Element vs Zoho

Element (Founded by the creators of Matrix, we build digitally sovereign, secure and interoperable real-time communication solutions for large organisations.) and Zoho (Unique and powerful suite of software to run your entire business, brought to you by a company with the long term vision to transform the way you work.) both appear on the Smoower Developer Ecosystem Index.

Element (rank #190) holds a modest lead over Zoho (rank #662) on the overall Smoower ecosystem score (50 vs 32). The gap of 18 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 Zoho. On education (docs, guides and learning material for developers), Element is ahead of Zoho. On community (issue response, PR reviews and discussion health), Element is ahead of Zoho. On reach (how visible the ecosystem is beyond its own repos), Element is ahead of Zoho. On momentum (release cadence and how fast the ecosystem moves), Zoho is 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. Zoho shows 756 stars across 244 public repos, 55 active in the last 90 days and 1 external contributors. The star gap on its own does not decide the comparison, but Element's footprint is roughly 45.8x 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. Zoho 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.