Discourse vs Stripe Samples

Discourse (The 100% open source discussion platform built for the next decade of the Internet.) and Stripe Samples (Sample integrations built by Stripe.) both appear on the Smoower Developer Ecosystem Index.

Stripe Samples (rank #141) holds a narrow lead over Discourse (rank #189) on the overall Smoower ecosystem score (53 vs 50). The gap of 3 points reflects composite signals across code, docs, community and reach.

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

Discourse carries 55,678 GitHub stars across 620 public repos, with 90 repositories active in the last 90 days and 44 external contributors on record. Stripe Samples shows 4,227 stars across 30 public repos, 23 active in the last 90 days and 8 external contributors. The star gap on its own does not decide the comparison, but Discourse's footprint is roughly 13.2x larger, which usually shows up in downstream signals like inbound issues and third party integrations.

Discourse is the stronger read for anyone weighting momentum. Stripe Samples 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.