HEY! It's in Basecamp!
37signals vs Heap
Developer ecosystem comparison across GitHub activity, SDKs, documentation, community, reach and momentum.
37signals (HEY! It's in Basecamp!) and Heap (Product Insights) both appear on the Smoower Developer Ecosystem Index.
37signals (rank #122) holds a modest lead over Heap (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 clearly ahead of Heap. On education (docs, guides and learning material for developers), Heap is ahead of 37signals. On community (issue response, PR reviews and discussion health), 37signals is clearly ahead of Heap. On reach (how visible the ecosystem is beyond its own repos), 37signals is clearly ahead of Heap. On momentum (release cadence and how fast the ecosystem moves), 37signals is clearly ahead of Heap.
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. Heap shows 215 stars across 65 public repos, 6 active in the last 90 days and 1 external contributors. The star gap on its own does not decide the comparison, but 37signals's footprint is roughly 529.6x larger, which usually shows up in downstream signals like inbound issues and third party integrations.
37signals is the stronger read for anyone weighting community. Heap 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
| Metric | 37signals | Heap |
|---|---|---|
| Ranking | ||
| Overall rank | #122 | #569 |
| Pillars | ||
| Overall | 54 | 35 |
| Code | 58 | 35 |
| Education | 54 | 72 |
| Community | 54 | 14 |
| Reach | 56 | 30 |
| Momentum | 46 | 12 |
| Builder experience | 0 | 0 |
| Signals | ||
| Stars | 113,857 | 215 |
| Forks | 10,432 | 105 |
| Public repos | 236 | 65 |
| Active repos (90d) | 48 | 6 |
| External contributors | 298 | 1 |
| Avg polish | 57 | 37 |
| Avg AI-readiness | 33 | 23 |