Developer ecosystem comparison
vs

37signals vs ExpressVPN

Developer ecosystem comparison across GitHub activity, SDKs, documentation, community, reach and momentum.

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

37signals (rank #122) holds a modest lead over ExpressVPN (rank #569) on the overall Smoower ecosystem score (54 vs 35). The gap of 19 points reflects composite signals across code, docs, community and reach.

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

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. ExpressVPN shows 1,250 stars across 12 public repos, 3 active in the last 90 days and 7 external contributors. The star gap on its own does not decide the comparison, but 37signals's footprint is roughly 91.1x larger, which usually shows up in downstream signals like inbound issues and third party integrations.

37signals is the stronger read for anyone weighting momentum. ExpressVPN looks better where education 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.

Side-by-side metrics

Metric37signalsExpressVPN
Ranking
Overall rank#122#569
Pillars
Overall5435
Code5857
Education5469
Community5430
Reach5648
Momentum4615
Builder experience00
Signals
Stars113,8571,250
Forks10,432220
Public repos23612
Active repos (90d)483
External contributors2987
Avg polish5763
Avg AI-readiness3329

Fork ecosystems

Loading fork ecosystem…
Loading fork ecosystem…
View 37signals developer profileView ExpressVPN developer profile