Watermill: from a hobby project to 8k stars on GitHub

Watermill: from a hobby project to 8k stars on GitHub

From NO SILVER BULLET by Three Dots Labs

May 15, 2025 · 1h 4m · Season 1 · Episode 6

About this episode

This episode discusses the journey of the Watermill library from a hobby project to a successful open source project with over 8,000 GitHub stars.

Episode notes: https://threedots.tech/episode/history-of-watermill/ Quick takeaways Solve real problems first - successful open source projects start by addressing actual needs, not by looking for problems to fit a solution Keep breaking changes minimal - Watermill stayed on v1 for 6 years with no breaking changes in the core library, building trust with users Examples and documentation are crucial - provide real-world examples with automated tests, not just simple “hello world” demos Promotion matters - creating a great library isn’t enough; you need to actively share it through conferences, blog posts, and communities Be patient with growth - Watermill took 7 years to reach 8,000 stars; overnight success in open source is rare In this episode, we share the story of how Watermill, our event-driven library for Go, grew from a side project to a popular open source library with over 8,000 GitHub stars and 100+ contributors. We discuss the key decisions and strategies that helped make Watermill successful, from focusing on solving real problems to maintaining backward compatibility and building a community around the project. Watermill documentation — our open-source event-driven…

Topics covered

  • open source
  • software development
  • event-driven architecture
  • Go programming

Keywords

  • Watermill
  • GitHub stars
  • community building
  • documentation
  • promotion

Mentioned in this episode

Products: v1, Watermill, Go, Go Watermill, Go Event-Driven

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