---
license: mit
task_categories:
- text-classification
- time-series-forecasting
- text-retrieval
tags:
- github
- trending
- developers
- open-source
- time-series
- social-data
language:
- en
size_categories:
- 1K<n<10K
configs:
- config_name: yearly
  data_files: "yearly/data.csv"
  default: true
- config_name: full
  data_files: "full/data.csv"
---

# GitHub Top Developers by Year (2015-2025)

A derived dataset showing the top-ranked GitHub trending developers for each year, based on weighted scoring of their trending appearances across 41,841 raw data points from the Wayback Machine.

## 📊 Dataset Overview

- **Total Entries**: 8,125 ranked developers
- **Years Covered**: 2015 - 2025 (11 years)
- **Unique Developers**: 4,763
- **Source**: Derived from Wayback Machine snapshots of GitHub trending developers
- **Data Order**: Sorted by year (descending: 2025 → 2015) and rank within each year

## 🔧 Dataset Configurations

This dataset has **two configurations** defined in the YAML header:

### Configuration: `yearly` (Default)
Top-ranked developers by year with 8,125 entries

```python
from datasets import load_dataset
ds = load_dataset('ronantakizawa/github-top-developers', 'yearly')
```

**Columns:**
- `year` (int): Year (2015-2025)
- `rank` (int): Overall rank for that year (1 = highest score)
- `username` (string): Developer/organization GitHub username
- `name` (string): Real name of developer/organization *(enriched)*
- `times_trended` (int): Number of times appeared on trending
- `best_rank` (int): Highest rank achieved (lowest number)
- `avg_rank` (float): Average rank across all appearances
- `median_rank` (int): Median rank
- `popular_repos` (string): Top repositories (comma-separated)
- `recent_company` (string): Company/organization affiliation *(as of Dec 2025)*
- `twitter_username` (string): Twitter/X handle *(as of Dec 2025)*

### Configuration: `full`
Complete daily trending data with 41,841 entries (sorted by date: most recent first)

```python
from datasets import load_dataset
ds = load_dataset('ronantakizawa/github-top-developers', 'full')
```

**Columns:**
- `name` (string): Developer/organization GitHub username
- `rank` (int): Position in trending (1-25)
- `popular_repo` (string): Associated repository at the time
- `date` (string): Snapshot date (YYYY-MM-DD, sorted descending)

## 🏆 Scoring Methodology

Each developer's yearly score is calculated using:

```
Score = Σ (26 - rank) for each trending appearance

Where:
- Rank 1 = 25 points
- Rank 2 = 24 points
- ...
- Rank 25 = 1 point
```

**Why this works:**
- ✅ Rewards **frequent appearances** (more days trending = more points)
- ✅ Rewards **high rankings** (rank 1 is worth more than rank 25. We use 25 because github ranks the top 25 developers on their page)
- ✅ Balances consistency with peak performance

## 🌟 Key Insights

### 1. Year Winners (Highest Score Each Year)

| Year | Winner | Score | Appearances | Notable Project |
|------|--------|-------|-------------|-----------------|
| 2025 | comfyanonymous | 257 | 18 | ComfyUI |
| 2024 | **emilk** | **2,052** | **124** | egui (Rust GUI) |
| 2023 | hrydgard | 1,858 | 111 | PPSSPP emulator |
| 2022 | emilk | 1,958 | 107 | egui |
| 2021 | PySimpleGUI | 1,993 | 120 | PySimpleGUI |
| 2020 | stefanprodan | 1,033 | 64 | Flux CD |
| 2019 | Microsoft | 308 | 15 | Various |
| 2018 | google | 325 | 15 | Various |
| 2017 | facebook / Microsoft | 77 | 4 | (tie) |
| 2016 | facebook | 485 | 23 | React ecosystem |
| 2015 | facebook | 48 | 2 | React |

**Notable:** emilk appeared on trending **124 times in 2024 alone** (nearly every 3 days!)

### 2. All-Time Top 10 (Total Score Across All Years)

| Rank | Developer | Total Score | Total Appearances | Years Active |
|------|-----------|-------------|-------------------|--------------|
| 1 | **emilk** | **6,311** | 370 | 2020-2025 |
| 2 | hrydgard | 5,181 | 324 | 2018-2024 |
| 3 | stefanprodan | 4,910 | 306 | 2018-2022 |
| 4 | stephencelis | 4,870 | 301 | 2016-2024 |
| 5 | a8m | 4,649 | 323 | 2016-2024 |
| 6 | hathach | 3,629 | 264 | 2018-2024 |
| 7 | azure-sdk | 3,621 | 251 | 2020-2024 |
| 8 | twpayne | 3,124 | 196 | 2017-2024 |
| 9 | PySimpleGUI | 3,059 | 185 | 2019-2023 |
| 10 | arvidn | 2,737 | 164 | 2017-2022 |

### 3. Trend Shifts Over Time

**2015-2017: Organization Era**
- Big tech dominated: Facebook, Google, Microsoft
- Individual developers rarely broke top 3
- React ecosystem (Facebook) was the dominant force

**2018-2019: Transition Period**
- Mix of organizations and influential individuals
- Rise of open-source foundations (Apache, Linux Foundation)
- Container/cloud technologies gained traction

**2020-2025: Individual Developer Era**
- Individuals dominate top ranks consistently
- **emilk** (egui) becomes most successful developer ever
- Specialized tool creators rise (PySimpleGUI, hrydgard's PPSSPP)
- AI/ML researchers become more prominent (rasbt, 2024-2025)

### 5. Notable Patterns

- **Extreme Consistency**: emilk appeared 370 times across 6 years (average 62 times/year)
- **2021 Peak**: PySimpleGUI set record with 120 appearances in a single year
- **Developer Longevity**: sindresorhus maintained relevance from 2015-2021 (7 years)
- **Organization Decline**: Big tech companies dropped from top spots after 2019
- **Ecosystem Impact**: Most top developers maintain influential open-source libraries