Data Explorer

Overview of OSS Insight - Deep Insights into Open Source Software on GitHub

OSS Insight analyzes over 5 billion rows of GitHub events data to deliver valuable insights into GitHub repositories, developers, and overall open source trends. Key features include:

How Does OSS Insight Work?

OSS Insight works by ingesting and analyzing real-time GitHub events data from the GitHub REST API and GH Archive. It then generates insights through various analytics, including:

• GPT-Powered Data Exploration - Ask natural language questions to the GitHub dataset and get auto-generated SQL queries, visualized results, and insights.

• Technical Field Analytics - Discover monthly/historical rankings and trends across curated lists of repositories in various technical fields.

• Developer Analytics - Gain insights into developer productivity, work cadence, collaboration, and more.

• Repository Analytics - Get stats on code update frequency, popularity, growth, etc. for repositories.

OSS Insight runs on top of TiDB Cloud, PingCAP's fully managed MySQL-compatible NewSQL database. TiDB was chosen for its ability to handle large GitHub event datasets and complex analytical queries with ease.

Key Features and Benefits

OSS Insight offers several powerful features:

• GitHub Data Explorer - Explore GitHub data by asking natural language questions. Results shown through auto-generated SQL, visualized results, and insights.

• Compare Repositories - Easily compare two repositories side-by-side on key metrics like stars, forks, commits, etc.

• Trending Repositories - Get rankings of trending GitHub repos over customizable time ranges based on a special scoring algorithm.

• Hot Collections - Discover insights into monthly and historical trends across curated lists of popular projects within technical fields.

• Real-time GitHub Activity Feed - See live GitHub activity from push events, pull requests, stars, etc. happening per second.

Key benefits include:

• Discover and analyze open source trends
• Identify rising projects
• Benchmark repositories
• Optimize development processes
• Discover new technologies
• Conduct competitor analysis

Use Cases and Applications

OSS Insight serves a wide variety of potential use cases:

For Developers

• Find trending projects to contribute to or get inspiration from
• Identify rising technologies to learn
• See how repositories and technologies rank in popularity over time
• Analyze coder productivity and work patterns

For Project Owners

• Benchmark repository growth against competitors
• Identify areas to improve based on metrics
• Discover contributors to recruit

For CTOs/Executives

• Understand adoption and traction behind open source technologies
• Conduct competitive analysis
• Identify rising projects and developers to follow or recruit

For Analysts

• Develop models and derive insights from GitHub data
• Power business decisions with hard dataset behind open source
• Create custom analytics dashboards and apps

For Students

• Learn about developer trends and popular technologies
• Find projects to contribute to as part of portfolio
• Get inspiration for projects from exploring other repositories

And more!

Who is OSS Insight For?

OSS Insight provides value to:

• Developers - Benchmark their work, find projects, improve skills
• Project Owners - Analyze repo growth, discover contributors
• CTOs/Executives - Technology competitive analysis
• Analysts - Derive insights from GitHub data, power decisions
• Students - Learn popular technologies, find projects

Essentially, anyone interested in leveraging data to derive insights into the open source software world can benefit from OSS Insight!

Plans and Pricing

OSS Insight is currently free to use. Pricing for future premium features may be added later.

Is OSS Insight Free?

Yes, OSS Insight is completely free to use currently. All features can be accessed at no cost.

There are no paid plans or premium features at this time.

Support for OSS Insight

As an open source project, OSS Insight offers community-based support through the following channels:

• GitHub Issues - Bug reports and feature requests
• GitHub Discussions - Questions and open-ended support
• Twitter - Get quick help through @OSSInsight
• Workshops - Free public workshops offered to help get started

Official email support may be offered for paid plans in the future.

Integrations and API

OSS Insight focuses on delivering insights through its web interface but also offers:

• API - REST API to allow accessing core data programmatically
• Widgets - Embeddable widgets to showcase OSS Insight metrics

This allows developers to build custom integrations and applications on top of the OSS Insight platform.

What Are Users Saying?

As an open source platform, OSS Insight does not yet have formal reviews or customers. However, community response has been overwhelmingly positive. Developers praise its ability to unlock insights from GitHub data that are not easily accessed otherwise. Many are finding it useful to explore technology trends, identify projects, improve their development skills, and more.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does OSS Insight include private repository data?

A: No, OSS Insight only covers public GitHub event data at this time.

Q: Can I contribute data or analytics back to OSS Insight?

A: Yes! OSS Insight is open source so data contributions and analytics/visualizations from the community are welcome.

Q: Can I build commercial applications on top of OSS Insight?

A: Yes, the platform is Apache 2.0 licensed so commercial usage is allowed under the terms of the open source license.

Useful Links and Resources

• OSS Insight Main Page
• All Features
• GitHub Repository
• REST API Docs
• OSS Insight Workshops
• About OSS Insight
• OSS Insight Twitter