GitHub Trending Tracker — Stars, Forks, Language Filter

What does GitHub Trending Tracker do?

GitHub Trending Tracker scrapes the GitHub Trending page and returns structured data for every trending repository — no API key or OAuth required. Filter by programming language, time period (daily, weekly, or monthly), and spoken language in a single run. Get star growth velocity, fork counts, contributor lists, and direct links for up to 25 repos per request.

This actor uses the public GitHub trending page directly, so it never consumes your GitHub API rate limit. Results are structured, deduplicated, and ready for downstream automation or dashboards.

Why use GitHub Trending Tracker?

Monitor viral GitHub projects before they hit mainstream press — ideal for VCs, developer advocates, and open-source enthusiasts who need early signals on breakout libraries.

1. Competitive intelligence — Track which repositories in your language ecosystem are gaining momentum. Spot new competitors or emerging standards before they reach your team.
2. Content and newsletter curation — Automate weekly digests of the hottest trending repositories for developer blogs, newsletters, or Slack bots.
3. Investment research — Identify projects with unusual star growth velocity that may indicate rapid community adoption or viral product launches.
4. Developer tooling discovery — Find viral GitHub projects in specific languages (Rust, Solidity, TypeScript) to keep your tech stack current.
5. Academic and trend analysis — Researchers studying open-source adoption can pull time-series data by scheduling this actor daily and storing results to Apify datasets.

How to use GitHub Trending Tracker

1. Open the actor on Apify and click Try for free.
2. Set Programming Language (e.g. python, typescript, rust) — leave empty for all languages.
3. Choose Time Period: daily, weekly, or monthly.
4. Optionally set Spoken Language Code (ISO 639-1, e.g. en, zh, ja).
5. Set Max Repos (1–25, GitHub's limit per page).
6. Click Start and retrieve results from the Output tab within seconds.
7. Download as JSON, CSV, or Excel — or connect via the Apify API for automated pipelines.

Schedule the actor via Apify Scheduler to run daily and push results to your storage bucket, webhook endpoint, or Google Sheets integration.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
language	string	(all)	Programming language slug (e.g. python, rust, solidity). Leave empty for all.
since	enum	daily	Trending window: daily, weekly, or monthly.
spokenLanguage	string	(all)	ISO 639-1 spoken language code (e.g. en, zh, ja). Leave empty for all.
maxRepos	integer	25	Maximum trending repositories to return (1–25, GitHub's hard limit per page).

Example — track Python repos trending daily:

{
  "language": "python",
  "since": "daily",
  "maxRepos": 25
}

Output

Each repository is one item in the dataset. You can download the dataset in various formats such as JSON, HTML, CSV, or Excel.

[
  {
    "rank": 1,
    "full_name": "microsoft/typescript",
    "owner": "microsoft",
    "repo": "typescript",
    "description": "TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript that compiles to clean JavaScript output.",
    "language": "TypeScript",
    "url": "https://github.com/microsoft/typescript",
    "stars_total": 98432,
    "forks_total": 12871,
    "stars_gained_period": 1247,
    "contributors": ["ahejlsberg", "DanielRosenwasser", "sandersn"],
    "since": "daily",
    "fetched_at": "2026-09-02T10:15:00Z"
  },
  {
    "rank": 2,
    "full_name": "vercel/ai",
    "owner": "vercel",
    "repo": "ai",
    "description": "Build AI-powered applications with React, Svelte, Vue, and plain JS.",
    "language": "TypeScript",
    "url": "https://github.com/vercel/ai",
    "stars_total": 10234,
    "forks_total": 1187,
    "stars_gained_period": 892,
    "contributors": ["lgrammel", "nicoalbanese"],
    "since": "daily",
    "fetched_at": "2026-09-02T10:15:00Z"
  }
]

Data fields

Field	Type	Description
rank	integer	Position on GitHub Trending (1 = top trending)
full_name	string	Full repository slug (owner/repo)
owner	string	Repository owner username or organization
repo	string	Repository name
description	string	Repository description
language	string	Primary programming language
url	string	Direct GitHub URL
stars_total	integer	Total star count at time of scrape
stars_gained_period	integer	Star growth in the selected trending window
forks_total	integer	Total fork count
contributors	array	GitHub usernames of top contributors visible on the trending page
since	string	Trending window used (daily, weekly, monthly)
fetched_at	string	ISO 8601 timestamp of the scrape

Cost estimation

This actor uses Pay-Per-Event (PPE) pricing. You are charged per repository returned.

Scenario	Repos	Cost
Single run, all 25 repos	25	~$0.025
Weekly sweep (one language)	25	~$0.025
5 languages × daily (125 repos)	125	~$0.125
30-day daily run (25 repos/day)	750	~$0.75

Price: $0.001 per trending repository returned.

Apify platform compute costs are additional and typically negligible for this actor — runs complete in under 30 seconds.

FAQ

Does this actor require a GitHub API key? No. The GitHub trending tracker scrapes the public github.com/trending page directly. No API token, OAuth, or account is needed and your personal rate limit is never consumed.

How often does GitHub update the trending page? GitHub refreshes trending repositories approximately every 24 hours for each window (daily, weekly, monthly). Running more than once per hour returns the same data.

Can I track trending repositories for multiple languages in one run? Each run targets one language filter. To cover multiple languages, schedule parallel runs — one per language — via the Apify API or Scheduler, then merge the datasets downstream.

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Disclaimer: This actor scrapes the public GitHub Trending page. GitHub may change its HTML structure without notice, which could temporarily affect data availability. Star counts may occasionally be null if the parser cannot extract a specific field — all other fields are still returned. Data represents a point-in-time snapshot and should not be used as the sole basis for investment decisions. This actor is not affiliated with or endorsed by GitHub, Inc.

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Related actors

• GitHub Repo Analytics — Deep dive into star history, forks, and contributor data for repos found via trending
• Open Source Releases Tracker — Track new version releases of trending open source projects
• NPM Package Trends — NPM download trends for JS/TS packages that appear in GitHub trending

Feedback

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