During 2021 the all-volunteer Apache community has demonstrated unwavering commitment to our tenet of "Community Over Code." Highlights over the past year include —

Community/People

The Apache Software Foundation’s (ASF) merit-driven "Contributor-Committer-Member" progression is the central governing process across the Apache ecosystem. Following the ASF’s incorporation in 1999, the core Apache Group of 21 individual Members grew with developers who contributed code, patches, or documentation. Some of these contributors were subsequently granted Committer status by the Membership, and provided access to: 1) commit code directly to Apache repositories; 2) vote on community-related decisions; and 3) propose an active user for Committership.


Today, ASF Committers contribute not just code and documentation, but also an array of initiatives that provide value across the greater Apache ecosystem, including Project promotion and community development through mentoring, events, and diversity and inclusion programs. Those Committers who demonstrate merit in the Foundation's growth, evolution, and progress are nominated for ASF Membership by existing members.


More than 630,000 individuals have contributed to the ASF to date. During 2021, 724 individuals new to the ASF contributed to Apache projects and initiatives.


In 2021 the ASF welcomed 441 new Committers, totaling 8,484. 40 new Foundation Members were elected in 2021, totaling 816 active Members.

Contributor Growth

Each year, new members contribute to the ASF’s efforts. These charts demonstrate how long committers/authors have been contributing to Apache projects. Approximately 20% of first-time contributors continue to participate for a longer period of time.



Contributor Experience with the ASF

Project Activity

  • Total number of Apache projects + sub-projects - 351

  • Top-Level Projects - 200

  • Top-Level Projects and sub-projects retired to the Apache Attic - 23

  • Podlings undergoing development in the Apache Incubator - 37

  • New projects that entered the Apache Incubator - 5

  • New Top-Level Projects that graduated from the Incubator - 6

  • Podlings that retired from the Incubator - 2

Top-Level Projects (committees) evolution

Incubating projects (podlings) evolution

Code and Commits

The ASF shepherds 283,069,836 lines of code across 2,308 repositories (excluding Website repositories).


Apache Projects, sub-projects, incubating podlings, and their communities produced hundreds of releases across dozens of categories that include: Application Programming Interfaces, Application Performance Management, Big Data, Cloud Computing, Content, Databases, email, Enterprise Processes Automation, FinTech, Identity Management, Integrated Development Environments, Integration, Internet of Things (Io), Libraries, Logging, Machine Learning, Messaging, Natural Language Processing, Operating Systems, Remote Desktop Gateways, Search, Security Frameworks, Servers, Templating, Testing, Version Control, Web Crawlers, Web Conferencing, Web Frameworks, and more.


During 2021, 2,493 Code Committers and 9,604 Code Authors changed 514,891,631 lines of code over 217,479 commits.


Top 5 Code Authors in 2021

  1. Andrea Cosentino: 4,447 commits (352,346 insertions, 399,815 deletions)

  2. Claus Ibsen: 2,974 commits (555,245 insertions, 567,896 deletions)

  3. Mark Thomas: 2,509 commits (186,889 insertions, 117,182 deletions)

  4. Jean-Baptiste Onofré:  2,470 commits (18,899 insertions, 33,835 deletions)

  5. Gary Gregory: 2,240 commits (170,799 insertions, 181,214 deletions)

Commits per Month in 2021

Top Apache Project Repositories by Size (Lines of Code)

Top Apache Project Repositories by Commits made in 2021

Code Language Breakdown

Issues and Pull Requests (ASF Infrastructure + GitHub)

  • Total Issues Opened - 197,242

  • Contributors Opening Issues - 31,769

  • Contributors Resolving Issues - 20,867

  • Total Issues Resolved - 173,178


Issues and Pull Request Community Growth

Email and Mailing Lists

The ASF adage "If it didn't happen on-list, it didn't happen" ensures that our distributed community on 7 continents are able to communicate and collaborate asynchronously.


The ASF manages 2,180 mailing lists, 486 of which are private. Millions of messages are archived on Apache publicly-accessible mailing lists. 


In 2021, 19,053 authors sent 1,946,990 emails on 869,461 topics.

Contributor License Agreements and Software Grants

Individuals who are granted write access to the Apache repositories must submit an Individual Contributor License Agreement (ICLA). Corporations that have assigned employees to work on Apache projects as part of an employment agreement may sign a Corporate CLA (CCLA) for contributing intellectual property via the corporation. Individuals or corporations donating a body of existing software or documentation to one of the Apache projects need to execute a formal Software Grant Agreement (SGA) with the ASF. Over the past year, the ASF had received: 

  • ICLAs - 690

  • CCLAs - 27

  • Grants - 25

Conferences and Events

The pandemic caused Apache events to remain online for a second year. The ASF’s official conference series, ApacheCon, was held virtually twice in 2021. ApacheCon@Home drew nearly 5,750 participants from more than 150 countries, who enjoyed 300+ sessions across 27 tracks. Apache Roadshow/China drew an impressive 1.5M+ viewers over its 2-day online event. 

Sponsorship, Corporate Contributions, and Individual Support 

The ASF benefits from the generosity of hundreds of individual donors and corporate Sponsors, whose support helps offset the ASF's day-to-day operating expenses that include Accounting, Fundraising, Infrastructure, Legal, Marketing & Publicity, and related services.


ASF Sponsors provide financial support for the ASF's operations. They are:


PLATINUM: Amazon Web Services, Facebook, Google, Huawei, Microsoft, Namebase, Pineapple Fund, Tencent Cloud, and Yahoo.


GOLD: Anonymous, Baidu, Bloomberg, Cloudera. Confluent. IBM. Indeed, Reprise Software, Union Investment, and Workday.


SILVER: Aetna, Alibaba Cloud Computing, Capital One, Comcast, Didi Chuxing, Red Hat, Replicated, Talend, and Target. 


BRONZE: Bestecasinobonussen.nl, Bookmakers, Cafe24, Cerner, Curity, Goread.io Followers,  GridGain, Gundry MD, Host Advice, HotWax Systems, Journal Review, LeoVegas Indian Online Casino. Miro-Kredit AG, Mutuo Kredit AG, Online Holland Casino, Paf, ProPrivacy, PureVPN, RX-M, RenaissanceRe, SCAMS.info, SevenJackpots.com, Software Guru DevRel, Start a Blog by Ryan Robinson, Technology Innovation Institute, The Best VPN, The Blog Starter, The Economic Secretariat, Top10VPN, Twitter, and Writers Per Hour.


ASF Targeted Sponsors provide the Foundation with non-financial contributions for specific operational activities or programs. They include:


TARGETED PLATINUM: Amazon Web Services, CloudBees, DLA Piper, Fastly, GitHub, Google, JetBrains, JFrog, Leaseweb, Microsoft, OSU Open Source Labs, Sonatype, and Yahoo.


TARGETED GOLD: Atlassian, Datadog, DinoSource, Docker, and PhoenixNAP.


TARGETED SILVER: Hotwax Systems, Instaclustr, Rackspace, and Xiaomi.


TARGETED BRONZE: Education Networks of America, Friend of Apache Cordova, Hopsie,  No-IP, PagerDuty, Peregrine Computer Consultants Corporation, Sonic.net, SURFnet, and  Virtru.


Help the ASF keep more than $22B worth of Apache software accessible to everyone at 100% no charge by making a tax-deductible contribution at https://donate.apache.org/ , becoming a Sponsor, or including the ASF in your Corporate Giving program. The ASF is a US 501(c)(3) not-for-profit charitable organization, tax identification number (TIN) 47-0825376. The ASF is recognized by Charity Navigator and cited with the Gold Seal of Transparency by GuideStar. Please visit http://apache.org/foundation/contributing.html for more information.


Best wishes for a delightful 2022!