Element vs Fastmail

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

Element (rank #189) holds a modest lead over Fastmail (rank #430) on the overall Smoower ecosystem score (50 vs 40). The gap of 10 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 Fastmail. On education (docs, guides and learning material for developers), Fastmail is slightly ahead of Element. On community (issue response, PR reviews and discussion health), Element is ahead of Fastmail. On reach (how visible the ecosystem is beyond its own repos), Fastmail is clearly ahead of Element. On momentum (release cadence and how fast the ecosystem moves), Element is ahead of Fastmail.

Element carries 34,608 GitHub stars across 137 public repos, with 33 repositories active in the last 90 days and 97 external contributors on record. Fastmail shows 6,316 stars across 38 public repos, 12 active in the last 90 days and 2 external contributors. The star gap on its own does not decide the comparison, but Element's footprint is roughly 5.5x larger, which usually shows up in downstream signals like inbound issues and third party integrations.

Element is the stronger read for anyone weighting code quality. Fastmail looks better where reach 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.