State of Open Source Hardware 2026

Introduction

Welcome to the 2026 State of Open Source Hardware.  This report represents a snapshot of Open Source Hardware as it exists during October 2026 (Open Hardware Month).  

The report builds on previous work, including 2020’s Open Hardware Weather Report and the State of OSHW 2021.  Those reports described broader trends within Open Source Hardware, and identified strategies for building successful Open Source Hardware communities.

This report is slightly different.  It primarily relies on data from the Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA)’s Open Source Hardware Certification program to understand the state of the community. In that sense, it is a direct descendant of a 2025 blog post documenting the most popular Open Source Hardware Licenses.  

OSHWA’s certification program is free and used by creators around the world to verify that their hardware meets the requirements of the Open Hardware Definition.  Its low barrier to entry and global reach make it a unique dataset for understanding the state of open source hardware. 

2026 marks the ten-year anniversary of the program, which was originally developed during a years-long consultation with the community (you can read the original launch post here).  As of the end of September 2026 it contains 3,431 pieces of certified hardware from 74 countries on six continents. 

OSHWA’s Certification program has three primary goals:

• Create an easy-to-understand, shared identifier for hardware that complies with the Open Hardware Definition

• Create a centralized directory of Open Source Hardware to make it easier to find Open Source Hardware

• Create a way for new participants to enter the world of Open Source Hardware by positioning OSHWA as an ally

You can learn more about it at https://certification.oshwa.org/.

Open Healthware

Although it is not the primary focus of this report, the most important development for Open Source Hardware in 2026 was the release of OSHWA’s Open Healthware program.  Open Healthware is an additional layer of certification, specifically focused on the needs of healthcare-related open hardware.

Open Healthware is simply Open Source Hardware that is primarily intended for medical- and health-related applications.  The initiative has roots in the collective response to the COVID-19 pandemic and has grown to include hardware developers across a range of applications.

The Open Healthware Certification Program builds on the existing Open Hardware Certification program.  Hardware must first meet all requirements for the Open Hardware Certification Program. Once it has done so, it moves on to an additional review to verify that it meets the more exacting Open Healthware-specific requirements for documentation and testing protocols. This allows the Open Healthware Team to focus on the Open Healthware-specific requirements, offloading the work of verifying Open Hardware Definition compliance to the standard Certification program.   

Learn more about Open Healthware, and find examples of certified Open Healthware, at https://healthware.oshwa.org/.

Trends and Data

Data from OSHWA’s Open Hardware Certification program provides unique insights into the Open Source Hardware community in 2026.

Certification Growth & Expansion

Certification Growth Over Time

The number of certifications has grown steadily over time.  Growth occurred at a predictable, although comparatively modest, rate for the first few years of the program.  Registrations saw a significant spike during early COVID periods, with many open hardware creators taking advantage of the restricted in-person activities to register their hardware.  The Open Source Hardware company Adafruit made a notable certification push during this period.

The pace of registrations continued to increase as COVID restrictions eased.  In 2025 growth patterns re-normalized at their highest rate yet, a rate that continues into 2026.

Timeline of First National Certification

The Certification program is international, currently including 3,431 pieces of certified hardware from 74 countries on six continents.  

That internationalism was there from the start, with Austria, France, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States being represented in October 2016, the Certification’s first year.  Venezuela, South America’s first representative, joined the following year.  Africa’s first certified hardware came from Mauritius in 2020.  The most recent country to join the certification was Kenya in September of 2026.

Countries Ranked by Certifications

When it comes to ranking countries by absolute number of certifications, the United States is the clear leader, with almost ten times as many certifications as second place Germany.  This should not be a surprise.  The United States has a large population and OSHWA itself was founded in the United States.  However, focusing exclusively at the top of the rankings overlooks how international the Open Source Hardware community truly is.

The data is potentially more interesting when countries are ranked by the number of certifications per capita. By that metric, Croatia, Bulgaria, and Mauritius emerge as relative powerhouses.  These locations boast robust Open Source Hardware communities, especially given their size.  

Platforms and Stars

The Certification data allows us to understand which platforms people use to host the documentation for their open hardware.  While many communities aspire to build the “GitHub of hardware,” the data makes it clear that, as of 2026, GitHub itself is the GitHub of hardware.

The relative prominence of GitHub can mask the fact that the locations for hardware documentation are remarkably diverse.  Certified hardware is documented on 193 different platforms.  130 of those are one-off sites. These are corners of the internet that people have built just to document and share their hardware.

Stars give us one way to measure the popularity of certified projects that are hosted on GitHub.  Maybe it should not be a surprise the NASA-JPL open-source rover is at the top of this list for stars and near the top for forks.   

Note that EuroPi, Ferris, HackRF, OLIMEX, Stack-chan, and System76 are all listed once.  Strictly speaking, each has multiple pieces of certified hardware that should be included on this list. However, each uses a single repository to house multiple pieces of certified hardware.  Instead of listing multiple pieces of hardware with identical stats from each, the chart includes one representative sample for each. 

Use of Licenses

OSHWA’s Certification program allows creators to use separate licenses for three different elements of their hardware: hardware, software, and documentation.  Some licenses, like the CERN family of licenses, can be used as comprehensive open hardware licenses. These licenses were drafted to be able to cover all three elements with a single license.

In other situations, creators prefer to use open licenses that were not written with hardware in mind. In these situations creators can apply different licenses to different elements. For example, they might apply an MIT license to the software and hardware, and a Creative Commons Attribution license to the documentation.

There are also instances where creators will apply a comprehensive license and a specific license.  For example, they might license the entire project under CERN while also applying an MIT license to the software element. In such cases, the software component is effectively dual-licensed under both the CERN license and the MIT license.  

Here are the current licensing leaderboards:

All Licenses

When the Certification launched, creators could choose from broad descriptors (such as “CC BY”) to identify their licenses.  In 2022, OSHWA updated the application form to incorporate SPDX identifiers. The SPDX identifiers have two advantages over the broad descriptors. First, they are standardized, making them more consistently machine-readable and easier to compare across projects and areas.  Second, they are more precise than OSHWA’s previously used broad descriptors.  They incorporate version numbers, so the previously used “CC BY” becomes “CC-BY-4.0”.  

Although OSHWA prioritizes the SPDX identifiers in the certification application, some non-SPDX identifiers broadly used in the community (such as the unspecified “GPL”) remain available.  This is why some licenses appear to be represented twice on the list. 

The 2025 and 2026 data highlight the strength of the CERN licenses.  This strength is notable, as they are effectively competing with older and more established open source software and Creative Commons licenses.  Version 2.0 of the CERN licenses have clearly arrived, seen as equally credible options by the open source hardware community.

Hardware Licenses

This table affirms how central the CERN licenses have become to the open hardware community.  They take three of the top four spots, coming in above licenses that are better known in the open source world more generally.  The prominence of “Other” is mostly an artifact of the fact that Adafruit, a high-volume certifier, lists “Other” as a hardware license.

Software Licenses

Traditional software licenses have always dominated the software license rankings.  This comes as no surprise. Many members of the open source hardware community have deep roots in open source software, and these software licenses have strong brand recognition in that community.

Documentation Licenses

A similar, although slightly weaker, dynamic emerges when it comes to licenses for documentation.  The Creative Commons licenses dominate the top of the chart, with traditional software licenses also playing important roles. 

Looking Forward

As is the case in so many communities, questions related to how AI will impact open source hardware loom large over the community.  The Certification program has already certified hardware that was created with assistance from AI.  This type of AI assistance likely reduces barriers for the creation of hardware, possibly allowing for the expansion of the community.  In many cases it creates more detailed documentation, although the practical value of that documentation will vary.  AI has also generated fantastical-sounding hardware that, while it appears completely documented at first glance, is often missing crucial elements upon deeper review.  An increase in applications for these types of hardware may present challenges to the operational capacity of the Certification program.