Case study The directory of Algerian open source
Made in Algeria: an open source directory
How we built an open directory that gathers more than 1,300 open source projects built by Algerian developers, found by a crawler on GitHub and reviewed by a person before they are published.
01 The idea
One place for what Algerian developers build
Algerian developers build a great deal of open source software, but it is scattered across GitHub with no place that gathers it, so those looking for it do not find it, and developers do not find their community's projects to contribute to.
Made in Algeria is that place: an open, curated directory that gathers this work so it can be celebrated and discovered, where you can star a project, contribute to it or submit your own. It is itself open source, under the MIT licence.
Made in Algeria in numbers
- open source projects in the directory
- 1,378
- programming languages
- 48
- open source
- 100%
- repositories the crawler found for review
- 3,806
02 The build
What we built
A complete directory, not a list of links: a crawler that finds, a person who reviews, a site in two languages, and two dashboards.
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A crawler that finds repositories
A tool that searches GitHub for repositories built by Algerian developers, and puts what it finds in a queue awaiting review, not straight into the directory.
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Human review before publishing
No project appears in the directory before a person has reviewed it, whether the crawler found it or its owner sent it in, and its data then stays up to date.
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Project pages
A list to search and sort by language, category and stars, pages for the most starred, the newest and the developers, and a card for every project with its language, stars and status.
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Submit your project
An Algerian developer adds their own repository, for free and in a minute. It goes through the same review, and comes with a badge to put in its README.
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In English and Arabic
The public site is in English, with a matching Arabic version that reads right to left, and every page points search engines to its counterpart.
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The dashboards
Two dashboards in Arabic behind a sign in: one for users, and one for the admins who run the directory.
03 The decisions
How we built it
- 01 On our ready base We started it from a SaaS base we own rather than from scratch, so the time went into the directory itself, and the core was built in about a week, from 18 to 25 July 2026.
- 02 A person reviews, nothing is listed automatically The crawler could have listed everything it found, but we made every project go through a human review, so what is shown today is part of what was found, not all of it.
- 03 English first, Arabic as its mirror Its audience is developers who work on GitHub in English, so we made English the site's default language, and built Arabic as a complete version that reads right to left.
- 04 A home page built on request The home page is built on request, then cached on Cloudflare's network, so its numbers stay fresh and it reaches the visitor fast.
From its history
- Building starts, and the first version in the repository
- The crawler finds 3,806 repositories
- Performance work and dependency updates
- 1,378 projects shown in the directory
Where it stands today
Made in Algeria runs in production and shows the discovered repositories that were accepted after review. Being listed is free, never paid for, and has nothing to do with working with us.
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