Search engines for finding open source projects

Question

If I want the computer do to something, before starting to write myself the program that does that, I like to search on GitHub for projects that already do what I want. Github search is not always great but with the right keywords... Finding a ready-made project saves my time, and I can still build on that project for the benefit of everyone. But what good is improving on that if no one can find it, and another one 'reinvents the wheel again' just as I was about to?Open source is great because it's great at combining the efforts of interested people. The thing is, searching GitHub misses a lot. A lot of great projects started or have moved to more Free source forges like sr.ht, gitlab, codeberg, self-hosted stuff... How do I search all of those at once? Surely some exceedingly cool HNer has a search engine that aggregates all of that?

LunarAurora · Accepted Answer

Some directories exist like https://awesomeopensource.com/, but they are going to be selective by nature, not exactly what you want.
I suppose one can make a google custom search [1] that covers all the major sites (not the self-hosted)
I think GitHub search misses on a lot of its own repositories by not always (?) considering the readme. Projects that are not well described (in the About) are not easily discoverable.
[1] https://programmablesearchengine.google.com/

hardwaresofton · Answer

Well it&rsquo;s not a search engine but I write a lot about F/OSS projects I like:awsmfoss.comA search engine is probably a great way to make it more accessible&hellip;