Element vs Open edX

Element (Founded by the creators of Matrix, we build digitally sovereign, secure and interoperable real-time communication solutions for large organisations.) and Open edX (The community-driven, open-source project powering edX.org and thousands of other online education sites around the world.) both appear on the Smoower Developer Ecosystem Index.

Element (rank #189) holds a narrow lead over Open edX (rank #372) on the overall Smoower ecosystem score (50 vs 42). The gap of 8 points reflects composite signals across code, docs, community and reach.

On code quality (the state of repositories, tests, releases and polish), Element is slightly ahead of Open edX. On education (docs, guides and learning material for developers), Element is ahead of Open edX. On reach (how visible the ecosystem is beyond its own repos), Element is clearly ahead of Open edX. On momentum (release cadence and how fast the ecosystem moves), Open edX is slightly ahead of Element.

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. Open edX shows 10,654 stars across 186 public repos, 100 active in the last 90 days and 91 external contributors. The star gap on its own does not decide the comparison, but Element's footprint is roughly 3.2x larger, which usually shows up in downstream signals like inbound issues and third party integrations.

Element is the stronger read for anyone weighting reach. Open edX looks better where momentum 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.