71 open source projects written in C
Every C project in the registry, ranked by GitHub stars — license and last push on every entry, data pulled live from the GitHub API every night.
OBS Studio ★ 79K Free, open-source software for video recording and live streaming
tmux ★ 50K tmux source code
codebase-memory-mcp ★ 48K High-performance code intelligence MCP server. Indexes codebases into a persistent knowledge graph — average repo in milliseconds. 158 languages, sub-ms queries
raylib ★ 36K A simple and easy-to-use library to enjoy videogames programming
nginx ★ 32K The official NGINX Open Source repository.
valkey ★ 28K A flexible distributed key-value database that is optimized for caching and other realtime workloads.
TDengine ★ 25K Time-series database and historian for industrial data
TimescaleDb ★ 24K Time-series database built on top of PostgreSQL
nnn ★ 22K n³ The unorthodox terminal file manager
goaccess ★ 21K GoAccess is a real-time web log analyzer and interactive viewer that runs in a terminal in *nix systems or through your browser.
Turso ★ 17K SQLite-compatible database for scalable multi-tenant applications
ecapture ★ 16K Capture SSL/TLS plaintext with eBPF—no MITM proxy or custom CA installation. Supports Linux and Android on x86_64 and arm64.
Seafile ★ 15K Self-hosted file sync with AI-powered organization
OpenVPN ★ 15K Zero Trust VPN solutions for secure business networking
SoftEtherVPN ★ 14K Cross-platform multi-protocol VPN software. Pull requests are welcome. The stable version is available at https://github.com/SoftEtherVPN/SoftEtherVPN_Stable.
tengine ★ 13K A high-performance web server and reverse proxy, 100% compatible with nginx.
Darktable ★ 13K Professional RAW photo editing and workflow management
citus ★ 13K Distributed PostgreSQL as an extension
thc-hydra ★ 12K hydra
libvips ★ 12K A fast image processing library with low memory needs.
smartdns ★ 11K A local DNS server to obtain the fastest website IP for the best Internet experience, support DoT, DoH, DoQ. 一个本地DNS服务器，获取最快的网站IP，获得最佳上网体验，支持DoH，DoT，DoQ。
MangoHud ★ 9.2K A Vulkan and OpenGL overlay for monitoring FPS, temperatures, CPU/GPU load and more.
wasm3 ★ 8.1K 🚀 A fast WebAssembly interpreter and the most universal WASM runtime
aircrack-ng ★ 7.8K WiFi security auditing tools suite
libhv ★ 7.6K 🔥 比libevent/libuv/asio更易用的网络库。A c/c++ network library for developing TCP/UDP/SSL/HTTP/WebSocket/MQTT/Redis client/server.
ctags ★ 7.3K A maintained ctags implementation
suricata ★ 6.8K Suricata is a network Intrusion Detection System, Intrusion Prevention System and Network Security Monitoring engine developed by the OISF and the Suricata comm
GIMP ★ 6.6K Professional image editing without the price tag
chafa ★ 5.4K 📺🗿 Terminal graphics for the 21st century.
ossec-hids ★ 5.1K OSSEC is an Open Source Host-based Intrusion Detection System that performs log analysis, file integrity checking, policy monitoring, rootkit detection, real-ti
age ★ 4.9K Graph database optimized for fast analysis and real-time data processing. It is provided as an extension to PostgreSQL.
EasyLogger ★ 4.8K An ultra-lightweight(ROM<1.6K, RAM<0.3k), high-performance C/C++ log library. | 一款超轻量级(ROM<1.6K, RAM<0.3k)、高性能的 C/C++ 日志库
webui ★ 4.6K Use any web browser or WebView as GUI, with your preferred language in the backend and modern web technologies in the frontend, all in a lightweight portable li
orioledb ★ 4.3K OrioleDB – building a modern cloud-native storage engine (... and solving some PostgreSQL wicked problems)
geany ★ 3.7K A fast and lightweight IDE
tvheadend ★ 3.6K Tvheadend is the leading TV streaming server for Linux with ATSC, DVB-C/C2, DVB-S/S2, DVB-T/T2, IPTV, SAT>IP and unix pipe input sources
nginx-module-vts ★ 3.5K Nginx virtual host traffic status module
sysstat ★ 3.4K Performance monitoring tools for Linux
vifm ★ 3.3K Vifm is a file manager with curses interface, which provides Vim-like environment for managing objects within file systems, extended with some useful ideas from
acl ★ 3.1K C/C++ server and network library, including coroutine,redis client,http/https/websocket,mqtt, mysql/postgresql/sqlite client with C/C++ for Linux, Android, iOS,
nginx-http-flv-module ★ 2.9K A media streaming server based on nginx-rtmp-module. In addtion to the features nginx-rtmp-module provides, HTTP-FLV, GOP cache, VHosts (one IP for multi domain
permafrost-engine ★ 2.8K An OpenGL RTS game engine written in C
php-spx ★ 2.6K A simple & straight-to-the-point PHP profiling extension with its built-in web UI
lovr ★ 2.6K Lua Virtual Reality Framework
angie ★ 2.6K Angie - drop-in replacement for nginx
raylib-go ★ 2.6K Go bindings for raylib, a simple and easy-to-use library to enjoy videogames programming.
rsyslog ★ 2.3K High-performance log ingestion and ETL engine
rtp2httpd ★ 2.3K Multicast RTP/RTSP to Unicast HTTP stream converter, with built-in web player, status dashboard, fast channel change support, and more!
Nagios ★ 2.1K Complete infrastructure monitoring with 25+ years of expertise
CherryUSB ★ 2.1K CherryUSB is a tiny and beautiful, high performance and portable USB host and device stack for embedded system with USB IP
Chrome-App-Bound-Encryption-Decryption ★ 1.8K Bypass Chromium's App-Bound Encryption via Direct Syscall-based Reflective Process Hollowing. Extract cookies, passwords, payment methods & tokens from Chrome,
webMAN-MOD ★ 1.8K Extended services for PS3 console (web server, ftp server, netiso, ntfs, ps3mapi, etc.)
Tongsuo ★ 1.6K 铜锁/Tongsuo is a Modern Cryptographic Primitives and Protocols Library
agensgraph ★ 1.5K AgensGraph, a high performance transactional graph database based on PostgreSQL
ESPresense ★ 1.5K An ESP32 based node for gathering indoor positioning and transmitting to mqtt
qtap ★ 1.5K Qtap: An eBPF agent that captures pre-encrypted network traffic, providing rich context about egress connections and their originating processes.
Apache Cloudberry ★ 1.4K Unlock Data's Potential with Open Source Power
mcrcon ★ 1.1K Rcon client for Minecraft
mod_auth_openidc ★ 1.1K OpenID Certified™ OpenID Connect and FAPI 2 Relying Party module for Apache HTTPd
fsmon ★ 1.0K Filesystem monitor tool for Linux/Android iOS/macOS
ohpc ★ 1.0K OpenHPC Integration, Packaging, and Test Repo
xfrpc ★ 843 xfrpc 是一个轻量级的 FRP 客户端，完美兼容 frps，采用 C 语言实现，专为 OpenWRT 和物联网等资源受限系统优化设计。它针对 ROM 和 RAM 空间有限的设备，提供高效的内网穿透解决方案。xfrpc 集成了xDPI（深度包检测）功能，增强了安全性，有效防止内网穿透中因恶意嗅探导致的安全威胁，确保数
bind9 ★ 788 Archived mirror of https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/bind9, please submit issues and PR/MRs in the GitLab.
project_aura ★ 782 ESP32‑S3 air‑quality station with LVGL UI, MQTT, Home Assistant
WireGuard ★ 735 Fast, minimal VPN built on modern cryptography
concord ★ 660 A Discord API wrapper library made in C
lightway-core ★ 626 Lightway Core is a modern VPN protocol by ExpressVPN, to deliver a VPN experience that’s faster, more secure, and more reliable.
gdnsd ★ 560 Authoritative DNS Server
libretiny ★ 551 PlatformIO development platform for IoT modules
graphqlite ★ 523 A SQLite extension that adds graph database capabilities with Cypher query language support and built-in graph algorithms.
smolrtsp ★ 511 A lightweight real-time streaming library for IP cameras
← all stacks · or see best-of lists
Frequently asked questions
How many open source projects are written in C?
This registry tracks 71 C projects, with 666,032 GitHub stars between them and a median of 3,571 stars. The most-adopted is OBS Studio at 78,788 stars.
Which C projects are most actively maintained?
65 of the 71 projects were pushed in the last 90 days. Each entry above shows its exact last-push date, so you can filter out dormant projects before committing to one.
What licence are C projects usually under?
67 of the 71 carry an explicit open-source licence across 13 distinct licences, and the licence is shown on every card. Permissive licences (MIT, Apache-2.0) are the safest default for commercial use; check the copyleft ones individually.
Should I use C or C++ for my project?
Both are viable. C is the better default if your team already knows it or the libraries you need are written in it; C++ may suit you better if you need the ecosystem, tooling or performance profile it is known for. The registry lists 71 C projects to work from.