SolarWinds vs Zendesk

SolarWinds and Zendesk both appear on the Smoower Developer Ecosystem Index.

Zendesk (rank #165) holds a modest lead over SolarWinds (rank #569) on the overall Smoower ecosystem score (51 vs 35). The gap of 16 points reflects composite signals across code, docs, community and reach.

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

SolarWinds carries 1,101 GitHub stars across 104 public repos, with 35 repositories active in the last 90 days and 18 external contributors on record. Zendesk shows 12,427 stars across 891 public repos, 87 active in the last 90 days and 10 external contributors. The star gap on its own does not decide the comparison, but Zendesk's footprint is roughly 11.3x larger, which usually shows up in downstream signals like inbound issues and third party integrations.

SolarWinds is the stronger read for anyone weighting momentum. Zendesk looks better where community 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.