20 Hottest Open Source Startups of 2024

Trending Open Source Startups: A 2024 Report

A recently published report identifies the 20 fastest-growing open source startups globally, with a significant majority focused on Artificial Intelligence.

The Runa Open Source Startup (ROSS) Index

The findings originate from Runa Capital, a European venture capital firm. They have maintained the Runa Open Source Startup (ROSS) Index since 2020, providing quarterly insights into the most rapidly developing projects.

Growth is measured by the number of GitHub “stars” a project accumulates. This metric functions similarly to a “like” on social media platforms, indicating community interest and adoption.

Since 2023, Runa Capital has also released annual reports. These reports spotlight the most successful commercial open source startups of each year.

AI Dominance in Open Source

The previous year’s report indicated a strong correlation between the demand for open source tools and advancements in AI and data infrastructure.

LangChain, an open source framework designed for developing applications centered around Large Language Models (LLMs), led the ROSS Index in 2023.

The current report reveals a continuing trend. AI is a core component of 11 out of the top 20 startups identified.

ROSS Index Criteria

It’s important to understand that the ROSS Index employs a selective curation process. Not all open source projects are considered.

• Projects must have a strong connection to a commercial entity – a company actively developing and supporting the project.
• Startups must be less than a decade old.
• Funding raised must be under $100 million.
• Companies must operate independently, excluding subsidiaries and publicly traded organizations.

These criteria ensure the index focuses on emerging, commercially viable open source ventures.

Observing the Stars: Top Open Source Startups of 2024

According to the 2024 ROSS Index, Ollama currently leads the pack. This Y Combinator-backed company has developed an open-source tool enabling local execution of Large Language Models (LLMs), including Meta’s Llama and DeepSeek, directly on desktop computers.

Throughout 2024, Ollama experienced a substantial increase in its GitHub star count, gaining approximately 76,000 stars. This represents a growth of 261%, bringing the total to over 105,000 stars, a number that has since exceeded 135,000.

Notable Projects Following Ollama

Zed Industries secures the second position. They offer a cross-platform, collaborative code editor specifically engineered for efficient collaboration between humans and Artificial Intelligence.

While the Zed project has existed for some time, it transitioned to open source in January 2024. Subsequently, it accumulated over 52,000 GitHub stars throughout the remainder of the year.

LangGenius claims the third spot. This company is the creator of Dify, an open-source platform designed for LLM application development.

Last year, the project saw an impressive gain of more than 43,000 GitHub stars, a 326% increase from approximately 13,000 to nearly 57,000. This figure has since risen to over 84,000 stars.

ComfyUI, an open-source, node-based application for generating images, videos, and audio utilizing generative AI models, occupies the fourth position.

Its GitHub star count increased by 195% in the past year, reaching a total of 61,900 stars.

Completing the top five is All Hands, the organization behind OpenHands. OpenHands is an open-source platform focused on building software development agents.

From its launch in March of last year until the end of 2024, OpenHands received 39,600 GitHub stars, with an additional 12,000 stars added since then.

Trends in Open Source Development

The 2024 ROSS Index highlights the rapid expansion within the AI and LLM sectors.

It also demonstrates the continued importance of developer tooling in the open-source landscape, as evidenced by the inclusion of Zed and Astral’s UV (ranked No. 9) in the top 10.

Furthermore, the presence of Stirling PDF (No. 7), a PDF manipulation tool, Maybe Finance (No. 8), a finance management solution, and RustDesk (No. 17), a remote desktop application, indicates a sustained demand for privacy-centric, self-hostable tools.

The inclusion of Fuel (No. 12), a project centered around the Ethereum blockchain, confirms the ongoing activity within the crypto and web3 domains.

Geographical Distribution

Open-source software inherently benefits from global distribution, allowing contributions from developers worldwide.

While vendor-led projects often have a central location, even if only for formal incorporation, the ROSS Index reveals a concentration of activity.

San Francisco is identified as the home base for six of the top 20 ROSS startups.

Canada hosts three, while Europe (including the U.K., Switzerland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic), Singapore, and China account for the remaining projects.

Alternative Approaches to Identifying Popular Open Source Projects

Beyond the ROSS Index, several other methods exist for identifying thriving open source initiatives. Two Sigma Ventures, for example, maintains the Open Source Index, a resource conceptually aligned with ROSS but differing in its scope.

The Two Sigma Index highlights the top 100 projects, without prioritizing those associated with commercial startups. It also provides diverse filtering options for data analysis.

Furthermore, GitHub itself provides a list of trending projects. However, this list lacks the ROSS Index’s specific emphasis on businesses leveraging open source technologies.

Understanding the ROSS Index Methodology

A closer examination of the methodology underpinning the ROSS Index is worthwhile. GitHub “stars,” while readily available, represent a potentially flawed metric.

A star simply indicates a user’s approval of a project, not necessarily active usage or ongoing monitoring. Established projects naturally accumulate more stars over time.

To address this, Runa focuses on the relative growth of repositories over a 90-day window for its quarterly reports. The annual report, conversely, considers the total number of new stars acquired throughout the year.

Consequently, the annual and quarterly reports may present differing results, as absolute star counts don't always correlate with rapid relative growth.

Defining “Open Source” for the Index

The definition of “open source” within the ROSS Index also warrants consideration. While many listed projects utilize established copyleft or permissive open source licenses, this isn’t a rigid requirement.

Runa employs a “commercial perception” of open source, diverging from the strict official definition. This means projects released under licenses like the Server Side Public License (SSPL) can qualify.

Even though the Open Source Initiative hasn’t formally recognized the SSPL as “open source,” it is still included based on its perceived openness.

Despite these nuances, the Index remains a valuable resource. It provides insights into both emerging open source technologies and the companies building businesses around them.