24 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 ★ 76K Free, open-source software for video recording and live streaming
valkey ★ 27K 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
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
Seafile ★ 15K Self-hosted file sync with AI-powered organization
OpenVPN ★ 15K Zero Trust VPN solutions for secure business networking
Darktable ★ 13K Professional RAW photo editing and workflow management
aircrack-ng ★ 7.7K WiFi security auditing tools suite
GIMP ★ 6.4K Professional image editing without the price tag
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 ★ 4.8K Graph database optimized for fast analysis and real-time data processing. It is provided as an extension to PostgreSQL.
EasyLogger ★ 4.7K 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
tvheadend ★ 3.5K 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-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
Quiet ★ 2.6K Serverless team chat over Tor, no phone number needed
rtp2httpd ★ 2.1K Multicast RTP/RTSP to Unicast HTTP stream converter, with built-in web player, status dashboard, fast channel change support, and more!
Nagios ★ 2.0K Complete infrastructure monitoring with 25+ years of expertise
CherryUSB ★ 2.0K 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,
Apache Cloudberry ★ 1.4K Unlock Data's Potential with Open Source Power
WireGuard ★ 717 Fast, minimal VPN built on modern cryptography
smolrtsp ★ 508 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 24 C projects, with 281,673 GitHub stars between them and a median of 4,826 stars. The most-adopted is OBS Studio at 76,325 stars.
Which C projects are most actively maintained?
22 of the 24 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?
20 of the 24 carry an explicit open-source licence across 8 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 24 C projects to work from.