Software Heritage
Software Heritage is a French non-profit operating the world's largest public source code archive, preserving over 27 billion files from 340 million projects. It serves researchers, cultural institutions, and the open-source industry via free ISO/IEC 18670 standardized software identifiers.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2015
- HeadquartersParis, France
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Software Heritage does
Software Heritage is a French non-profit organization founded around 2015 by Inria (the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation) and headquartered in Paris. The organization operates what it describes as the world's largest public archive of software source code, containing over 27 billion unique source files from more than 340 million software projects across public version control systems. Its mission is to collect, preserve, and provide permanent access to all publicly available source code, addressing the structural problem of "software rot" where code can be deleted, corrupted, or made inaccessible when repositories shut down or links break.
The technical foundation is a graph-based archive using intrinsic identifiers called SWHIDs (Software Heritage Identifiers), based on cryptographically strong hashes and generalized Merkle trees. SWHIDs were ratified as the ISO/IEC 18670 international standard in April 2025 for uniquely and permanently identifying software artifacts, and the archive is accessed through web browsers, REST APIs, GraphQL APIs, a SWORD-protocol Deposit API, and swh-fuse, a FUSE-based filesystem mount. The archive has been indexed at scale on a 10,000-core Kraken supercomputer, achieving 30,000 reads per second. Software Heritage operates without commercial pricing, providing free public access to all services, and is funded through a tiered sponsorship program (Diamond through Bronze sponsors), grants from foundations such as the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and NLnet, and individual donations.
The organization serves four primary user communities: academic researchers and Research Software Engineers (RSEs) needing reproducible and citable software; cultural heritage institutions seeking long-term digital preservation infrastructure; the open-source industry ecosystem concerned with software supply chain integrity, SBOM, and patent prior art; and government and public administration entities pursuing digital sovereignty and open science policy. Distribution and partnerships span global research infrastructure, including UNESCO collaborations, a global mirror network in Italy (ENEA), Greece (GRNET), and Spain (IMDEA Software), and automated integrations with deposit partners such as Zenodo, Dagstuhl Publishing, and InvenioRDM. In January 2026, the Software Heritage Archive was recognized as a Digital Public Good by the Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA), formalizing its status as essential digital public infrastructure.
Software Heritage firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Software Heritage
- Legal name
- Software Heritage
- Website
- https://softwareheritage.org
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2015
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- Software Heritage is a French non-profit operating the world's largest public source code archive, preserving over 27 billion files from 340 million projects. It serves researchers, cultural institutions, and the open-source industry via free ISO/IEC 18670 standardized software identifiers.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Software Heritage industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Source Code Preservation Infrastructure
- NAICS
- Libraries and Archives (51921), Libraries and Archives (519210)
- SIC
- Services-Computer Programming Services (7371)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Archives, Special Collections & Preservation Operations (Rare Materials, Conservation) (EDAEAGAJ)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Libraries, Archives & Special Collections (BPAGAHAF), Cultural Heritage Institutions (Archives, Historic Houses, Monuments Foundations) (THAJADAI)
Keywords
Where Software Heritage is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Paris
- HQ country
- France
- HQ region
- Europe
Offices1 record
Markets served
Software Heritage business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Personnel, Operations
Revenue model
- Institutional Sponsorships: Software Heritage operates as a non-profit infrastructure funded by institutional sponsors at various tiers. Diamond sponsors (IBM, Microsoft, TII), Platinum sponsors (CEA, CNRS, Huawei, Infosys, MESRI), Gold sponsors (AWS, Google, OIN, Université de Paris), Silver sponsors (AdaCore, CRKN, DINUM, GitHub, Sorbonne Université, Università di Pisa), and Bronze sponsors (Couperin, CSAL, NWO, Sant'Anna, Scuola Normale Superiore, Université de Lorraine, Université Paris Saclay) provide funding support.
- Grant Funding: Funding from foundations including Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and NLnet foundation. Subgrants awarded to organizations like Cottage Labs, Octobus, Tweag, and Stefan Sperling for specific technical development projects.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Monthly | Free public access to archive |
Go-to-market motion3 records
Distribution channels8 records
Marketing channels9 records
Software Heritage product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Software Heritage builds and operates the world's largest public archive of software source code, containing 27+ billion unique source files from 340+ million projects. It provides free public access via a web archive browser, REST and GraphQL APIs, persistent intrinsic identifiers (SWHIDs standardized as ISO/IEC 18670), a FUSE filesystem layer (swh-fuse), and a global mirror network, serving academic, cultural heritage, industry, and government users worldwide.
Product overview
Software Heritage is building the universal software source code archive—a single, unified public infrastructure that collects, preserves, and shares all publicly available source code. The core product is the Software Heritage Archive, containing over 27 billion unique source files from more than 340 million projects worldwide. Access is provided through the Archive Browser for web-based exploration, Save Code Now for triggering new archives, and a suite of APIs (REST, GraphQL, Deposit) for programmatic access. The SWHID identifier system provides persistent, integrity-checked references to archived software artifacts and is now standardized as ISO/IEC 18670. Additional products include swh-fuse for mounting the archive as a local filesystem, CodeMeta Generator for software metadata interoperability, Research Software Archiving for academic citation support, Legacy Code Rescue (SWHAP) for historical preservation, Browser Extensions for easy archiving, and the CodeCommons initiative for responsible AI development. A global Mirror Network ensures redundancy and accessibility. All Software Heritage-developed software is released as free/open source software.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- Software Heritage Archive
- Archive Browser
- Save Code Now
- Research Software Archiving
- SWHID (Software Heritage Identifier)
- swh-fuse
- Browser Extensions
- Software Heritage GraphQL API
- Deposit API
- Graph Dataset Export
- CodeMeta Generator
- Legacy Code Rescue (SWHAP)
- Mirror Network
Quantifiable outcome
- 27 billion unique source files preserved (as of 2025)
- +3 more outcomes
Companies that use Software Heritage
Customer profileNamed customers7 records
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles4 records
Software Heritage technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration4 records
AI capability3 records
Feature7 records
Software Heritage partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
14 partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.
- Open Invention Network (OIN)corePartnership to preserve OIN 2.0 Linux System source code (900M+ lines from 5,100+ packages) for long-term accessibility and traceability within OIN's patent cross-license framework. Provides prior art protection against patent aggression and digital link rot for OIN members.
- University of BolognaminorResearch collaboration examining coverage and cross-repository overlap of non-traditional research outputs (NTROs) across repositories including Software Heritage. Study found Software Heritage holds 12% of identified NTROs from the university.
- IMDEA SoftwarecoreSoftware Heritage expanded mirror network to Spain via IMDEA Software to ensure long-term redundancy and open access to the archive in the Spanish-speaking regions.
- ZenodocoreIntegration enabling automatic transfer of code from Zenodo to Software Heritage for long-term preservation. Streamlines research code archival and ensures work deposited in Zenodo is permanently preserved and citable.
- GRNETcoreGreek national research and technology network established a mirror of the Software Heritage archive in Greece, expanding the global mirror network for digital preservation and ensuring regional access.
- Dagstuhl PublishingcoreDeposit partner using Software Heritage for archival, referencing, and metadata of research software published in Dagstuhl journals. Improves citation and accessibility of computational research artifacts.
- Eclipse Foundation (ORCWG)minorSoftware Heritage joined the Eclipse Foundation's Open Regulatory Compliance Working Group (ORCWG) to address regulatory challenges facing the open-source landscape, particularly software supply chain security.
- CSAL (Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries)coreCSAL partnered with Software Heritage on behalf of its member institutions, expanding the ALIG network to Swiss academic libraries and promoting software preservation in Switzerland.
- CRKN (Canadian Research Knowledge Network)coreCRKN partnered with Software Heritage through the Archives and Libraries Interest Group (ALIG), enabling Canadian research institutions to contribute to and benefit from software preservation.
- OSPO-RADAR ProjectminorFunded by Sloan Foundation, OSPO-RADAR aims to solve isolated research code issues by building a platform to map, reveal, and make code accessible, with Software Heritage as the archival foundation.
- ENEA (Italian National Agency)coreItalian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development opened the first mirror of the Software Heritage archive, ensuring redundancy and accessibility in Italy.
- UNESCOcoreLong-standing collaboration with UNESCO, including meetings at headquarters, joint initiatives for digital preservation, and recognition of Software Heritage as essential digital infrastructure. Hosted 10th anniversary symposium at UNESCO.
- Inria (French National Research Institute)coreInria is the initiator of Software Heritage and continues as a core partner. Hosts the organization, provides institutional support, and collaborates on legacy software preservation projects.
- CodeCommons InitiativeminorCodeCommons initiative leveraging Software Heritage archive to provide resources for creating smaller, more effective training datasets for next-generation AI tools. Testing swh-fuse at scale on Kraken cluster.
Scale indicators8 records
Recent moves8 records
Expansion highlights7 records
Software Heritage competitors and assessment
Company assessmentBroad incumbents
- Internet Archive: The Internet Archive is the closest comparable mission-driven digital preservation organization, operating the Wayback Machine for web content. Both operate as non-profit digital public infrastructure preserving digital heritage, though Internet Archive focuses on web snapshots while Software Heritage specializes in source code.
- Library of Congress: The Library of Congress operates the largest library in the world and serves a comparable cultural heritage preservation mission. Both institutions operate digital preservation infrastructure, though Software Heritage's domain (software source code) is far narrower and more technical than the Library of Congress's broader scope.
Direct peers
- DataCite: DataCite provides DOIs and metadata services for research outputs, similar to how SWHIDs provide persistent identifiers for software. Both serve the open science infrastructure layer and address the citation/referenceability problem for research artifacts, though DataCite covers broader research outputs.
- Zenodo (CERN): Zenodo is a direct integration partner of Software Heritage and serves as a research data and software repository used by the same academic/research customer base. Both address long-term preservation of research outputs, with Software Heritage specializing in source code and Zenodo covering broader research data.
- OpenAIRE: OpenAIRE is a European open science infrastructure supporting the European Open Science Cloud, providing discovery and monitoring services for research outputs including software. Both serve open science infrastructure needs and share funding models via EU research programs and institutional partnerships.
- HAL (French Open Archive): HAL is France's multidisciplinary open archive for scholarly documents, operated by CCSD-CNRS. Like Software Heritage, HAL is hosted in French research infrastructure and addresses open science archival needs, though HAL focuses on publications while Software Heritage focuses on source code.
- GitHub Archive Program: GitHub's Archive Program provides long-term preservation of open-source repositories in partnership with the Arctic World Archive, serving overlapping customer needs around source code preservation. Software Heritage is vendor-neutral and broader in scope, while GitHub Archive is platform-specific.
Emerging players
- Open Science Framework (OSF): OSF by the Center for Open Science is a free open-source project management and collaboration platform supporting research workflows. Both serve research software management needs, though Software Heritage focuses on long-term preservation while OSF covers broader project lifecycle support.
Others
- Digital Public Goods Alliance: The Digital Public Goods Alliance is the organization that recognized Software Heritage as a Digital Public Good. Both operate in the digital public goods ecosystem and share UN Sustainable Development Goals alignment, though DPGA is a certification/alliance while Software Heritage is operational infrastructure.
Regional players
- Arctic World Archive: Arctic World Archive is a long-term cold-storage archival facility used by GitHub for source code preservation. Both serve source code archival needs through different mechanisms (Software Heritage via active crawling and Software Heritage archive, Arctic World via physical cold storage).
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Software Heritage social profiles
Digital presenceSoftware Heritage compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance2 records
Software Heritage financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Software Heritage leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles4 records
Software Heritage funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
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Software Heritage M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
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Frequently asked questions about Software Heritage
What does Software Heritage do?
Software Heritage builds and operates the world's largest public archive of software source code, containing 27+ billion unique source files from 340+ million projects. It provides free public access via a web archive browser, REST and GraphQL APIs, persistent intrinsic identifiers (SWHIDs standardized as ISO/IEC 18670), a FUSE filesystem layer (swh-fuse), and a global mirror network, serving academic, cultural heritage, industry, and government users worldwide.
Is Software Heritage a public or private company?
Software Heritage is a private company. It is classified as nonprofit foundation owned and is currently operating.
When was Software Heritage founded?
Software Heritage was founded in 2015. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is Software Heritage based?
Software Heritage is headquartered in Paris, France, in the Europe region.
How does Software Heritage make money?
Two revenue lines are on record. Institutional Sponsorships are the primary driver. The others are grant Funding.
Who are Software Heritage's main competitors?
Broad incumbents on record are Internet Archive and Library of Congress. Direct peers are DataCite, Zenodo (CERN), OpenAIRE, HAL (French Open Archive) and GitHub Archive Program. Open Science Framework (OSF) is listed as an emerging player. Digital Public Goods Alliance is listed as an others. Arctic World Archive is listed as a regional player.
Does Software Heritage have an API?
Yes. The Software Heritage API provides programmatic access to the content of the archive. The API allows navigation of the archive as a graph of development-related objects, such as file contents, directories, commits, and releases. Developers can lookup individual objects by their IDs, retrieve metadata, and traverse links between objects (e.g., from commits to directories or parent commits, from releases to released commits). The API also retrieves crawling information, including tracked software origins and the full list of visits performed on each of them, allowing users to know when snapshots of specific Git repositories were taken and where each branch was pointing. Documentation available at https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/. The organization also provides a GraphQL API for archive querying. Developer documentation is at archive.softwareheritage.org/api.
What industry is Software Heritage in?
Software Heritage's product category is Source Code Preservation Infrastructure. Its primary akta.pro industry code is EDAEAGAJ, Archives, Special Collections & Preservation Operations (Rare Materials, Conservation), with a secondary code of BPAGAHAF, Libraries, Archives & Special Collections. Its NAICS code is 51921 and its SIC code is 7371.