Element vs Shopify

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

Shopify (rank #14) holds a modest lead over Element (rank #189) on the overall Smoower ecosystem score (67 vs 50). The gap of 17 points reflects composite signals across code, docs, community and reach.

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

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. Shopify shows 124,714 stars across 1,211 public repos, 75 active in the last 90 days and 87 external contributors. The star gap on its own does not decide the comparison, but Shopify's footprint is roughly 3.6x larger, which usually shows up in downstream signals like inbound issues and third party integrations.

Element is the stronger read for anyone weighting momentum. Shopify 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.