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Top C repositories on GitHub

The lingua franca of operating systems, compilers, and embedded devices.

Ranked by stars across 17,922 C repositories on GitHub. Refreshed daily.

  1. 1
    torvalds/linux★ 232,225 · ⑂ 62,112

    Linux kernel source tree

  2. 2
    Genymobile/scrcpy★ 139,520 · ⑂ 12,975

    Display and control your Android device

    • android
    • c
    • sdl2
    • libav
    • ffmpeg
    • screen
  3. 3
    netdata/netdata★ 78,722 · ⑂ 6,426

    The fastest path to AI-powered full stack observability, even for lean teams.

    • monitoring
    • docker
    • kubernetes
    • cncf
    • prometheus
    • netdata
  4. 4
    ventoy/Ventoy★ 76,435 · ⑂ 4,789

    A new bootable USB solution.

    • bootable-usb
    • multiboot
    • uefi
    • legacy
    • iso-files
    • usb
  5. 5
    redis/redis★ 74,177 · ⑂ 24,599

    For developers, who are building real-time data-driven applications, Redis is the preferred, fastest, and most feature-rich cache, data structure server, and document and vector query engine.

    • database
    • key-value
    • nosql
    • redis
    • caching
    • distributed-systems
  6. 6
    obsproject/obs-studio★ 72,194 · ⑂ 9,213

    OBS Studio - Free and open source software for live streaming and screen recording

    • c
    • c-plus-plus
    • live-streaming
    • video-recording
    • screen-capture
    • game-capture
  7. 7
    git/git★ 60,783 · ⑂ 27,871

    Git Source Code Mirror - This is a publish-only repository but pull requests can be turned into patches to the mailing list via GitGitGadget (https://gitgitgadget.github.io/). Please follow Documentation/SubmittingPatches procedure for any of your improvements.

    • c
    • shell
    • hacktoberfest
  8. 8
    FFmpeg/FFmpeg★ 59,665 · ⑂ 13,776

    Mirror of https://git.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg.git

    • ffmpeg
    • video
    • audio
    • c
    • mpeg
    • webm
  9. 9
    tmux/tmux★ 45,181 · ⑂ 2,604

    tmux source code

  10. 10
    curl/curl★ 41,737 · ⑂ 7,171

    A command line tool and library for transferring data with URL syntax, supporting DICT, FILE, FTP, FTPS, GOPHER, GOPHERS, HTTP, HTTPS, IMAP, IMAPS, LDAP, LDAPS, MQTT, MQTTS, POP3, POP3S, RTSP, SCP, SFTP, SMB, SMBS, SMTP, SMTPS, TELNET, TFTP, WS and WSS. libcurl offers a myriad of powerful features

    • http
    • https
    • ftp
    • user-agent
    • client
    • library
  11. 11
    wg/wrk★ 40,254 · ⑂ 3,031

    Modern HTTP benchmarking tool

  12. 12
    php/php-src★ 40,045 · ⑂ 8,035

    The PHP Interpreter

  13. 13
    pbatard/rufus★ 35,948 · ⑂ 3,039

    The Reliable USB Formatting Utility

    • usb
    • iso
    • bootable-drives
    • mbr
    • uefi
    • bios
  14. 14
    mpv-player/mpv★ 35,120 · ⑂ 3,317

    🎥 Command line media player

    • mpv
    • mplayer
    • c
    • ffmpeg
    • audio
    • video
  15. 15
    jqlang/jq★ 34,629 · ⑂ 1,775

    Command-line JSON processor

    • jq
  16. 16
    nothings/stb★ 33,566 · ⑂ 8,047

    stb single-file public domain libraries for C/C++

  17. 17
    bilibili/ijkplayer★ 33,148 · ⑂ 8,238

    Android/iOS video player based on FFmpeg n3.4, with MediaCodec, VideoToolbox support.

    • ijkplayer
    • android
    • ios
    • video
    • player
    • ffmpeg
  18. 18
    raysan5/raylib★ 32,799 · ⑂ 3,078

    A simple and easy-to-use library to enjoy videogames programming

    • raylib
    • c
    • videogames
    • programming
    • opengl
    • android
  19. 19
    valinet/ExplorerPatcher★ 32,411 · ⑂ 1,316

    This project aims to enhance the working environment on Windows

  20. 20
    lizongying/my-tv★ 32,139 · ⑂ 3,614

    我的电视 电视直播软件，安装即可使用

    • mytv
    • tv
    • my-tv
    • iptv
  21. 21
    coolsnowwolf/lede★ 31,428 · ⑂ 19,367

    Lean's LEDE source

    • lede
    • lua
    • openwrt-package
    • openwrt-zh-cn
    • openwrt-feed
  22. 22
    kingToolbox/WindTerm★ 30,847 · ⑂ 2,340

    A professional cross-platform SSH/Sftp/Shell/Telnet/Tmux/Serial terminal.

    • terminal
    • telnet
    • ssh
    • serial
    • shell
    • client
  23. 23
    cfenollosa/os-tutorial★ 30,398 · ⑂ 3,541

    How to create an OS from scratch

  24. 24
    nginx/nginx★ 30,195 · ⑂ 7,886

    The official NGINX Open Source repository.

    • content-cache
    • load-balancer
    • reverse-proxy
    • web-server
    • http
    • https
  25. 25
    openssl/openssl★ 30,106 · ⑂ 11,246

    General purpose TLS and crypto library

    • cryptography
    • openssl
    • encryption
    • tls
    • ssl
    • decryption

Find C engineers and maintainers

The list above ranks the most-starred public C repositories, drawn from the public GitHub graph. Across 17,922 C repositories in the public graph, the maintainers, top contributors, and recurring committers are a powerful signal for where C expertise lives.

Behind every popular Cproject is a small group of people who actually shipped it. They’re the Cengineers, library authors, and infrastructure builders worth knowing — whether you’re hiring, partnering, or doing technical research.

Refolk turns this list into a search. Ask for “C maintainers hiring”, “contributors to C repos based in Europe”, or “companies whose engineers ship C” and Refolk returns a ranked shortlist with the commits, repos, and profiles that earned each person a spot.

How this list is built

Refolk searched GitHub for public repositories whose primary language is C, ranked them by stargazer count, and kept those with at least 100 stars. The list refreshes once a day.

Last refreshed: Thu, 07 May 2026 05:55:28 GMT

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