What are open source software communities?

Communities for open source contributors and maintainers covering everything from trading bots to backend frameworks. GitHub, Discord, and Slack host communities for specific projects with active developer discussion and contribution workflows.

Where do most open source software communities live?

Discord is the most common platform in this report (41% of 22 listings).

Are most of these communities free?

73% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.

How big is a typical open source software community?

Among listings with public size data, the average is 65K members and the median is 11K. The median is usually the better signal for a typical group because a few large ones inflate the average.

What do these communities usually include?

Forum is the most common (77%). Others that show up often include live chat, newsletter, and online/offline events.

How does Hive Index collect this data?

Listings are submitted by community builders and researchers, reviewed for relevance, and updated with platform, feature, member, review, and traffic data where available.

Where can I see the full list?

The full directory is on Hive Index's Open Source Software topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.

Open Source Software Communities Report: Stats,...

Executive Summary

We analyzed 22 open source software communities listed on Hive Index to understand where people gather, what these groups offer, and which communities attract the most interest.

The big picture: open source software communities are broad and fragmented, with many small groups and a few very large outliers.

Source: Hive Index community database · Updated 2026-06-10

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Communities: 22
Platforms: 7
Avg members: 65K
Median members: 11K

Where Open Source Software Communities Are Hosted

Discord
9(41%)
Github
7(32%)
Slack
4(18%)
Independent Platforms
3(14%)
Reddit
3(14%)
Telegram
1(5%)
Discourse
1(5%)

Format mix

Chat communities
10(45%)
Forum / feed-based
7(32%)
Other platforms
5(23%)

Chat communities is most common (45%), but forum / feed-based is also well represented (32%).

Discord leads, but Github and Slack also represent meaningful shares.

Audience Size & Access

Community size

Tiny
<20 members
0(0%)
Small
20-100 members
0(0%)
Medium
100-1,000 members
2(9%)
Large
1,000-10,000 members
7(32%)
Huge
10,000-100,000 members
7(32%)
Massive
100,000-1M members
3(14%)
Gigantic
1M+ members
0(0%)

3 communities have unknown member counts.

Free vs paid

The average is much higher than the median (65K vs 11K), which usually means a few large groups are pulling the average up.

How Open Source Software Differs From Other Categories

Open Source Software is less free-to-join, smaller, more chat-heavy, and more paid or gated, compared with typical Hive Index topics.

Metric	Open Source Software	Hive Index average
Free to join	73%	85%
Median members	11K	24K
Average members	65K	652K
Paid or apply-to-join	27%	15%
Live chat	59%	40%
Discord share	41%	16%

Feature Mix

Common features appear in at least 15% of listings.

Common Features

Forum
77%
Live Chat
59%
Newsletter
27%
Online/Offline Events
27%
Paid Community
27%

Niche Features

Courses
9%
Pairing
9%
Job Board
5%

Live Chat appears on 59% of listings.

What Visitors Click

Outbound clicks / mo: 60

Platform supply vs. clicks

Platform	Communities	Share of communities	Outbound clicks	Share of clicks
Discord	9	41%	9	15%
Github	7	32%	36	60%
Slack	4	18%	7	12%
Independent Platforms	3	14%	2	3%
Reddit	3	14%	6	10%

Share is calculated within this topic.

Github gets 60% of clicks but only 32% of listings, so visitors click it more than you'd expect from supply alone.

Most-clicked formats

Other platforms
36(60%)
Chat communities
16(27%)
Forum / feed-based
8(13%)

Most-clicked features

Live Chat
51(85%)
Forum
50(83%)
Online/Offline Events
7(12%)
Paid Community
7(12%)
Newsletter
4(7%)
Pairing
3(5%)

Most-clicked size ranges

Huge
41(68%)
Large
10(17%)
Massive
6(10%)
Medium
2(3%)

Top-clicked listings

Freqtrade
32(53%)
Apache Software Foundation
5(8%)
Appwrite
3(5%)

Most clicks go to other platforms and chat communities communities.

Trends

Founded year

Not enough founding-year data to chart yet.

Methodology & FAQ

Methodology

This report uses communities in the Hive Index database tagged as Open Source Software. We exclude removed or suppressed listings. Member counts, traffic, features, reviews, and ratings may vary by source and are updated periodically.

•This is a smaller slice of Hive Index's database, so read trends as directional.
•Last updated 2026-06-10

FAQ

: Communities for open source contributors and maintainers covering everything from trading bots to backend frameworks. GitHub, Discord, and Slack host communities for specific projects with active developer discussion and contribution workflows.
: Discord is the most common platform in this report (41% of 22 listings).
: 73% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.
: Among listings with public size data, the average is 65K members and the median is 11K. The median is usually the better signal for a typical group because a few large ones inflate the average.
: Forum is the most common (77%). Others that show up often include live chat, newsletter, and online/offline events.
: Listings are submitted by community builders and researchers, reviewed for relevance, and updated with platform, feature, member, review, and traffic data where available.
: The full directory is on Hive Index's Open Source Software topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.

Keep exploring

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All Open Source Software communities

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