Yuval Avidani
Author
Key Takeaway
GitHub Trending is a curated feed that surfaces repositories gaining GitHub stars at the fastest rate each day, making it easy for us to discover what the open-source community is building and excited about right now. It's become an essential daily ritual for developers who want to stay current with emerging tools, libraries, and frameworks.
What is GitHub Trending?
GitHub Trending is a discovery feature on GitHub that tracks and displays repositories experiencing rapid growth in stars - what we call "star velocity." Unlike a simple "most starred" list that would favor old, established projects, Trending focuses on acceleration: which repos are capturing developer attention RIGHT NOW, today, this week, or this month.
The project solves the problem of discovery that we all face in the massive GitHub ecosystem with over 100 million repositories. Finding the signal in all that noise has always been challenging.
The Problem We All Know
We spend hours trying to stay current with new tools and libraries in our tech stack. There are millions of repositories on GitHub, and the search feature, while powerful, doesn't distinguish between a repo that accumulated 10,000 stars over five years versus one that exploded with 10,000 stars in the past week.
We rely on Twitter threads, Reddit posts, or word-of-mouth recommendations - but these are often delayed, biased toward certain communities, or miss projects that are just starting to gain momentum. By the time we hear about something "new," it may already be weeks old, or worse, we miss it entirely.
Existing solutions like GitHub Explore exist, but they're curated manually and updated infrequently. We need something that reflects the pulse of the developer community in real-time.
How GitHub Trending Works
GitHub Trending tracks star velocity - the rate at which repositories gain stars - and surfaces the fastest-growing projects. Think of it like a leaderboard that resets daily, so yesterday's winner doesn't permanently block today's breakthrough.
The algorithm considers several factors:
- Time window - We can view trending repos from today, this week, or this month
- Star growth rate - Not total stars, but how many new stars in the selected timeframe
- Language filtering - We can narrow results to specific programming languages
- Recency bias - Recent activity weighs more heavily than historical stars
Quick Start
Here's how we access GitHub Trending:
# Visit the main Trending page
https://github.com/trending
# Filter by language (e.g., Python)
https://github.com/trending/python
# View weekly trends
https://github.com/trending?since=weekly
# Combine filters - TypeScript repos trending this week
https://github.com/trending/typescript?since=weeklyA Real Example
Let's say we're Python developers interested in AI tools. Here's how we'd use Trending:
# 1. Go to GitHub Trending
# 2. Select "Python" from language dropdown
# 3. Choose timeframe: Today / This week / This month
# What we might discover:
# - New LLM libraries gaining 1000+ stars in a week
# - Novel AI agent frameworks just released
# - Emerging data science tools the community is excited about
# Each repo shows:
# - Star count and growth (e.g., "+245 stars today")
# - Description and primary language
# - Top contributors
# - Fork activityKey Features
- Language Filtering - The ability to filter by programming language means we only see what's relevant to our current work. When we're in Python mode, we see Python tools. When exploring Rust, we see Rust projects.
- Time Windows - Daily, weekly, and monthly views let us zoom in or out. Daily trending catches the hot new release, while monthly trending reveals sustained community interest.
- Star Velocity Display - Each repo shows how many stars it gained in the selected timeframe, like "+1,234 stars this week." This context is invaluable - it tells us not just what's popular, but what's gaining momentum.
- Developer Highlights - Trending also surfaces trending developers, showing us whose work is capturing attention. This helps us discover talented contributors to follow.
When to Use GitHub Trending vs. Alternatives
GitHub Trending excels at real-time discovery of what's hot right now. We check it when we want to know what the broader developer community is excited about today.
Alternatives serve different purposes:
- GitHub Search - Better when we know what we're looking for. Use search for specific functionality, not discovery.
- GitHub Topics - Better for exploring established categories like "machine-learning" or "docker." Topics aggregate mature projects by theme.
- Awesome Lists - Better for curated, vetted collections in specific domains. Awesome lists are human-curated and updated less frequently.
- Product Hunt - Better for consumer-facing tools and products. GitHub Trending focuses on developer tools and libraries.
We'd choose GitHub Trending when we want serendipitous discovery and to feel the pulse of what developers are building. We'd choose alternatives when we need comprehensive coverage of a specific topic or want battle-tested recommendations.
My Take - Will I Use This?
In my view, GitHub Trending is essential infrastructure for staying current as a developer. I check it every morning with my coffee - it takes five minutes and keeps me plugged into what's emerging across the ecosystem.
Use cases where this is perfect for our workflow:
- Daily check-in to discover new tools in our primary language
- Weekly review to spot broader trends across the industry
- Researching alternatives when evaluating a new library - see what else is trending in that space
- Finding inspiration for side projects - seeing what problems others are solving
The limitation to watch out for: popular languages like JavaScript, Python, and TypeScript dominate the feed. If we work in Erlang, Haskell, or other smaller ecosystems, we'll see less activity. Also, star velocity doesn't always correlate with production-readiness - a trending repo might be a weekend experiment, not a mature library.
Visit the GitHub Trending page to start exploring what developers are building today.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is GitHub Trending?
GitHub Trending is a daily-updated feed that surfaces repositories gaining GitHub stars at the fastest rate, helping us discover what the open-source community is building right now.
Who created GitHub Trending?
GitHub Trending is a feature built and maintained by GitHub itself as part of the core platform experience for developers.
When should we use GitHub Trending?
Use GitHub Trending daily or weekly to discover new tools, libraries, and frameworks that are capturing developer attention right now, especially in our primary programming languages.
What are the alternatives to GitHub Trending?
Alternatives include GitHub Topics for category-based discovery, Awesome Lists for curated collections, GitHub Search for targeted queries, and Product Hunt for consumer-facing developer tools.
What are the limitations of GitHub Trending?
Popular languages dominate the feed, smaller programming language ecosystems get less visibility, and star velocity doesn't always indicate production-readiness - some trending repos are experimental or early-stage projects.