Patreon vs Proton Mail
Developer ecosystem comparison across GitHub activity, SDKs, documentation, community, reach and momentum.
Patreon and Proton Mail both appear on the Smoower Developer Ecosystem Index.
Proton Mail (rank #401) holds a narrow lead over Patreon (rank #536) on the overall Smoower ecosystem score (41 vs 36). The gap of 5 points reflects composite signals across code, docs, community and reach.
On code quality (the state of repositories, tests, releases and polish), Proton Mail is ahead of Patreon. On education (docs, guides and learning material for developers), Patreon is clearly ahead of Proton Mail. On community (issue response, PR reviews and discussion health), Proton Mail is ahead of Patreon. On reach (how visible the ecosystem is beyond its own repos), Patreon is ahead of Proton Mail. On momentum (release cadence and how fast the ecosystem moves), Proton Mail is clearly ahead of Patreon.
Patreon carries 846 GitHub stars across 62 public repos, with 0 repositories active in the last 90 days and 2 external contributors on record. Proton Mail shows 16,265 stars across 186 public repos, 19 active in the last 90 days and 20 external contributors. The star gap on its own does not decide the comparison, but Proton Mail's footprint is roughly 19.2x larger, which usually shows up in downstream signals like inbound issues and third party integrations.
Patreon is the stronger read for anyone weighting education. Proton Mail 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.
Side-by-side metrics
| Metric | Patreon | Proton Mail |
|---|---|---|
| Ranking | ||
| Overall rank | #536 | #401 |
| Pillars | ||
| Overall | 36 | 41 |
| Code | 52 | 64 |
| Education | 63 | 42 |
| Community | 26 | 46 |
| Reach | 61 | 44 |
| Momentum | 0 | 52 |
| Builder experience | 0 | 0 |
| Signals | ||
| Stars | 846 | 16,265 |
| Forks | 220 | 2,240 |
| Public repos | 62 | 186 |
| Active repos (90d) | 0 | 19 |
| External contributors | 2 | 20 |
| Avg polish | 53 | 74 |
| Avg AI-readiness | 37 | 32 |