Coursera vs Element

Coursera and Element (Founded by the creators of Matrix, we build digitally sovereign, secure and interoperable real-time communication solutions for large organisations.) both appear on the Smoower Developer Ecosystem Index.

Element (rank #190) holds a modest lead over Coursera (rank #726) on the overall Smoower ecosystem score (50 vs 30). The gap of 20 points reflects composite signals across code, docs, community and reach.

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

Coursera carries 1,367 GitHub stars across 81 public repos, with 1 repositories active in the last 90 days and 0 external contributors on record. Element shows 34,753 stars across 139 public repos, 35 active in the last 90 days and 102 external contributors. The star gap on its own does not decide the comparison, but Element's footprint is roughly 25.4x larger, which usually shows up in downstream signals like inbound issues and third party integrations.

Coursera is worth a look for teams already invested in its stack. Element looks better where code quality 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.