6 Most Interesting Open-Source Project Platforms to Help Tech Students Hone Their Skills

Featured article by Vavianne Bell, Independent Technology Author

Participating in open-source code projects is one of the best ways for tech students to expand their knowledge horizons. These will fuel innovation and employ the best practices to devise a strategy.

Today, even recruiters are using open-source code platforms to find prospective employers. They are not merely looking for the best coders – instead, they want to find the right attitude. Your willingness to work in a team, ability to accept constructive criticism, and dedication to your duties are as important to an organization as your coding skills.

If you are up to the task, here is a list of the most exciting open-source code bases and projects available on the Internet.

GitHub

Git is one of the best source control management systems available today. It has additional save points that allow you to save your work as you go along. When you make an error, you can go back and restart from the previous save point. You can also use branching to create copies of your work, develop prototypes, work offline, and reconnect to the network later.

Now, GitHub is built on top of this web platform and allows you to effectively utilize the power of Git. On GitHub, you can manage your open source projects, explore them, and collaborate with others.

For instance, if you often ask someone to “write a paper for me on WritePaper,” you might find another open-source project that builds a writing tool for students. You can choose to contribute to the project. The more you contribute, the better your profile will appear on GitHub.

GitHub may be compared to LinkedIn, with the exception that it features the work you do rather than experience. In other words, it is a portfolio of your open source code projects.

GitLab 

Perhaps, the best alternative to GitHub available today is GitLab, which is an open DevOps platform. In terms of functionality, it includes tools for project management, continuous delivery, issue reporting, and monitoring.

You can develop projects on GitLab on the platform or download other open-source codebases. As you can imagine, Git is the source control management tool used here as well. Compared to GitHub, it has a web interface, but all commands function the same way.

Bitbucket 

Bitbucket is more suited for those who want to create projects with the help of teams. As such, you do not sign in as a single but rather a group of users. The free account allows five members per team, and the limit can be increased by opting for a paid plan.

The features available on Bitbucket are primarily focused on collaboration and teamwork. You have access to functionalities such as code review, controlling the brand permissions, pipelines, and more. Most impressively, Bitbucket also has a long line of integrations – Amazon Web Services, Jira Software, Microsoft Azure, Trello, and so on.

SourceForge

SourceForge is another Open Source software community dedicated to helping programmers create open-source projects. A large portion of Linux projects and distributions offer their downloads through this platform.

SourceForge hosts over 30 million monthly registered users who have built over 500,000 projects. Although the platform is a familiar name in the industry, it lost its place when the more intuitive GitHub was launched. However, there are still several interesting projects available here. It has recently updated its interface and is likely to bring in more features attractive for coding students.

Google Cloud Source 

If you look for a cheaper option, then Google Cloud Source can be an ideal alternative to private repositories. You only have to spend $1 for the additional user after exceeding the limit of five and pay a small amount for more storage.

When it comes to features, you can securely manage your code and collaborate on a private GIT repository. You can also extend your workflow by connecting to other Google Cloud tools, such as Cloud Logging and Cloud Monitoring. This will allow you to automatically sync any changes to Cloud Source Repositories on other platforms, such as GitHub or Bitbucket.

Launchpad 

Launchpad has been a long-time player in the open-source project community, but it had some issues regarding an open license. Today, it has established its presence among programmers, offering a knowledge base and support.

The platform boasts several attractive features, including code reviews, language translations, open stack, and designated dashboard. It also has integrations with code hosting with Bazaar and Ubuntu. Notably, Launchpad is completely free to use as an open-source platform.

Takeaway

Any of these platforms above can serve you as a great place to start working with open source projects for students. Yet, you should remember that some of the platforms offer limited resources to free accounts. Sometimes, you might consider paid options depending on your coding needs, but the opportunities you get are worth it. 

Vivienne Bell has been a passionate writer for her entire life. Upon graduating from MIT’s Department of Linguistics and Philosophy she has found her path as a writer and editor at WritePaper. Helping others with her writing has been her life-long dream.