Hey everyone!
A few years ago, I fell down the open-source rabbit hole and started noticing how many commercial tools had open-source alternatives. Back in 2020, they were good but not quite there yet. Fast forward to today with LLMs in the mix, and these alternatives are seriously narrowing the gap.
Most open-source directories just label things as "alternatives," but that's way too vague. Take Ghost vs Shopify. Sure, Ghost could be called a "Shopify alternative" since both support blogging. But Shopify has payments, inventory, checkout, product management... features Ghost doesn't have. The label oversimplifies everything.
We track specific features and map exactly where they live in the codebase. This means you can:
- Browse features across different projects
- Select the ones you actually need
- Get a generated prompt with exact file paths and GitHub locations
- Have your AI learn from real implementations and help you build those features into your own stack
Once we started tracking features in open-source applications, we realized we could use this for context engineering. By mapping exactly where features live in the code, we can generate prompts that give AI the precise context it needs to understand how existing open-source applications implement features and then help you build them into your own projects.
opensource.builders is an Openship initiative. We're using these principles to build Openship, management software for e-commerce, hotels, restaurants, and more. Next week we'll share how we're leveraging these platforms to create a decentralized marketplace where businesses truly own their storefronts.
opensource.builders helped us understand the landscape and build what was missing. Hope it helps you too!
Try it: https://opensource.builders
Our ethos: https://opensource.builders/ethos
Source code: https://github.com/junaid33/open...
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