Fastmail vs Linear

Fastmail (Open-source software developed at Fastmail.) and Linear (A purpose-built tool for planning and building products) both appear on the Smoower Developer Ecosystem Index.

Linear (rank #103) holds a modest lead over Fastmail (rank #430) on the overall Smoower ecosystem score (55 vs 40). The gap of 15 points reflects composite signals across code, docs, community and reach.

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

Fastmail carries 6,316 GitHub stars across 38 public repos, with 12 repositories active in the last 90 days and 2 external contributors on record. Linear shows 1,971 stars across 22 public repos, 5 active in the last 90 days and 21 external contributors. The star gap on its own does not decide the comparison, but Fastmail's footprint is roughly 3.2x larger, which usually shows up in downstream signals like inbound issues and third party integrations.

Fastmail is the stronger read for anyone weighting education. Linear looks better where code quality 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.