GoCardless vs Patreon

GoCardless and Patreon both appear on the Smoower Developer Ecosystem Index.

GoCardless (rank #372) holds a narrow lead over Patreon (rank #536) on the overall Smoower ecosystem score (42 vs 36). The gap of 6 points reflects composite signals across code, docs, community and reach.

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

GoCardless carries 6,977 GitHub stars across 161 public repos, with 19 repositories active in the last 90 days and 3 external contributors on record. Patreon shows 846 stars across 62 public repos, 0 active in the last 90 days and 2 external contributors. The star gap on its own does not decide the comparison, but GoCardless's footprint is roughly 8.2x larger, which usually shows up in downstream signals like inbound issues and third party integrations.

GoCardless is the stronger read for anyone weighting momentum. Patreon looks better where reach 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.