Name

Hacktoberfest

Legal name

Hacktoberfest

Website

https://hacktoberfest.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2014

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

101–250 employees

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

San Francisco

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Marketing or Sales, Operations, Personnel, Technology or R&D

Revenue model

1. Sponsorship and Brand Building: Hacktoberfest operates as a free event for participants, funded entirely by sponsors including DigitalOcean, MLH, Auth0, and AMD. The revenue model is indirect—DigitalOcean derives brand value, community goodwill, and developer engagement from hosting this initiative rather than direct monetization.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels11 records

Core offering

Hacktoberfest is DigitalOcean's annual month-long open-source contribution celebration held every October. Contributors register on the hacktoberfest.com platform, link their GitHub or GitLab accounts, and submit pull/merge requests to repositories that have opted into the event by adding the 'hacktoberfest' topic tag. Participants earn progressive Holopin digital badges for each accepted PR/MR (up to 6 levels), with the first 10,000 contributors completing 6 accepted PR/MRs qualifying as 'Super Contributors' eligible for an exclusive Hacktoberfest T-shirt (with a Treenation tree planting contribution included). The program is entirely free for participants, funded by sponsors including DigitalOcean, MLH, Auth0, and AMD.

Product overview

Hacktoberfest is DigitalOcean's annual month-long open source celebration event (#12 in 2025). The core product is the Hacktoberfest participation platform where contributors submit pull/merge requests to open source projects on GitHub and GitLab. The offering includes a reward ecosystem built around Holopin digital badges that participants unlock progressively (up to 6 levels matching the required PR/MRs), with a limited T-shirt reward for 'Super Contributors' and a Treenation partnership for environmental contributions. The platform also encompasses event coordination via MLH (including global virtual kick-off, closing sessions, and in-person satellite events in major cities), a Writing Challenge in partnership with DEV for blog content, and a donation portal connecting supporters with Hacktoberfest-tagged projects on GitHub and OpenCollective.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Hacktoberfest Annual Participation Program An annual October event where individual contributors register on hacktoberfest.com, connect their GitHub or GitLab accounts, and submit pull/merge requests to repositories tagged with the 'hacktoberfest' topic. Targets individual developers and non-coders worldwide who want to contribute to open-source projects. Free to participate; rewards tied to accepted PR/MR counts.
• Hacktoberfest Digital Badge (Holopin) A progressive digital badge awarded through Holopin that participants unlock level-by-level as their pull/merge requests are accepted (up to 6 levels for 6 accepted PR/MRs). Each accepted PR/MR unlocks new customization options for the badge, which can be displayed on GitHub, LinkedIn, and social media. Targets Hacktoberfest participants who want shareable proof of contribution.
• Hacktoberfest Super Contributor T-Shirt Reward An exclusive Hacktoberfest T-shirt reward limited to the first 10,000 eligible participants who complete 6 accepted pull/merge requests (qualifying as 'Super Contributors'), with a Treenation tree-planting contribution included with each T-shirt. Targets high-engagement Hacktoberfest contributors.
• Hacktoberfest Events Platform A platform for discovering and registering for Hacktoberfest events, including the global virtual kick-off, closing sessions, and in-person satellite sessions in major cities (NYC, Denver, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune, San Francisco). Event registration handled via Major League Hacking. Targets Hacktoberfest contributors and community members worldwide.
• Hacktoberfest Writing Challenge (DEV Partnership) A writing challenge partnership with DEV where participants submit blog posts about their Hacktoberfest experience, earning a special Writing Challenge badge and a chance to win a DEV++ Membership prize. Targets Hacktoberfest contributors and maintainers who want to share their experiences publicly.
• Hacktoberfest Donation Portal A donation platform that aggregates open-source projects tagged with 'hacktoberfest' from GitHub and OpenCollective, allowing supporters to find and fund sponsorable projects. Targets open-source supporters and project backers who want to financially back the projects involved in Hacktoberfest.

Named customers2 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration5 records

Partnerships

Eleven partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• DigitalOceancoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 October 2025DigitalOcean is the founding sponsor and organizer of Hacktoberfest. The company provides the platform infrastructure, branding, and organizational resources for the annual event. DigitalOcean's mission is to simplify cloud computing, and Hacktoberfest aligns with their commitment to the developer community by encouraging open-source contributions.
• MLH (Major League Hacking)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 October 2025MLH is a co-presenting sponsor and the official events partner for Hacktoberfest. Founded in 2013, MLH is the global student hacker community and a Public Benefit Corporation that empowers the next generation of technology creators. MLH facilitates hundreds of hackathons annually and supports Hacktoberfest with event logistics, global event listings, and community programs that serve more than 150,000 developers per year across 90 countries.
• Auth0minorGTM or Marketing Partner · 1 October 2025Auth0 is a sponsor of Hacktoberfest 2025. Auth0 provides an adaptable authentication and authorization platform that helps secure apps and AI agents.
• AMDminorGTM or Marketing Partner · 1 October 2025AMD is a sponsor of Hacktoberfest 2025. For more than 50 years AMD has driven innovation in high-performance computing, graphics, and visualization technologies.
• GitHubcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 October 2025GitHub is a community partner for Hacktoberfest and serves as the primary platform for contributions. GitHub is the world's leading AI-powered developer platform used by over 100 million people, including more than 90% of the Fortune 100 companies, across 420+ million repositories.
• GitHub EducationminorGTM or Marketing Partner · 1 October 2025GitHub Education is a community partner focused on empowering learners and educators with tools and resources to accelerate learning and develop the next generation of software professionals. They offer programs including access to real-world tools, free learning resources, and connection with a global developer community.
• GitLabcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 October 2025GitLab is a community partner and serves as an alternative platform for Hacktoberfest contributions. GitLab is the most comprehensive AI-powered DevSecOps platform for software innovation, with more than 30 million registered users and more than 50% of the Fortune 100 as customers. Join 4,000+ contributors in GitLab's open source community.
• Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF)minorGTM or Marketing Partner · 1 October 2025CNCF is a community partner for Hacktoberfest. CNCF is the open source, vendor-neutral hub of cloud native computing, hosting projects like Kubernetes and Prometheus to make cloud native universal and sustainable.
• Open Source InitiativeminorGTM or Marketing Partner · 1 October 2025Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a community partner. Founded in 1998, OSI is a non-profit corporation with global scope that educates about and advocates for the benefits of Open Source, and builds bridges among different constituencies in the Open Source community. OSI is the steward of the Open Source Definition.
• DEVminorGTM or Marketing Partner · 1 October 2025DEV is a community partner that hosts the Hacktoberfest Writing Challenge. DEV is a community of software developers helping one another out, providing a platform for collaborative learning in the software industry.
• HolopincoreTechnology or Integration · 1 October 2025Holopin is a community partner that provides digital badge rewards for Hacktoberfest participants. The platform allows participants to display, share, and issue digital badges for achievements that can be showcased on GitHub, LinkedIn, and social media. Participants earn customizable digital badges that level up with each accepted pull/merge request.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Outreachy: Outreachy runs paid, remote internships with open-source organizations focused on underrepresented groups in tech. Comparable as a sponsored, mission-driven open-source contribution program with similar participant demographics and project-maintainer partnerships.
• Google Summer of Code: Google's flagship annual open-source contribution program matches student developers with mentor organizations for paid, multi-month project work. Directly comparable to Hacktoberfest as an annual, sponsor-backed open-source contribution drive targeting developer skill-building and project sustainability.
• Season of Docs: Google-run program pairing technical writers with open-source projects, similar in structure (annual, sponsored, project-based) but focused on documentation contributions rather than code. Competes for the same open-source goodwill narrative.
• Major League Hacking (MLH): MLH is the official events partner of Hacktoberfest and itself organizes hundreds of hackathons annually for student developers. Both programs operate community-led developer engagement events with shared infrastructure, sponsor overlap, and overlapping participant base across 90+ countries.

Broad incumbents

• DigitalOcean: DigitalOcean is the founding sponsor and parent of Hacktoberfest. As a cloud-infrastructure provider serving developers, it overlaps in audience (developers, startups, SMBs) and shares mission alignment around open source, though its core product (cloud VMs, databases) is unrelated to the event product.
• GitHub Education: GitHub Education runs programs (Student Developer Pack, Campus Experts) that engage student developers with open-source tools. Overlaps with Hacktoberfest's developer-skill-building and education mission; in fact, GitHub Education is a listed community partner.

Emerging players

• FOSSASIA: Asia-based nonprofit running open-source events, code sprints, and contributor programs. Comparable as a community-organizing entity for open-source contributions with global satellite events, though geographically weighted toward South/Southeast Asia.
• Open Source Friday: GitHub-promoted weekly open-source contribution initiative encouraging developers to contribute on Fridays. Operates in the same contributor-mindshare category as Hacktoberfest but on a recurring weekly cadence rather than annual month-long burst.
• 24 Pull Requests: Annual December open-source contribution drive that, like Hacktoberfest, gamifies small contributions during a fixed window. Smaller in scale but directly substitutes for the same contributor mindshare in Q4-adjacent months.
• CodeTriage: Platform connecting developers with open-source projects needing help (typically issue triage). Comparable as a developer-to-project-matching service in the open-source contribution space, though continuous rather than event-based.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/hacktoberfest
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/hacktoberfest

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Hacktoberfest