Arindam Majumder

Posted on Dec 9

Top 5 Open Source Projects You Must Explore Before 2025

#opensource #javascript #webdev #programming

Open-source projects are the backbone of modern software development. Whether you're learning to code, building cutting-edge applications, or exploring the tech world, open-source projects drive innovation and collaboration.

Did you know? GitHub recently reported that open-source contributions are growing faster than ever.

In 2024, developers made over 5.2 billion contributions to more than 518 million open source projects.

In this article, I’ll introduce you to 5 open-source projects you need to explore before 2025.

Millions of developers are leveraging open-source tools to solve real-world problems faster and more efficiently.

Let’s dive in! 🚀

Encore - Fastest growing backend framework

Encore is an open source backend framework for Go and TypeScript, Encore allows developers to define resources like services, databases, and Pub/Sub as type-safe objects within their code.

You can get your Encore app up and running in under 5 minutes.

Install Encore (for macOS):

brew install encoredev/tap/encore

Create tutorial app:

encore app create --example=ts/introduction

Run locally:

encore run

Do you know? The Encore team benchmarked Encore.ts against frameworks like Fastify, Bun, and Express.js, testing both with and without schema validation.

Results were exciting:

✅ Encore.ts handles 9x more requests per second than Express.js.

✅ Encore.ts has 80% less response latency compared to Express.js.

Encore boosts backend performance with a multi-threaded event loop in Rust, offloading I/O tasks from JavaScript. It precomputes request schemas, integrates resources like Pub/Sub and databases, and automates cloud infrastructure management, enabling efficient and scalable applications.

You can find more examples and resources to properly explore Encore from its documentation.

They have 7k+ stars on GitHub, project is constantly evolving and improving.

Star Encore on GitHub ⭐️

Encore is also hosting an exciting Launch Week from December 9th to December 13th, 2024!🎉

If you're a developer looking to supercharge your backend performance with multi-threaded event loops and seamless cloud infrastructure, you won’t want to miss Encore's launch week! 🚀

🔥 Register Here 🔥

Mermaid - Diagrams and Flowcharts made simple

Mermaid is an open source JavaScript based diagramming and charting tool designed to simplify the creation of diagrams using text and code. It allows developers to easily generate flowcharts, sequence diagrams, class diagrams, and more directly from markdown-like syntax.

Easiest way to use Mermaid is from Mermaid Live Editor

Go to live editor and in the Code panel, write or edit Mermaid code, and instantly Preview the rendered result in the diagram panel.

Example of a Sequence diagram:

sequenceDiagram
    Alice->>+John: Hello John, how are you?
    Alice->>+John: John, can you hear me?
    John-->>-Alice: Hi Alice, I can hear you!
    John-->>-Alice: I feel great!

You’ll get Preview like this in Mermaid Editor:

Mermaid is ideal for:

Managing complex diagrams in version control and enhancing team collaboration.
Customizing diagrams to fit specific needs.
Integrating smoothly with popular frameworks for flexible workflows

Mermaid simplifies diagram creation for developers and docs writers by enabling over 10 diagram/flowchart types with text and markdown based syntax, perfect for version control and team collaboration.

You can find more examples and resources to properly use Mermaid from its documentation.

They have 72k+ stars on GitHub, project is being used by top companies and it has a big community support as well.

Star Mermaid on GitHub ⭐️

KitOps - Market’s only packaging and versioning system for AI/ML

KitOps is an open-source tool that enhances the way AI/ML models and datasets are packaged, versioned, and shared across teams.

Usages OCI standards packaging format called ModelKit, it is compatible with various AI/ML, DevOps, and cloud tools, making it an essential tool for enhancing AI/ML project lifecycle efficiently.

How it’s different?

Standardized Packaging: ModelKit combines datasets, code, configurations, and models into a single, standardized, immutable package, and can be stored in container registries like Docker Hub.
Immutability: By default, ModelKit is immutable, ensuring that all artifacts are versioned and cannot be altered once stored.
Flexible Layer Pulling: With Kit CLI, you can pull only the necessary components - models, datasets, tests, or code depending on the pipeline requirements.

It also supports multiple pipelines for deploying datasets, models, and code, allowing different layers of the same artifact to be accessed as needed.

This ensures safer deployments by pulling matching datasets, models, and code, particularly when making larger changes across projects.

You can find more examples and resources for KitOps here.

They have 500+ stars on GitHub, the project is very new but has around 35k+ installs so far, join their Discord and get involved.

Star KitOps on GitHub ⭐️

Eidolon AI - Industry's 1st AI Agent server for the enterprise

EidolonAI is an open source framework designed to streamline AI development by allowing you to create and manage interconnected AI agents.

It’s core feature, AgentOS, simplifies autonomation and orchestration of software agents within the Eidolon framework.

You can use Eidolon Quickstart with the help of OpenAI API Key and Docker.

To clone the repo to your machine, run this:

git clone https://github.com/eidolon-ai/eidolon-quickstart.git

Now, run the Eidolon multi-agent server in dev mode:

cd eidolon-quickstart
make docker-serve # or sudo make docker-serve

Enter OpenAI key at this step and open http://localhost:3000 in your web browser.

You’ll see preview like this to interact with Eidolon agent, Dev mode provides a local http server and local memory, making it easy to focus on and get comfortable with Eidolon functionality.

Now you can change the system prompt, swap LLMs, or configure multi-agent communication in next steps.

For example, you can change system prompt to this:

  system_prompt: |
    Repeat the user prompt, then translate the user prompt into Spanish.

Some key features:

AgentOS: Manages AI agents with simple interface and action registration for building conversational or task-oriented agents
Model Flexibility: Seamlessly integrates new AI models (like OpenAI’s o1) without changing core logic
Multi-Agent Collaboration: Supports multi-agent communication and tool integration for complex, coordinated tasks.

You can find more examples and resources to explore EidolonAI from its documentation.

They have 300+ stars on GitHub, the project is very new and interesting. You can get involved as contributor as well.

Star Eidolon on GitHub ⭐️

PostHog - Complete product analytics platform

PostHog is an open-source product analytics platform designed to give teams full control over their data. It enables businesses to track user behavior, analyze trends, and create actionable insights all without relying on third-party tools.

To set up PostHog for product analytics, you need to install it in the app where you want to track data.

The easiest way to get started is by adding a simple JavaScript snippet to your HTML code:

<script>
    !function(t,e){var o,n,p,r;e.__SV||(window.posthog=e,e._i=[],e.init=function(i,s,a){function g(t,e){var o=e.split(".");2==o.length&&(t=t[o[0]],e=o[1]),t[e]=function(){t.push([e].concat(Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments,0)))}}(p=t.createElement("script")).type="text/javascript",p.crossOrigin="anonymous",p.async=!0,p.src=s.api_host.replace(".i.posthog.com","-assets.i.posthog.com")+"/static/array.js",(r=t.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]).parentNode.insertBefore(p,r);var u=e;for(void 0!==a?u=e[a]=[]:a="posthog",u.people=u.people||[],u.toString=function(t){var e="posthog";return"posthog"!==a&&(e+="."+a),t||(e+=" (stub)"),e},u.people.toString=function(){return u.toString(1)+".people (stub)"},o="init capture register register_once register_for_session unregister unregister_for_session getFeatureFlag getFeatureFlagPayload isFeatureEnabled reloadFeatureFlags updateEarlyAccessFeatureEnrollment getEarlyAccessFeatures on onFeatureFlags onSessionId getSurveys getActiveMatchingSurveys renderSurvey canRenderSurvey getNextSurveyStep identify setPersonProperties group resetGroups setPersonPropertiesForFlags resetPersonPropertiesForFlags setGroupPropertiesForFlags resetGroupPropertiesForFlags reset get_distinct_id getGroups get_session_id get_session_replay_url alias set_config startSessionRecording stopSessionRecording sessionRecordingStarted captureException loadToolbar get_property getSessionProperty createPersonProfile opt_in_capturing opt_out_capturing has_opted_in_capturing has_opted_out_capturing clear_opt_in_out_capturing debug".split(" "),n=0;n<o.length;n++)g(u,o[n]);e._i.push([i,s,a])},e.__SV=1)}(document,window.posthog||[]);
    posthog.init('<ph_project_api_key>', {api_host: 'https://us.i.posthog.com', person_profiles: 'identified_only'})
</script>

Replace <ph_project_api_key> and <ph_client_api_host> with your project values, then place the snippet inside the <head> tags, ideally just before </head>. This ensures PostHog loads on every page users visit.

Once added, PostHog starts capturing $pageview and other events like button clicks automatically. You can enable additional features like session replays in your project settings.

Some key features:

Event Tracking: Automatically captures user interactions like page views, clicks, and custom events
Session Replays: Replay user sessions to understand their behavior and improve experiences
Funnels and Cohort Analysis: Analyze user conversion paths and segment users for targeted insights
Privacy-Focused Analytics: Offers cookie-less tracking and self-hosting for full data ownership and compliance

It offers a wide range of features and extensive framework support. Explore more in its documentation.

They have 22k+ stars on GitHub, with a strong community support.

Star PostHog on GitHub ⭐️

That’s a wrap! These are the top 5 open-source projects you should definitely explore to stay ahead in 2025. Some projects are very new and open for contributions.