Websites using Ghbtns

Okay, let s break down ghbtns (GitHub Buttons), covering its overview, revenue (which is complex), alternatives, pricing (mostly free), and customer care.

Overview of ghbtns (GitHub Buttons)

• Purpose: ghbtns is a service that provides simple, embeddable buttons you can put on your website, blog, or project page to link to your GitHub repository (or someone else s). These buttons display information like star count, follower count, fork count, and offer options to watch, star, fork, or follow.
• Functionality: It essentially simplifies the process of creating and embedding visual links to GitHub. It s a quick and easy way to promote your GitHub presence and encourage interaction.
• Availability: The ghbtns service itself is considered deprecated as of 2016, though the buttons continue to function and the repo is archived.
• Key Features:
  • Customizable buttons: You can often choose the button style (e.g., large, small, with/without counts).
  • Display of GitHub metrics: Star count, fork count, watcher count, etc.
  • Direct linking: Buttons directly link to the corresponding GitHub action (e.g., starring, forking).

Revenue (A Bit Complex)

• Direct Revenue: ghbtns itself does not generate revenue. It was a free service.
• Indirect Benefit to GitHub: The benefit to GitHub is indirect. By making it easier for developers to promote their GitHub projects, ghbtns likely contributed to:
  • Increased GitHub usage: More projects, more users.
  • Enhanced GitHub visibility: Wider awareness of the platform.
  • Positive developer experience: Easier project promotion encourages developers to use GitHub.

Alternatives to ghbtns

Since ghbtns is considered deprecated, it s important to be aware of alternatives:

• Shields.io: (shields.io) A very popular service that generates badges for your projects. These badges can display all sorts of information, including GitHub stats, build status, code coverage, and much more. Highly customizable and widely used. It s a much more powerful and versatile option.
• GitHub s built-in Add to your site button: GitHub itself now offers a feature where you can directly generate embed code for a button to link to your repository. This is the most direct and officially supported method. Go to your repo, click Settings , scroll down to Add to your site
• Custom HTML/CSS: You can always create your own buttons using HTML and CSS and manually link them to your GitHub repository. This gives you the most control over the appearance but requires more effort.
• JavaScript Libraries: Libraries like github-buttons provide more advanced control over the buttons via Javascript.

Pricing

• ghbtns: Free. It was a free service.
• Shields.io: Free. (Uses donations)
• GitHub s built-in button: Free.
• Custom HTML/CSS: Free (but requires your time and effort).
• Javascript Libraries: typically free (open source)

Customer Care Details

• ghbtns: No direct customer care. Since it s deprecated and was a simple service, there wasn t a formal support system. If you encountered problems, you d likely have to rely on community forums or try to troubleshoot yourself. The github repo for the service is archived.
• Shields.io: Shields.io is open source and relies on community support. You can find documentation and contribute via their GitHub repository.
• GitHub s Built-in Button: If you have problems with this, you d likely go through GitHub s general support channels, but it s a pretty straightforward feature. Check GitHub s documentation.
• HTML/CSS and Javascript Libraries: Support is generally community-based or depends on the specific library.

In Summary

ghbtns was a simple, free service to promote GitHub projects. It is currently deprecated. Alternatives such as Shields.io or GitHub s built-in button provide similar functionality. If you want more control, creating custom HTML/CSS buttons is also a good option. There is no customer support for ghbtns and any issues would need to be handled through community channels.