, representing future technology trends and innovation directions.
Highlights:
- UV Project ranks first as a Python package management tool, featuring a high number of active developers and close collaboration.
- Valkey Project (fourth place): A high-performance key-value data storage project forked from Redis, currently hosted under the Linux Foundation, supported by giants like AWS, Google Cloud, and Alibaba.
- Redot Engine (ninth place): A community-driven open-source game development engine based on Godot engine fork, licensed under MIT.
- KWDB Project (tenth place): As the only new power project listed from China, KWDB is the country's first open-source distributed multi-model database incubated by the OpenAtom Foundation, embodying China's technological innovation and open-source contributions in the database field.
2.9 Summary and Trend Insights:
- Rise of China's Open Source Ecosystem: The global leadership of projects like OpenHarmony and the prominent performance of enterprises like Huawei highlight China's rapid rise in the open-source field.
- Globalization and Diversity: Rankings cover multiple technical fields and regions, fully reflecting the internationalization and broad technical scope of the open-source ecosystem.
- Emerging Technology Driven: Fields such as privacy computing, distributed databases, and community-driven game engines are becoming hotspots in global open-source technology.
- Development Recommendations:
- Support the incubation and development of emerging projects, especially the international promotion of Chinese projects.
- Strengthen support for open-source foundations and communities, promoting cooperation and innovation in the global open-source ecosystem.
- Encourage more developers to participate in open-source projects, enhancing technical influence and global competitiveness.
3. Corporate Insights
The role and performance of companies within the open-source ecosystem are increasingly becoming a key dimension for measuring their technological innovation capabilities and industry influence. From global technological competition to localized industry applications, open source has become a significant engine driving corporate digital transformation and technological breakthroughs. As the open-source ecosystem continues to expand, the level of activity, contribution, and influence of companies in the open-source domain have gradually become important indicators for evaluating their overall strength.
This section will delve into the performance of companies in the open-source field and their role in promoting the industry ecosystem by analyzing the evolution trend of OpenRank among global and Chinese companies over the past decade, combined with the activity levels and OpenRank rankings in 2024. Particularly focusing on DaoCloud, the dark horse among Chinese companies this year, through data visualization, analysis of core project ecological collaboration networks, and community collaboration networks, we will comprehensively showcase its rapid rise and strategic layout in the cloud-native technology field, providing new references and inspirations for the industry.
3.1 Evolution Chart of Global Companies' OpenRank Over the Last Decade
Observations on the influence of global companies in the open-source domain are as follows:
- Microsoft: Starting its open-source layout since 2008, Microsoft reached the pinnacle of global open-source influence in 2016, a position it maintains to this day.
- Huawei: After being sanctioned by the United States in 2019, Huawei made open source a critical strategic direction, leading to a continuous surge in its open-source influence, surpassing Google and Amazon in 2023, marking a significant breakthrough.
- Alibaba: A leader in domestic open source until 2021, Alibaba now stably holds the eighth spot globally, maintaining its leading position.
- Ant Group: With impressive performances over the past three years, Ant Group entered the global top 15 for the first time in 2023, currently ranking 13th, showcasing robust growth momentum in open source.
- Baidu: As the fourth major player in domestic open source, Baidu ranks 12th globally, leveraging the rapidly changing domestic open-source landscape.
- Nabu Casa Inc: The global dark horse of 2023, entering the global Top 15 for the first time, currently ranked 11th, is the world's largest open-source home automation platform.
- Intel: Appearing in the global Top 15 for the first time this year at rank 15, indicating gradual deployment and efforts in the open-source domain.
- DataDog: Another newcomer to the Top 15, ranking 14th, this leading provider of cloud application monitoring and data analysis services showcases potential in the open-source domain.
3.2 Evolution Chart of Chinese Companies' OpenRank Over the Last Decade
This chart clearly illustrates the strategic layouts and change trends of domestic companies in the open-source domain:
- Huawei: After making strides starting from 2018, it took only two years to become the top domestic open-source company and climbed to second place globally in 2023, demonstrating strong execution of its open-source strategy.
- Alibaba and Ant Group: As seasoned leaders in domestic open source, these two companies maintain stable performance, consistently holding leading positions.
- Baidu: Influenced by fierce competition from the top three, Baidu's ranking has dropped to fourth domestically but still retains considerable industry influence.
- ByteDance: Making rapid progress in recent years, ByteDance has become an essential emerging force in the domestic open-source ecosystem.
- Espressif (LeXin Technology): A low-key yet formidable semiconductor open-source king, securing a place in the open-source community with steady technical contributions.
- Fit2Cloud: Another low-profile yet pragmatic open-source company, whose multiple open-source software products are highly favored by developers, showcasing practicality and influence.
- Emerging Forces: In recent years, companies like Fit2Cloud, PingCAP, and StarRocks have risen quickly, active in areas such as cloud computing, big data, AI, and infrastructure. Their rapid development reflects a gradual inclination towards cloud-native and big data technologies in the domestic open-source ecosystem.
Overall, these trends highlight the diversification and competitiveness of the domestic open-source domain, along with sustained efforts in key technological fields.
3.3 Changes in Global Companies' OpenRank in 2024
- Among the top 5 global companies, Huawei and Meta were the only ones to achieve growth in 2024, with Huawei showing particularly notable growth (+31,226.88), while Meta grew by +174.75.
- Microsoft, Google, and Amazon all saw decreases in their OpenRank values, with Amazon experiencing the most significant drop (-8,974.76).
- Following its successful surpassing of Google and Amazon in 2023, Huawei continued its robust growth trajectory in 2024, setting a new record for growth. This not only signals a potential challenge to Microsoft's global leadership position but also indicates that Chinese enterprises are accelerating their presence in the global open-source community, gradually enhancing their influence in the international open-source ecosystem.
3.4 Changes in Chinese Companies' OpenRank in 2024
- Among the top 10 Chinese companies, Huawei, Ant Group, ByteDance, DaoCloud, Espressif, and Fit2Cloud all achieved growth in 2024, with Huawei seeing especially significant growth (+31,226.88).
- DaoCloud was recognized as the domestic dark horse of the year, with a growth value reaching 4,846.22, pushing its total OpenRank to 6,759.34 and advancing nine spots nationally to sixth place. This achievement made DaoCloud one of the most watched companies in 2024, which will be analyzed in detail later.
- Baidu experienced a significant decline in 2024, with an annual decrease of 4,911.89, making it the company with the largest drop among Chinese companies. Globally, Baidu fell nine spots to 19th place, closely related to its judgment on the value of open source and strategic layout, reflecting its inability to sustain growth in open-source investment and influence.
3.5 Interpretation of the Dark Horse DaoCloud Among Chinese Companies in 2024
In the 2024 rankings of Chinese companies' OpenRank and activity levels, DaoCloud stood out, entering the top ten. Its OpenRank ranking rose significantly by nine spots to sixth nationally; meanwhile, in the activity level list, it moved up ten spots to fifth place, making it undoubtedly the "dark horse" of the year.
Notably, in June 2024, Docker image sites at various universities were blocked, causing many developers to turn to DaoCloud, accelerating its rapid rise.
DaoCloud's success is attributed to long-term investment and technological innovation in the open-source domain, as well as deep cultivation and popularization in container cloud and microservices architecture. Furthermore, DaoCloud actively participates in the research and development of mainstream open-source projects both domestically and internationally, including Kubernetes ecosystems, container orchestration tools, and cloud-native development frameworks, significantly enhancing its status and influence within the open-source community.
DaoCloud's success not only demonstrates the exploration and practice achievements of Chinese tech companies in the development of open-source technology but also provides valuable reference paths for other small and medium-sized enterprises. Through technological innovation and community participation, DaoCloud has not only enhanced its industry influence but also promoted the prosperity of China's open-source ecosystem.
3.5.1 DaoCloud Corporate Insight Dashboard
This graph presents the DaoCloud Insight Dashboard, offering a comprehensive view of DaoCloud's overall contribution, ranking of active projects, contributor distribution, and some key open-source activity metrics (such as changes in Issues, Commits, and PRs). These data provide crucial insights for analyzing community dynamics and development situations.
Regarding activity trends, DaoCloud stands out notably. Firstly, the number of Issues peaked in May 2024 (exceeding 60,000), possibly linked to new version releases or significant events sparking community discussions. Subsequently, the community's efficient response to closing and handling issues fully displays its capability to swiftly resolve problems. Additionally, the historical Commit activities also showed significant fluctuations, with peaks appearing in 2020 and 2023, likely associated with important version releases or feature updates. The latest peak appeared at the end of 2024, with a notable increase in Commit numbers, indicating a sustained improvement in community activity. Regarding PR (Pull Request) performance, the opening, merging, and closing numbers of PRs remained stable throughout 2024, reflecting orderly and efficient community development activities.
Overall, DaoCloud's community demonstrates healthy and continuously growing ecology. Core projects such as public-image-mirror (public mirror service) and DaoCloud-docs (documentation collaboration) contribute primarily to the community's activity and influence. While public-image-mirror aims to provide efficient and stable mirror support for developers, boosting the DaoCloud community's development and supporting domestic and international open-source users, DaoCloud-docs enhances user experience and technology dissemination through comprehensive technical documentation and development guides, thereby lowering the learning threshold for new developers.
Thus, DaoCloud's multi-dimensional performance highlights tight community collaboration, with increasing contributors, Commit activities, and PR activity levels indicating ongoing community expansion and attractiveness. Diversified contributor structures, stable development activities, and active project management further consolidate DaoCloud's significant position within the open-source ecosystem. By successfully operating core projects, DaoCloud not only boosts its industry influence but also offers valuable experiences for building other open-source communities.
3.5.2 Ecological Collaboration Network of DaoCloud's Core Project DaoCloud-docs
This diagram represents the ecological network of the DaoCloud-docs project within the DaoCloud community, aiming to illustrate the connections between the project and other projects or organizations, as well as their development activities and collaborations.
Key findings:
- Strong ties with Kubernetes: DaoCloud-docs has significant connections with several Kubernetes-related projects (e.g., kubernetes/kubernetes, kubernetes/website), indicating its crucial role within the Kubernetes ecosystem, potentially stemming from DaoCloud's deep usage, extension, or contribution to Kubernetes.
- Collaboration with Istio: There is also a notable association with Istio projects (e.g., istio/istio, istio/istio.io), suggesting synergies in service mesh technologies.
- Other partners: Besides Kubernetes and Istio, DaoCloud-docs collaborates with projects like GoogleCloudPlatform and Kubean-io, showcasing its active engagement in multi-cloud and container technologies.
3.5.3 Community Collaboration Network of DaoCloud's Core Project DaoCloud-docs
This diagram shows the community network (Project Community Network) of the DaoCloud-docs project, analyzing the distribution and composition of the project community through development activities and organizational affiliations.
Key findings:
- Core contributors: Chinese developers and organizations form the backbone of this project community, with primary contributors and affiliated organizations predominantly coming from China. Developers windsonsea and samzong are the most active individuals, with their submitted PRs indicating their dominant roles in the project. Windsonsea also received the CNCF community's annual "Best Technical Documentation Award" in 2024 (https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/tdO2QhvE800TKy5RY7FCWw).
- International recognition: Although the core community centers around China, the project attracts attention from developers in other countries and regions, such as the US and South Korea, indicating a certain degree of international influence.
- Organizational collaboration: Participation from different organizations like EMC and @DaoCloud highlights cross-organizational collaboration, beneficial for enhancing project diversity and influence.
The DaoCloud-docs project community exhibits significant localization characteristics, mainly driven by Chinese developers and organizations, while also possessing potential for internationalization.
3.5.4 Ecological Collaboration Network of DaoCloud's Core Project public-image-mirror
Strongly connected projects:
- kubesre/docker-registry-mirrors (connection strength: 161) and DigitalPlatDev/FreeDomain (connection strength: 176) are the two projects most closely linked to public-image-mirror, potentially due to co-development, resource sharing, or technical integration.
- Significant associations also exist with kubernetes/kubernetes (71) and alibaba/nacos (52), suggesting possible use or reliance on this mirror project.
- Collaboration with various tools and image services: Projects like imdingtalk/image-mirror and langenius/dify show substantial interaction, indicating that public-image-mirror might provide infrastructure support for these tools.
- Cooperation with other core projects: DaoCloud/DaoCloud-docs, another core project under DaoCloud, has close relations, possibly collaborating on documentation and configuration development.
3.5.5 Community Collaboration Network of DaoCloud's Core Project public-image-mirror
Primary contributors:
- wzshiming submitted numerous PRs (279), establishing himself as a core contributor to the project.
- Other contributors such as JaredTan95, yank1, and cuisongliu also made significant contributions through PRs and stars.
Main sources of contributions:
- China serves as the primary source of community collaboration, highlighting the project's localization features.
- Contributions also come from the United States and Taiwan, indicating a certain level of international influence.
