People
Whether you’re part of a team, a class, or a group of volunteers, you’re part of one of the largest developer working together from every corner of the globe.
> Overview
31
M+
developers
building together on GitHub as of September 30, 2018. We welcomed our 30 millionth signup in July.
8
M+
new developers
have joined. In fact, we've seen more new accounts in 2018 so far than in the first six years
of GitHub combined. You’re also contributing more on average in your first 90 days in 2018 than in 2017.
“New developers” are new users who’ve signed up in the 365 days prior to October 1, 2018.
2.1
M+
organizations
using GitHub across public and private repositories—that’s 40% more organizations than last year.
Location
> Your coding home base
Collaboration goes global
Most of our users (about 80%) come from outside of the United States. In fact, you come from nearly every country and territory—and you’re collaborating across borders more than ever before.
Places with the most contributors
After starting at #10 5 years ago, Brazil is now #7 for the most contributors in 2018, and home to the majority of South America’s GitHub community. Top 20 places, ranked by the number of unique contributors from each between 2014 and 2018. We define contributors broadly as any user who took a substantive action on GitHub (pushed code, opened an issue, or merged a pull request, for example) that added new content to the platform in a public or private repository.
A fast-growing GitHub community
If you’re committing code from Asia, you’re part of a community that’s responsible for the most growth in repositories this year—overtaking all other regions in monthly repository creation. As of September 30, 2018, more open source projects have been created in your region than anywhere else in the world. Open source projects are public repositories with a license file detected by Licensee, regardless of the type of license a project has chosen. “Repositories” don’t include spammy repositories or those that have since been deleted.
Where new signups come from
Developers are joining in from around the world—and you aren’t showing any signs of slowing down: there are 1.6 times more unique contributors on GitHub in 2018 than there were in 2017. The number of new signups (or new users) by country is defined by where new users opened their account in 2018. “New users” doesn’t include spammy users or users who have since deleted their account.
| U.S. | |
| China | |
| India | |
| U.K. | |
| Brazil | |
| Russia | |
| Germany | |
| Japan | |
| Canada | |
| France |
> Where GitHub use is growing fastest
By contributors
Our top 10 countries where new users are coming from span the entire globe. New signups sped up across the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia in particular. Top 10 countries, ranked by percent increase in contributors from 2018 compared to 2017. This list is limited to countries that had at least 10,000 contributors in 2017. We define contributors as any user who took an action that generated substantive content on GitHub (opened an issue or merged a pull request, for example) on a public or private repository.
| Change | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  |
Hong Kong (SAR) | 1.8X |
| 2 |  |
Singapore | 1.6X |
| 3 |  |
Egypt | 1.6X |
| 4 |  |
Nigeria | 1.6X |
| 5 |  |
Bangladesh | 1.6X |
| 6 |  |
Greece | 1.5X |
| 7 |  |
Italy | 1.5X |
| 8 |  |
Turkey | 1.5X |
| 9 |  |
Malaysia | 1.5X |
| 10 |  |
Portugal | 1.5X |
Developers in Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Egypt, Venezuela, and Indonesia all doubled the number of new organizations last year. Top 10 countries, ranked based on percentage increase in new total paid and unpaid organizations created in 2018.
| Change | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  |
Saudi Arabia | 2.2X |
| 2 | |
Nigeria | 2.1X |
| 3 | |
Egypt | 2.1X |
| 4 |  |
Venezuela | 2.0X |
| 5 |  |
Indonesia | 2.0X |
| 6 |  |
Pakistan | 1.9X |
| 7 |  |
Republic of Korea | 1.9X |
| 8 |  |
Algeria | 1.9X |
| 9 | |
Bangladesh | 1.9X |
| 10 | |
Turkey | 1.8X |
Nigeria also made the list of fastest growing by repositories created, along with countries across Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. Top 10 countries, ranked based on fastest increase in public and private repositories created in 2018 compared to 2017. All of these countries had at least 5,000 repositories in 2017.
| Change | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | |
Algeria | 2.4X |
| 2 |  |
El Salvador | 2.0X |
| 3 | |
Egypt | 2.0X |
| 4 |  |
Uzbekistan | 2.0X |
| 5 |  |
Kazakhstan | 1.9X |
| 6 |  |
Palestine | 1.9X |
| 7 |  |
Myanmar | 1.9X |
| 8 | |
Nigeria | 1.8X |
| 9 |  |
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan | 1.8X |
| 10 |  |
Albania | 1.8X |
Contributions from Central Asia, the Middle East, and Africa are growing along multiple dimensions, including new open source repositories created this year. In fact, contributors in Egypt almost doubled the number of open source repositories created this year compared to last year. Top 10 countries, ranked based on greatest increase in open source repositories created in 2018 compared to 2017. All of these countries had at least 5,000 repositories in 2017.
| Change | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | |
Egypt | 1.9X |
| 2 | |
Saudi Arabia | 1.8X |
| 3 |  |
Belarus | 1.8X |
| 4 |  |
Sri Lanka | 1.7X |
| 5 | |
Nigeria | 1.7X |
| 6 |  |
Kenya | 1.7X |
| 7 | |
Venezuela | 1.6X |
| 8 |  |
Tunisia | 1.6X |
| 9 |  |
India | 1.5X |
| 10 |  |
Nepal | 1.5X |
Where open source software happens
Year over year, we are seeing more open source contributions from users based outside of the United States. To identify the location of open source contributors (in the U.S. versus outside U.S.), we used their last available location, where known. We define contributors as any user who took a substantive action on GitHub (opened an issue or merged a pull request, for example) in a public or private repository.
Time
> Productive in your personal time
Hourly contributions in private, public, and open source repositories
Everyone’s schedule is different, but you still make time for the projects that matter
most to you—even if they’re not your day job. You stay more active in open source and
public repositories in the evening (up until 10 pm!).
Our data on how developers spend time on (or away from) GitHub is based on trends
in action density in open source, public, and private repositories throughout the day, across all regions and time zones.
Contributions are defined as any substantive action that generated content on GitHub
(created an issue, opened a pull request, or made a comment on an issue or pull request)
on a public or private repository.
Time
GitHub contributions by repository type
Private Public Open source> Welcome weekend breaks
Weekly activity across GitHub repositories
Turns out, we all need time to recharge. Contributions to public and open source repositories happen well into the weekend. But you’re less active in private repositories when the work week ends. This drop is consistent across continents, too. This chart reflects the proportion of contributions happening in an average week in open source, public, and private repositories, broken down by day of the week.
GitHub contributions by repository type
Private Public Open source> The time of year to take time off
Yearly activity by region
Time of year plays a big role in how you collaborate on GitHub. We see changes across all regions when students are out of school in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres and during major holidays around the world.
Projects scale back in China and India around major holidays like Chinese New Year and Diwali. And activity dips around the world on May 1—when 80 countries celebrate Labor Day. You also take breaks in the United States around U.S. Thanksgiving and Independence Day.
And there’s always one quiet day on GitHub, regardless of location: New Year’s 🎉. To show seasonality of GitHub activity, we analyzed contribution density in open source, public, and private repositories aggregated at the weekly level.
Learning
1.1
M+
students
have learned to code with GitHub.
“Students” represent the total number of student verified through our Student Developer Pack application.
600
K+
active students
learn and build with our Student Developer Pack. And the Pack is getting even bigger: this number has grown by 14% this year.
“Active students” are defined as users with an unexpired Student Developer Pack coupon applied to their account in the last 12 months. The Student Developer Pack is offered to students at no cost.
20
K+
teachers
have used GitHub in their courses to implement real-world developer workflows, with teachers creating more than 200K assignments.
“Teachers” self-identify as educators when applying for an organization for GitHub Classroom.
18
K+
schools
using GitHub from high schools, universities, coding bootcamps, and beyond.
A bright future
A 2018 survey of the GitHub Education community showed that 48% of students said using GitHub in the classroom helped make them feel like they belonged in the software development field. Welcome home.
31% of surveyed students said using GitHub made them feel “very prepared” for a future internship or career in software development. When surveying students who didn’t use GitHub in their classrooms, only 14% said they felt this way. The Learning Outcomes Survey 2018 was conducted by the GitHub Education Team. Learn more about the results and methodologies.
Classrooms without walls
3M GitHub Classroom repositories
created by students, supporting more than 200K assignments. This year alone, the number of repositories created by students in Classroom has increased by 15 times.
Teachers use GitHub and GitHub Classroom to host courses, distribute assignments, and get insight into student progress. And they often end up teaching well beyond their campuses. The projects and exercises that make up the curricula of massive open online courses (MOOCs), coding bootcamps, and other online courses can reach tens of thousands of students.
This year, students learned in large numbers from Flatiron School, Ada Academy, and ScriptEd—all appearing at the top of our course lists.
See what other courses gained popularity in 2018 →