The world of open-source is stronger than it has ever been. With an increasingly interconnected world, more and more people become interested in being a part of the team that creates new and amazing technologies. Nevertheless, there are plenty more benefits of open-source software than simply that one. Particularly, there is no other best way of learning and developing yourself as a developer than to contribute to an open-source project. However, there are so many options, that it is hard to pick from them.

If you are interested in Open Source and thinking about joining the community of Open Source developers, it is very likely that in this list you will find the best project for you (To be honest, I am completely sure that you will). Here are they – the really big list of really interesting open-source projects using the most popular programming languages such as Elixir, Erlang, Haskell, Clojure, Python, Ruby, Lua, JS, Go, C++, Swift, Bash, R and so on. Thus, we lead you to the best open-source projects to contribute to in 2024. Let’s dive in!

Why should you join open-source projects?

You can contribute to all of the openly stated projects, and yet what's for you in that? The following are the top reasons why it’s a good idea.

  • Leveraging your career prospects: Participating in open-source projects not only shows your skills to potential employers but also attracts them. For them, evaluating whether or not you would fit one of the open roles is the easiest. They can easily check if you are going to do what you promised them. In Frank Schefflers’s words, "actively contribute to open source projects would show off your talent and knowledge more than certificates will do along".

  • Improving the project: The fundamental value of an open-source community is that its members are not necessarily people motivated by their financial gains but by their pure desire to take part in some project. So, people who participate in the open-source projects, in most cases do it because of altruism - they wish to bring it into better shape. Faster, smarter, and more secure open-source software can be made more effective by speeding it up, making users more intelligent, and strengthening its security. As free and open-source software is freely available and is transparent, your contribution will be helpful to all over the world.

  • Gaining valuable knowledge: Through immersion in a particular open-source project, you pretty much mastered all the details about the software considered. In summary, you are not just learning by doing but also by reading or interacting with other people's code. Furthermore, you have real-time visibility into an app creation process, as you are building it. This knowledge is actually different from the abstract theory you can develop.

Also Read: How to Earn Money With Open Source Contributions?

LIST OF BEST OPEN SOURCE PROJECTS

C++ OPEN-SOURCE PROJECTS

C++ is used in developing many very high-speed programs. It in fact is the most used language in gaming. C++ is known as an amazing and always improving language, so you can learn a lot of interesting programming tricks that can be useful in your C++ open-source projects.

IncludeOS

IncludeOS is a low-footprint unikernel operating system that provides you the capability to run your applications in the cloud without an OS. Any of these types of system solutions - from enterprise solutions to microservices and IoT can make use of this open-source software. This is the leading project full of imagination!

Kodi

Likely you must have come across Kodi before. The reason for the sense of the project was a great interface, a skinning engine, and several awards it had won. It is used both as a home cinema system and a universal platform for different OS.

Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit

The Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit, otherwise called CNTK, is an open-source deep learning specification. It can be used for machine learning model creation that has predicting capability. As the key point, CNTK is employed to design deep neural nets which constitute the basis of some of the sharpest AI technologies available at the moment.

PYTHON OPEN-SOURCE PROJECTS

Python, as a generic-purpose language, encourages developers to employ such programming paradigms as functional, reflective, and object-orientation. This language is in first place on the most sought-after programming languages list of 2021. Getting involved in these Python open source projects is also guaranteeing your development of essential development skills.

TensorFlow

TensorFlow is an open-source, free software tool that is dedicated to the development of machine learning and AI. When supporting this open-source endeavour, you are a part of the efforts that resolve the toughest issues. Medicine, education, research, retail and other areas are just a few examples of the areas where it is applied.

Django

Python has many excellent web frameworks among which Django is one of the most popular frameworks being used on sites like Instagram and Mozilla. This will help you learn rapid development and the Do-Not-Repeat-Yourself principle, a feature that is a consequence of the open source project. This framework is based on the model-template-views architecture.

Find out free and easy-to-use open-source Django projects here…

​​OpenCV

OpenCV is an open-source library which functions as software for machine learning and computer vision. It has over 2500 algorithms, which allow you to do classification, tracking, recognition, and other computer vision-related tasks. They use it in their research and product development, among others.

Similar to this: Top 10 Most Downloaded Source Code of Projects.

JAVA OPEN-SOURCE PROJECTS

Knowing well that everything ranges from web pages to television, Java-written apps are the ones surrounding us, thus. Despite its age and versatility, this language is still very popular and is one of the most coveted languages in the market. Collaborating within those Java open-source projects assists you in acquiring core programming skills to master this language.

Jenkins

Jenkins is an automation server featuring more than 1000 plugins for automating practically anything. This open-source project also helps to build/deploy apps easily for developers.

Spring Framework

The Spring Framework is Java’s application development framework. Courtesy of this, many people use it to develop, test and release their code. It is loved because it is powerful while at the same time light and flexible.

Elasticsearch

Elasticsearch is an open-source project that can be a great way to get involved in the data science field if that’s what you’re interested in. It is capable of analyzing, searching, and storing big data volumes in a real-time manner. Elasticsearch helps people to put to work their data in numerous ways through its usage.

Wrap Up

The open-source community is host to a wealth of interesting projects in various domains that can be a source of valuable learning. These projects are diverse, providing a wide range of learning experiences and different perspectives that are focused on the entire software development process from the front end to the backend systems and then to machine learning.

FAQs

How do I find an interesting open source project?

Explore Open Source Projects "Open-Source Directories" - explore multiple platforms that list various open-source projects. Websites like GitHub Explore and GitLab Explore, along with those of Open Source Friday and others list projects, so it is easier to search through them.

Open-source resource projects cover a broad spectrum of fields and functions. Some widely cited examples are Linux OS, Mozilla Firefox web browser, Apache HTTP Server and TensorFlow machine learning library. Similarly, the Python programming language and the WordPress content management system, as well as the VLC media player, are among the most popular projects.

If you want to participate actively in the open-source community, it is essential to sharpen your hands-on skills in programming languages ( e.g., Python, JavaScript, Java), version control systems (e.g., Git), and software development approaches ( e.g., Agile, Scrum).

The Linux kernel is one of the projects that have the highest number of contributors and is exclusively open-source. Indeed, with the global developer community on board. Other projects such as Mozilla Firefox, Kubernetes, and Visual Studio Code are also 'the big contributors', the spirit and power of open source in the technology comprising ecosystem.