37signals vs Discourse

37signals (HEY! It's in Basecamp!) and Discourse (The 100% open source discussion platform built for the next decade of the Internet.) both appear on the Smoower Developer Ecosystem Index.

37signals (rank #122) holds a narrow lead over Discourse (rank #189) on the overall Smoower ecosystem score (54 vs 50). The gap of 4 points reflects composite signals across code, docs, community and reach.

On code quality (the state of repositories, tests, releases and polish), Discourse is slightly ahead of 37signals. On education (docs, guides and learning material for developers), Discourse is slightly ahead of 37signals. On community (issue response, PR reviews and discussion health), 37signals is ahead of Discourse. On reach (how visible the ecosystem is beyond its own repos), 37signals is clearly ahead of Discourse. On momentum (release cadence and how fast the ecosystem moves), Discourse is clearly 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. Discourse shows 55,678 stars across 620 public repos, 90 active in the last 90 days and 44 external contributors.

37signals is the stronger read for anyone weighting reach. Discourse 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.