On Oct 23, 2026 we were tracking 12,468 public GitHub repos, but every count in the tables below is about 2,500 of them, not all 12,468 and not GitHub as a whole. Those 2,500 are the ones that have a page on RepoTrending, and on day one, with no star gains measured yet, they are simply the most starred. The lowest of them has 18,279 stars, the median is 29,751, and the highest is 555,515.
Which repos are counted in these tables?
The tables cover the 2,500 repos that have a page on the site, which on Oct 23, 2026 are the 2,500 most starred of the 12,468 we track. Where a table says “of 2,500”, it means that group and nothing wider.
The pool of 12,468 comes from a few searches against the GitHub REST API (read-only). We take every public repo with 5,000 or more stars, plus repos created in the last 30 or 90 days above a star floor, plus the topics ai-agents, mcp, claude-code and llm, plus active repos in a few big languages. We skip forks, archived, disabled and private repos. How we rank lists the details.
Once the first star gains exist, the page list changes. From Oct 24 the biggest gainers of each window come first and the most starred fill the rest, so these counts will move. That is why every number here carries its date.
Which languages are most common among the 2,500 most starred repos?
Python leads with 488 repos, then TypeScript with 417 and JavaScript with 285. These are counts among the 2,500 repos that have a page on Oct 23, 2026, not shares of GitHub.
| Rank | Language (GitHub’s label) | Repos, of 2,500 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Python | 488 |
| 2 | TypeScript | 417 |
| 3 | JavaScript | 285 |
| 4 | Other | 207 |
| 5 | Go | 198 |
| 6 | Rust | 157 |
| 7 | C++ | 115 |
| 8 | Java | 103 |
| 9 | C | 70 |
| 10 | Jupyter Notebook | 63 |
“Other” is GitHub’s own label, not ours. It is the fourth biggest group, and the second most starred repo we track, sindresorhus/awesome with 523,193 stars, sits in it. The label comes from the language GitHub detects for a repo, so a repo made mostly of Markdown lists lands in odd places: codecrafters-io/build-your-own-x (555,515 stars) is labeled Markdown, and public-apis/public-apis (491,441) is labeled Python.
If you want to see one of these groups in full, the language pages list them. There are 20 language pages, each needing at least 5 repos, and Python repos, TypeScript repos and Rust repos are the ones we’d open first.
How old are the most starred repos on the list?
Most of the list is not new, but a lot of it is recent: 175 of the 2,500 were created in 2026, 160 in 2025, 143 in 2024 and 190 in 2023. The oldest were created in 2008, and there are 4 of them.
| Created in | Repos, of 2,500 |
|---|---|
| 2026 | 175 |
| 2025 | 160 |
| 2024 | 143 |
| 2023 | 190 |
| 2008 (oldest year) | 4 |
Read the 2026 row carefully. The lowest star count among those 175 repos is 18,572, which is above the 18,279 that marks the bottom of the whole list. That follows from how we picked the 2,500: only the most starred repos get a page, so a 2026 repo below 18,279 stars is tracked but isn’t counted here. This is a statement about the cutoff, not about how new repos do in general.
The 2023 row is bigger than 2024, 2025 or 2026. We didn’t test why. Older repos have had more time to collect stars, and that is one guess, but we haven’t separated age from anything else.
Which topics do repo owners tag most?
JavaScript and Python lead the topic tags, at 252 and 249 repos, followed by hacktoberfest at 199 and ai at 191. A topic is a tag the repo’s owner adds, so it is not the same thing as the language label.
| Topic | Repos, of 2,500 |
|---|---|
| javascript | 252 |
| python | 249 |
| hacktoberfest | 199 |
| ai | 191 |
| llm | 157 |
| typescript | 147 |
| react | 139 |
| machine-learning | 113 |
| rust | 107 |
| ai-agents | 100 |
| go | 97 |
| deep-learning | 95 |
| golang | 93 |
| android | 91 |
| mcp | 90 |
Compare this with the language table. The javascript topic is on 252 repos, while 285 repos carry the JavaScript language label, because owners tag by choice and the language label is GitHub’s own. go (97) and golang (93) are two tags for one language, so a count of either alone undersells Go.
The AI tags are where our selection shows most. We search for llm, ai-agents, mcp and claude-code on purpose, so they are in the tracked pool by design. Among the 2,500 on the list, LLM repos number 157, and the topic pages cover 15 topics in all. The AI agent repos page groups 165 repos under ai-agents, mcp and coding-agents. mcp has no page of its own, so it is part of that one.
What does one narrow slice look like up close?
The Claude Code repos page lists 81 repos with the topic claude-code, and 50 of them were created in 2026, 26 in 2025, 2 in 2024, and one each in 2023, 2022 and 2018. It is the youngest group we track.
The most starred is morluto/rea with 366,708 stars, created Apr 14, 2026, so it collected that count in under seven months. Next is affaan-m/ECC with 286,573 (created Jan 18, 2026) and NousResearch/hermes-agent with 256,267 (created Jul 22, 2025). We don’t check for bought or farmed stars yet, so treat counts like these as what GitHub shows, not as proof of use.
What do these counts hide?
The language shares are not shares of GitHub. A language with many small, unstarred repos is under-counted here, and one that produces a few giant repos is over-counted. We’ve applied the star floor, the recent-repo rule and the topic searches, and we haven’t measured how much each one tilts the language table. Neither the all-time list nor these tables are a census.
There’s also no growth in any of this yet. Collecting started on Oct 23, 2026, with one snapshot, so every number above is a star total or a tag count, not a gain. The first day-over-day gains arrive on Oct 24.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most popular programming language on GitHub?
We can’t answer that for all of GitHub. Among the 2,500 most starred repos we track, Python leads with 488 repos, ahead of TypeScript with 417, on Oct 23, 2026.
How many GitHub repos does RepoTrending track?
On Oct 23, 2026 we tracked 12,468 public repos. Only the 2,500 most starred of them have a page on the site, and the language, year and topic counts here cover those 2,500.
Are new GitHub repos getting stars as fast as old ones?
Some are. Among the 2,500 most starred, 175 were created in 2026, and the least starred of them has 18,572 stars. That list only holds repos with at least 18,279 stars, so it says nothing about the quiet new ones.
Where to look next
If you want the biggest repos by total stars, open the all-time list. For the fastest-moving corner, see AI agent repos or Claude Code repos. To see how the 12,468 were found and how gains will be counted, read how we rank. For which licenses these repos use, read open source licenses on popular GitHub repos.
Data used
Source for every row: RepoTrending, GitHub REST API (public repository search, read-only), snapshot of Oct 23, 2026 (collector export meta.json and repos.json, run of 2026-10-23 02:26 UTC).
| Number | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|
| 12,468 repos tracked | RepoTrending meta.json (trackedRepos) |
Oct 23, 2026 |
| 2,500 repos with a page | RepoTrending collector (PUBLISH_LIMIT) |
Oct 23, 2026 |
| Stars of the 2,500: lowest 18,279, median 29,751, highest 555,515 | RepoTrending repos.json |
Oct 23, 2026 |
5,000-star floor; last 30 or 90 days; topics ai-agents, mcp, claude-code, llm |
RepoTrending collector (BIG_FLOOR, discover.mjs), see how we rank |
Oct 23, 2026 |
| Languages: Python 488, TypeScript 417, JavaScript 285, Other 207, Go 198, Rust 157, C++ 115, Java 103, C 70, Jupyter Notebook 63 | RepoTrending repos.json, GitHub’s language label |
Oct 23, 2026 |
| Created in 2026: 175; 2025: 160; 2024: 143; 2023: 190; oldest year 2008 (4 repos) | RepoTrending repos.json |
Oct 23, 2026 |
| Fewest stars among repos created in 2026: 18,572 | RepoTrending repos.json |
Oct 23, 2026 |
| Topics: javascript 252, python 249, hacktoberfest 199, ai 191, llm 157, typescript 147, react 139, machine-learning 113, rust 107, ai-agents 100, go 97, deep-learning 95, golang 93, android 91, mcp 90 | RepoTrending repos.json |
Oct 23, 2026 |
| 20 language pages, 15 topic pages, at least 5 repos per page | RepoTrending site build | Oct 23, 2026 |
sindresorhus/awesome 523,193 stars (Other); codecrafters-io/build-your-own-x 555,515 (Markdown); public-apis/public-apis 491,441 (Python) |
RepoTrending repos.json |
Oct 23, 2026 |
/claude-code/: 81 repos; created 2026 50, 2025 26, 2024 2, 2023 1, 2022 1, 2018 1 |
RepoTrending repos.json |
Oct 23, 2026 |
morluto/rea 366,708 stars (created Apr 14, 2026); affaan-m/ECC 286,573 (Jan 18, 2026); NousResearch/hermes-agent 256,267 (Jul 22, 2025) |
RepoTrending repos.json |
Oct 23, 2026 |
/ai-agents/: 165 repos (topics ai-agents, mcp, coding-agents) |
RepoTrending repos.json |
Oct 23, 2026 |
| First day-over-day gains Oct 24, 2026 | RepoTrending meta.json (windows) |
Oct 23, 2026 |
More guides
- How to check a GitHub repo before you depend on it
- Stars per year: comparing old and new GitHub repos
- Daily, weekly or monthly: which window to watch?
- Find Claude Code repos worth trying (Oct 2026)
- GitHub trending alternatives: what each one counts
- How does GitHub decide what is trending?
- Open source licenses on popular GitHub repos
- Stars gained vs total stars: which says more?
- Trending badge for your README, and what it says