Highlights From The Octoverse 2020

GitHub’s annual Octoverse report celebrates 365 days of achievements in the software community and we’ve got the highlights for you right here!
56M+ developers are part of the GitHub community

JavaScript still the most popular language

2020 was a year of change. We’ve all had to adapt in some shape or form with most balancing (or trying to – homeschoolers we salute you!) working remotely with home life. But the way developers collaborate as part of a global community stayed much the same, driving a sense of camaraderie across the globe.

With 60 Million+ new repositories created this past year developers came together to innovate, connect and solve problems.

In addition to GitHub’s growth and usage, this year’s report offers additional analysis around work-life balance and hours worked, the state of open source security, and what role automation plays in faster software delivery.

Dive into the full report – or read on for the highlights.

 Based on data collected between October 2019 - September 2020, there were a total of 56m+ developers on GitHub with 72% of Fortune 50 companies using GitHub Enterprise. Not only were there 60 Million+ new repositories created this past year, but there were also a staggering 1.9 Billion+ contributions added.

This year saw an increase of new users to GitHub, including Data Analysts, Scientists, Teachers, Students, and Designers suggesting that collaborations on the platform will increasingly include more than code.

Take a look at the full report to see how the GitHub community has grown and evolved over the last year.

As it has since 2016, JavaScript ranked as the top language amongst GitHub’s users in 2020. Python takes 2nd place, having overtaken Java in 2019, which remains the 3rd most popular language.TypeScript appears to be the most progressively popular language this year going from 10th place in 2017, all the way up to 4th place this year. Could we see TypeScript continue to gain in popularity over the next years? Developers have spent more time on Open Source while stuck at homeDevelopers have been putting in long hours and over the last year contributions to open source increased by 25%. These levels noticeably increased as the pandemic unfolded and remained high even on weekends suggesting open source could be an important escape from work as well as a place to learn and create.Open source projects that used GitHub Actions to automate their pull requests also saw noticeably faster software delivery and better collaboration.Global growthOver the course of the year, GitHub has grown globally in size and diversity. Despite a 2% decrease from last year, most GitHub users are found in North America (34%), closely followed by Asia (30.7%) and Europe (26.8%).Countries and regions such as Egypt, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia saw a large growth in contributions in 2020. Nigeria was ranked at the top with a 65.9% growth, closely followed by Hong Kong (SAR) at 64.5%. Want to know more? Dive into the full report