37signals vs BigCommerce

37signals (HEY! It's in Basecamp!) and BigCommerce both appear on the Smoower Developer Ecosystem Index.

BigCommerce (rank #103) holds a narrow lead over 37signals (rank #122) on the overall Smoower ecosystem score (55 vs 54). The gap of 1 points reflects composite signals across code, docs, community and reach.

On code quality (the state of repositories, tests, releases and polish), BigCommerce is ahead of 37signals. On education (docs, guides and learning material for developers), BigCommerce is ahead of 37signals. On community (issue response, PR reviews and discussion health), 37signals is slightly ahead of BigCommerce. On reach (how visible the ecosystem is beyond its own repos), 37signals is clearly ahead of BigCommerce. On momentum (release cadence and how fast the ecosystem moves), BigCommerce is ahead of 37signals.

37signals carries 113,857 GitHub stars across 236 public repos, with 48 repositories active in the last 90 days and 298 external contributors on record. BigCommerce shows 3,505 stars across 281 public repos, 25 active in the last 90 days and 51 external contributors. The star gap on its own does not decide the comparison, but 37signals's footprint is roughly 32.5x larger, which usually shows up in downstream signals like inbound issues and third party integrations.

37signals is the stronger read for anyone weighting reach. BigCommerce looks better where momentum is the deciding factor. The table below breaks the scores down pillar by pillar; the linked profiles cover the underlying repos, docs and community signals in full.