This project initially served as a sandbox for experimenting with various technologies, creating a cost-free, end-to-end solution. In Building a Cost-Free, Always-On Personal Project Stack I outlined the areas I aimed to explore.
Additionally, I was intrigued by the idea of tracking current star trends rather than relying solely on cumulative counts—an aspect that remains relatively unexplored. While GitHub may eventually integrate similar features, as of March 2024, there's no way to view a repo's daily star activity or analyze trends in a Github UI, this is only possible by querying the GH Apis.
Something I wanted to highlight is that the number of stars a GitHub project receives does not always directly correlate with its quality, usefulness, or significance. Several factors can contribute to a project receiving a high number of stars, even if it's not particularly good or useful:
- Popularity contests: Sometimes, projects gain stars simply because they become popular due to factors like marketing, promotion, or being featured in articles, blogs, or social media posts. This popularity can snowball, leading to more stars, even if the project itself may not offer substantial value.
- Trendiness: Projects related to trendy technologies, buzzwords, or topics may attract attention and stars, regardless of their actual quality or usefulness. For example, projects related to AI, Rust, or cryptocurrency may receive a significant number of stars due to the hype surrounding these fields.
- Novelty: Projects that introduce novel or unique ideas, even if they are not particularly useful in practice, may attract attention and stars simply because they are different. However, novelty does not always translate to long-term usefulness or sustainability.
- Community support: Projects with active and engaged communities may accumulate stars through contributions, feedback, and endorsements from community members. Even if the project itself is not outstanding, a supportive community can drive its popularity and star count.
- Historical significance: Some projects may have gained stars over time due to their historical significance or influence on subsequent projects, even if they are outdated or no longer actively maintained. These projects may serve as references or inspirations for newer projects, leading to continued star accumulation.
- Unbiased evaluation: Users may star projects for reasons unrelated to their quality or usefulness, such as personal preferences, curiosity, or experimentation. This can lead to inflated star counts for projects that may not deserve them based on objective criteria.
- Awesome lists: Those tend to accumulate a high number of GitHub stars, and one reason behind this phenomenon could be the perception of stars as bookmarks. Users might star repositories with the intention of revisiting them later for reference or exploration. Additionally, the sheer number of stars often acts as a social signal, prompting more users to star the repository, thus perpetuating the cycle of popularity.
- Buy stars: Sounds crazy but is also possible to buy stars from fake or even real accounts. This blog post analyses in detail this phenomeon.
In essence, this tool provides insights into a repository's trendiness, which may correlate with popularity and quality but isn't always definitive. Hence, when utilizing features like Compare, it's crucial to interpret the graph and trend with caution, considering various factors.
In summary, while the number of stars a GitHub project receives can serve as an indicator of its popularity and visibility within the community, it should not be the sole factor considered when evaluating its quality or usefulness. It's essential to assess projects based on their features, documentation, code quality, community engagement, and ongoing maintenance to determine their true value.
If this project remains relevant and helpful, I'm pleased to see its utility for others.