Developer ecosystem comparison
EL
Element
@element-hq
Rank #189
Score 50
SaaS

Founded by the creators of Matrix, we build digitally sovereign, secure and interoperable real-time communication solutions for large organisations.

vs

Element vs OpenCart

Developer ecosystem comparison across GitHub activity, SDKs, documentation, community, reach and momentum.

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

Element (rank #189) holds a modest lead over OpenCart (rank #401) on the overall Smoower ecosystem score (50 vs 41). The gap of 9 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 OpenCart. On education (docs, guides and learning material for developers), OpenCart is ahead of Element. On community (issue response, PR reviews and discussion health), Element is slightly ahead of OpenCart. On reach (how visible the ecosystem is beyond its own repos), Element is ahead of OpenCart. On momentum (release cadence and how fast the ecosystem moves), Element is clearly ahead of OpenCart.

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. OpenCart shows 8,157 stars across 2 public repos, 1 active in the last 90 days and 26 external contributors. The star gap on its own does not decide the comparison, but Element's footprint is roughly 4.2x larger, which usually shows up in downstream signals like inbound issues and third party integrations.

Element is the stronger read for anyone weighting momentum. OpenCart 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

MetricElementOpenCart
Ranking
Overall rank#189#401
Pillars
Overall5041
Code7442
Education5871
Community5147
Reach5035
Momentum6024
Builder experience00
Signals
Stars34,6088,157
Forks7,5595,060
Public repos1372
Active repos (90d)331
External contributors9726
Avg polish7550
Avg AI-readiness5029

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