37signals vs KAYAK

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

37signals (rank #122) holds a modest lead over KAYAK (rank #485) on the overall Smoower ecosystem score (54 vs 38). The gap of 16 points reflects composite signals across code, docs, community and reach.

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

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. KAYAK shows 3,186 stars across 72 public repos, 4 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 35.7x larger, which usually shows up in downstream signals like inbound issues and third party integrations.

37signals is the stronger read for anyone weighting community. KAYAK 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.