Hacktoberfest 2017 at a Glance

Hacktoberfest 2017, which ended this past October 31, was epic by any measure. It saw the greatest level of participation of any Hacktoberfest ever; in 2016, 10,227 participants completed the challenge, and this year, 31,901 successfully submitted all 4 pull requests. Companies like SendGrid also ran their own Hacktoberfest-inspired contents, and we saw contributions to 64,166 projects.

Contributors

As in previous years, developers in the open source community shared some of their Hacktoberfest stories:

Open source is seriously amazing. 85 people contributed code to @Home_assistant in last 2 weeks. 625 pull requests merged for #Hacktoberfestpic.twitter.com/pgwWH3vqJ3
— Paulus Schoutsen (@balloob) November 4, 2017

Man, #Hacktoberfest is really awesome! 📖 vue-chartjs docs got some cool new translations pic.twitter.com/uEAatFZzFe
— 👨‍🚀 Jakub Juszczak (@apertureless) October 12, 2017

So #proud of the mega amazing #python gals from #shefcodefirst that have completed #Hacktoberfest 🎃👩🏻‍💻 you’re #awesome@CodeFirstGirls
— Tania Sanchez 💀👩🏻 (@ixek) October 31, 2017

Not to be outdone, first-time contributors also discussed what it was like opening their first pull requests both via blog posts and on Twitter:

Thanks to #Hacktoberfest I just submitted my first OSS PR! Attempted some minor fixes to nodeschool.io since I got a lot out of @nodeschool!
— Annette (@interannette) October 30, 2017

Success! I completed the #Hacktoberfest challenge! 🤓 As a first time contributor, I chanced a PR to @angular material. #gobigorgohomepic.twitter.com/SDRvvf8UlT
— Alisa (@AlisaDuncan) October 28, 2017

Today I’ve created my first pull request ever for #Hacktoberfest, it wasn’t big but it feels awesome! #AndroidDev
— Paul Núñez (@paulnunezm) October 24, 2017

Events

As Hacktoberfest-themed Meetups entered its second year, we saw an uptick in participation from around the world. This year, events were organized in 119 locations around the world, with first-ever Hacktoberfest Meetups held in 27 countries including Australia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Israel, Malaysia, Mexico, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Romania, Russia, Sri Lanka, and Taiwan!

Looking Ahead

Thank you to our friends at GitHub for embarking on yet another Hacktoberfest with us. And thank you to the countless folks on social media and open source communities around the world who encouraged even more people to participate!

If you finished your 4 pull requests, you should’ve received an email about your T-shirt. Still have questions? Reach out to us at hacktoberfest@digitalocean.com.

What Hacktoberfest stories do you want to share? Tell us in the comments below.

See you all in 2018; happy hacking!

Update March 2018

The last shipment of Hacktoberfest 2017 T-shirts has gone out. We experienced some issues with shipping this year, and we’re sorry if you were waiting for a shirt and haven’t received one. However, we’re making changes to improve the shipping process in 2018. Thank you for your understanding.