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Star History Review

Worth it

Should I use Star History?

View and compare GitHub star history graph of open source projects. - star-history.com

· 3 days ago

Open source maintainers and DevRel teams get free, fast star charts for any repo. Teams needing deep analytics, customization, or uptime guarantees look elsewhere.

Confidence

Medium. Based on 12 public sources. Coverage is mostly developer discussion and official pages, not formal product reviews.

Ratings

  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Feature depth
  • Support qualityNo support evidence in sources.
  • Security posture

Pricing

$0

Free

ModelNot disclosed
Monthly feesNot disclosed
HardwareNot disclosed
Free tierYes

Best for

  • Open source maintainers tracking growth
  • DevRel teams comparing repo traction
  • README badge embedders
  • Writers sizing project popularity

Not for

  • Teams judging code quality or security from stars
  • Buyers wanting deep GitHub analytics beyond star counts
  • Enterprise procurement: free tool, no vendor, no SLA
  • Anyone needing guaranteed uptime from charts

Gotchas - check before you buy

high

Fully dependent on GitHub API; rate limits and endpoint changes break charts without warning.

medium

Stars are gameable signals; buyers over-weight them when evaluating vendors.

low

GitHub changed star data access again in September 2026; old embeds and workflows need checking.

low

No public security page for the site itself.

Pros and cons

Pros

  • Free star history charts for any public GitHub repo
  • Compares multiple repos on one chart
  • Global Rank metric enables cross-project comparison
  • Embeddable charts work in GitHub READMEs

Cons

  • GitHub API changes broke the service; users built self-hosted alternatives
  • GitHub rate limits cut off star-history access at times
  • Star counts measure hype, not quality or security
  • Less customizable charts than rival tools offer

Sources & method

- 12 sources - No known vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.

official x5review x4security x1news x2

Key stats

  • Value for money: 5/5

    Rating

  • $0

    Starting price

  • 12

    Sources

  • Analyzed

  • Value for money: 5/5. Free charts with no usage fees.
  • Ease of use: 4/5. Paste repo names, get charts and badges.
  • Feature depth: 2/5. Charts stars only; rivals add customization and analytics.
  • Support quality. No support evidence in sources.
  • Security posture: 3/5. No known issues, but no security page.
  • $0 Price Free web tool, no paid tier found in sources
  • Yes Free tier Charts and repo comparisons at no cost
  • 34.6k stars Tracked repo example Backstage/backstage, Global Rank #962

Pricing

Free

$0

  • View star history for any public repo
  • Compare multiple repos on one chart
  • Embed charts in READMEs

Security

No known vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.

What users say

Developers like the free charts but report breakage when GitHub changes or limits its stars API.

“After GitHub's stars API broke star-history, I built a self-...”
Reddit, r/ClaudeCode

Alternatives

Compare Star History with each alternative.

  • gh-star-timeline

    Command-line star timeline tracking for terminal users.

Full analysis

Based on 12 public sources. Coverage is mostly developer discussion and official pages, not formal product reviews.

Free GitHub star charts: great for tracking OSS hype, but it breaks when GitHub changes its API, and stars measure hype, not quality.

Methodology

Based on 12 public sources. Coverage is mostly developer discussion and official pages, not formal product reviews.

Read how a report is made.

Sources

  1. GitHub Star History — Track & Compare Open Source Star Growthstar-history.com
    official
  2. A Message to GitHub Star History Users about Ongoing...star-history.com
    official
  3. After GitHub's stars API broke star-history, I built a self-hosted...reddit.com
    review
  4. GitHub limits star-history accessnews.lavx.hu
    news
  5. New API endpoint provides privacy-safe star history datagithub.blog
    news
  6. When 4800 GitHub Stars Taught Me to Distrust Popularitymedium.com
    review
  7. How to add a live star history chart to your GitHub READMEdev.to
    review
  8. OSS Insight vs star-historydevrel.directory
    review
  9. Security pagestar-history.com
    security
  10. GitHub Star History and Stats (StarTrack-js)seladb.github.io
    official
  11. GitHub Repo Star History Chart Generator (Repohistory)app.repohistory.com
    official
  12. backstage/backstage on Star Historystar-history.com
    official

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