Hello, tech enthusiasts! Today, we’re diving into the fascinating world of open source startups that are making waves in 2024. Buckle up!

A recent report highlights the 20 most exciting open source startups worldwide, with more than half heavily focused on artificial intelligence.

Curated by the European venture capital firm Runa Capital, the ROSS Index has become a go-to resource, tracking the fastest-growing projects based on GitHub stars—a metric not unlike social media likes!

In 2023, Runa intensified its efforts by producing annual reports showcasing the most popular commercial open source startups, illustrating a trend where demand for AI and data infrastructure continues to skyrocket.

This year, AI plays a crucial role in 11 of the top 20 startups, proving the technology’s increasing importance.

The ROSS Index maintains strict criteria, only including vendor-led projects closely linked to commercial entities. These startups must be younger than ten years, have raised less than $100 million, and be entirely independent.

Leading the pack in the 2024 ROSS Index is Ollama, a Y Combinator alum, which has developed an open source tool for running LLMs like Meta’s Llama locally on desktops.

Following closely is Zed Industries, known for its collaborative code editor—now open source—and LangGenius, which offers a platform for open source LLM app development.

Other notable mentions include ComfyUI, a creative tool for generating multimedia, and OpenHands, which supports the development of software agents.

The trends in this index reveal not just the rise of AI and developer tools, but also a significant interest in privacy-focused solutions and self-hostable technologies that reflect the current demands of the market.

Overall, open source projects are richer than ever, blending contributions from all over the globe while maintaining a commercial focus that helps these startups thrive.