I Built an Open Source Directory for Devs Because Discovery is Still Broken in 2026

Gaurav Sharma — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 11:07:46 +0000

There are more open source tools than ever. GitHub has hundreds of millions of repositories. And yet, when you need a specific tool — a self-hosted analytics platform, a lightweight CMS, a developer productivity tool — you still end up in the same 12-tab rabbit hole of outdated blog posts and stale Reddit threads.

I got tired of it. So I built OpenResource.

🌐 openresource.site
💻 github.com/gauravxdev/openresource

What is OpenResource?

A community-driven directory for open source tools, GitHub projects, apps, and developer resources.

Not a curated list. Not a newsletter. A living platform where developers discover, share, and contribute resources — and where the community decides what's worth knowing about.

The key difference from existing options:

GitHub Trending shows what's new, not what's useful
Google surfaces SEO-optimized noise, not signal
Awesome lists go stale — one maintainer, no scale
OpenResource is community-maintained and grows continuously

The Feature I'm Most Excited About: Built-in AI Assistant

Every developer has hit this wall: you find a GitHub repo, read the README, and still can't tell if this is the right tool for your use case.

OpenResource's built-in AI assistant fills that gap. It explains open source tools in plain language — what they actually do, who they're for, and when you'd realistically reach for them.

Not a replacement for documentation. A bridge to it.

Tech Stack

Since we're on Dev.to — here's what's under the hood:

Framework:  Next.js 15 (App Router) + React 19
API Layer:  tRPC — full end-to-end type safety
Database:   Prisma ORM + PostgreSQL
UI:         Tailwind CSS + Radix UI
Language:   TypeScript (strict mode, no shortcuts)
Runtime:    Npm,Bun

Built on the T3 Stack. Solo project, evenings and weekends. No VC funding, no team — just a developer who wanted this to exist.

Why I'm Sharing This Now (It's Not "Done")

Because "done" is a myth and shipping beats perfect.

OpenResource works. It's live. It has real rough edges. And right now, genuine feedback from developers who actually use it is worth more than another two months of solo refinement.

What I want to know from you:

Is the discovery experience actually better than your current workflow?
What categories or tools feel missing?
Does the AI assistant add value, or does it feel gimmicky?
What would make you actually bookmark and return to this?

Drop a comment, open a GitHub issue, or just try it for five minutes and tell me what breaks.

The Bigger Picture

Open source software powers the modern web. Developers and companies are increasingly choosing community-driven tools over proprietary SaaS — for cost, flexibility, data sovereignty, and control.

But the infrastructure for finding those tools hasn't kept up with the quality of the tools themselves.

OpenResource is trying to fix that. One community contribution at a time.

If you build something open source and want it listed — submit it.
If you find a bug — open an issue.
If you find it useful — a ⭐ on GitHub genuinely helps a solo dev.