14 DAY TRIAL // SourceForge, one of the biggest open-source community and hosting services, has just announced its 4 billionth download. One of the first sites of its kind, it has managed to maintain its top spot despite increased competition and currently delivers an average of 1.8 million unique applications each day.
The 4 billionth app is the popular PortableApps.com suite, which offers a way to carry and use your applications on a USB flash drive or other portable devices. The software was created by John T. Haller in 2004 and has since continued to grow, reaching almost 100 million downloads at SourceForge.
"Many of our users, developers and translators became a part of our project through the SourceForge community, and we've worked with dozens of other open source projects on SourceForge in the process," Haller said. "We're currently on the verge of our 100 millionth portable app download and that would not have been possible without SourceForge's continued support."
The project was launched in 1999 to help open-source developers work together, host and distribute their applications. It now has more than 2.3 million registered users and more than 230,000 projects. Since it was launched it has served 35,500 terabytes of data, the equivalent of “reading the entire contents of the Library of Congress every day for nearly a year.”
"With a run rate of approximately 1.8 million downloads a day, our community is driving remarkable and meaningful results," said Jon Sobel, SourceForge's group president of Media. "Our technology enthusiast users are not simply 'clicking through'; SourceForge users are deeply engaged and interested in the entire experience. Not only are they downloading software, applications and tools, they are also regularly giving back by adding more content or providing feedback."
While it remains the biggest service of its kind in recent years, it looks like it was slipping into irrelevance as new competing services offered much improved functionality and services. However, the company is making somewhat of a comeback by adding some new features and acquiring other related businesses.