Top trending OSS startups in 2025

We’re excited to share the 2025 Annual ROSS Index — the definitive ranking of the fastest-growing open-source startups of the year. We selected repositories with the highest growth rates across any 90-day observation window.

Here’s the full top 20 for 2025:

1. 🇺🇸 Union Labs (unionlabs/union 74.3K stars, 54.2x growth) is a modular zero-knowledge interoperability layer linking blockchains. Founded in 2023 in Dover, DE. Raised $16M from Semantic, Tioga, Galileo, Nascent, LongHash, gCC, etc.

2. OpenCut (OpenCut-app/OpenCut 43.9K stars, 32.0x growth) is a cross-platform video editor. Founded in 2025.

3. 🇨🇭 Anoma (anoma/anoma 34.2K stars, 27.2x growth) is a distributed operating system for intent-centric, decentralized applications. Founded in 2020 in Zug, Switzerland. Raised $65M from Electric, Polychain, CMCC Global, etc.

4. 🇺🇸 Browser Use (browser-use/browser-use 74.2K stars, 24.0x growth) is a framework that enables AI agents to seamlessly interact and control web browsers. Founded in 2024 in San Francisco. Raised $17.5M from Y Combinator, Nexus, Felicis, etc.

5. 🇺🇸 SST (anomalyco/opencode 44.6K stars, 22.1x growth) built a full-stack deployment framework. Now developing OpenCode, a terminal-based AI coding agent. Founded in 2017 in San Francisco. Raised $1.62M from Y Combinator, SV Angel, Greylock, etc.

6. 🇺🇸 Firecrawl (firecrawl/open-lovable 23.1K stars, 21.6x growth) develops a web data API for AI. Recently released Open Lovable app that recreates any website. Founded in 2022 in San Francisco. Raised $17.6M from Agent, Nexus, Zapier, and Y Combinator.

7. 🇺🇸 Upstash (upstash/context7 40.6K stars, 20.9x growth) built a serverless data platform. Now developing Context7, an MCP server with up-to-date code documentation for AI agents. Founded in 2021 in San Jose, CA. Raised $11.9M from Bek, AngelList, Prototype, ScaleX, Andreessen Horowitz, Mango, etc.

8. 🇺🇸 Coze (coze-dev/coze-studio 19.2K stars, 18.1x growth) develops Coze Studio, an AI agent development platform with visual tools. Founded in 2023 in Mountain View, CA. Raised $75M.

9. 🇺🇸 Hamster (eyaltoledano/claude-task-master 24.5K stars, 17.4x growth) builds TaskMaster AI that transforms specs into AI-compatible tasks that integrate directly into your AI dev tools. Founded in 2025 in San Francisco.

10. 🇺🇸 Strix (usestrix/strix 18.4K stars, 17.1x growth) runs autonomous AI agents for penetration testing. Founded in 2024 in San Francisco. Raised an undisclosed amount from Vercel.

11. 🇺🇸 Winfunc (winfunc/opcode 19.6K stars, 16.6x growth) builds Asterisk, a codebase vulnerability automation system, and Opcode, a cross-platform client for Claude Code. Founded in 2024 in San Francisco. Raised $0.5M from Multimodal, Orange Collective, Pioneer, and Y Combinator.

12. 🇺🇸 Million (aidenybai/react-scan 20.0K stars, 14.7x growth) develops React Scan, a tool for optimizing React code by identifying performance bottlenecks. Founded in 2023 in San Francisco. Raised $14.1M from Y Combinator, Costanoa, Hawk Hill, and Phosphor.

13. 🇺🇸 Linera (linera-io/linera-protocol 31.4K stars, 14.6x growth) develops a blockchain protocol for highly scalable, low-latency Web3 applications. Founded in 2021 in San Francisco. Raised $12M from Andreessen Horowitz, Borderless, Tribe, etc.

14. 🇺🇸 elizaOS (elizaOS/eliza 17.1K stars, 14.4x growth) is a comprehensive framework for building AI agents with persistent personalities. Founded in 2024 in San Francisco.

15. 🇺🇸 Charm (charmbracelet/crush 16.6K stars, 14.3x growth) develops Crush, a terminal-based AI coding agent. Founded in 2019 in New York. Raised $9.9M from Fuel, NAP, Firestreak, Betaworks, Gradient, etc.

16. 🇺🇸 Dyad (dyad-sh/dyad 18.8K stars, 14.0x growth) is an AI app builder that lets you craft full-stack interfaces from your machine. Founded in 2025 in San Jose, CA.

17. 🇮🇳 RagaAI (raga-ai-hub/RagaAI-Catalyst 16.0K stars, 13.5x growth) offers Catalyst, a GenAI management and optimization platform. Founded in 2021 in India. Raised $4.7M from Pravega, Pi, Arka Labs, TenOneTen, Exfinity, Anorak, and Mana.

18. 🇸🇬 Mindverse (mindverse/Second-Me 14.8K stars, 12.8x growth) develops SecondMe, a locally run AI doppelganger that keeps all your data private. Founded in 2022 in Singapore. Raised $29.9M from Square Peg, Hongshan, K2VC, Linear, Plug and Play Tech Center, and HSG.

19. 🇰🇷 Nari Labs (nari-labs/dia 17.5K stars, 12.0x growth) develops advanced TTS models capable of generating ultra-realistic, expressive speech from text. Founded in 2025 in Seoul.

20. 🇨🇳 Cherry Studio (CherryHQ/cherry-studio 37.0K stars, 11.5x growth) is a desktop chat app that supports multiple LLM providers. Founded in 2021 in Shanghai, China.

Get more data at ROSS Index Annual 2025.

The 2025 index reflects a few notable shifts. The concentration of AI agent tooling across the ranking signals that agents were the defining theme of the year.

Development velocity has increased dramatically. Where earlier ROSS Index cohorts showed gradual growth of 2–4x per year, the 2025 entries routinely hit 10x or more in a single 90-day window. Thanks to AI-assisted development, the time from repository creation to meaningful milestones — whether 1,000 stars, active contributors, or closed issues — has shortened significantly.

Over half the ranking — and nearly the entire top tier — is US-based. This reflects a broader trend we’ve observed across quarterly indices: companies increasingly aim to be international from day one, regardless of where they’re founded, often establishing a US presence early. Projects focused on local markets tend to see weaker traction as their audience is inherently limited.

The methodology remains largely consistent with previous years, with minor refinements. We monitor all GitHub repos with 1,000+ stars, calculate star growth within the highest-performing 90-day sliding window, select repos associated with early-stage startups, and highlight the top 20 by growth rate.

Since its launch in Q2 2020, all quarterly indexes have been published on our website. You can easily contact us with your ideas on how to improve the index. Also, if you’re a lucky participant in the ROSS Index’s top 20, feel free to let others know about this by adding a special badge on your GitHub repo or to your website.