Displaying Product Hunt Badges on GitHub README: A Case Study of 7 Popular Repositories
Giselle, the open-source AI app builder I’m working on, recently won multiple awards on Product Hunt!
This was wonderful news for our team and proof that the product’s value has been recognized by the market. To leverage this success for further project growth, we decided to display the award badges on our GitHub repository’s README.
However, when it came to actually adding them, a question arose: where and how should we place the badges for maximum effectiveness?
So this time, I decided to research 7 popular Open Source projects that have achieved similar success on Product Hunt and display badges on their READMEs, to discover the best practices for showcasing them.
I selected the following 7 repositories for this research. All of them boast high star counts on GitHub and have ranked highly on Product Hunt—true star players in the Open Source world.
The table below summarizes each project’s GitHub star count and Product Hunt ranking achievements.
| Project | GitHub Stars | Daily | Weekly | Monthly | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AFFiNE (GH / PH) | 61.4k | 🥈2nd | 🥈2nd | – | Won Daily 🥇1st & Weekly 🥈2nd with “AFFiNE AI” in May 2024 |
| Cal.com (GH / PH) | 39.6k | 🥇1st | 🥇1st | 🥇1st | Golden Kitty 2021 Nominee |
| Fish Speech (GH / PH) | 24.5k | 🥇1st | 5th | – | Ranked 🥇1st globally on TTS-Arena2 |
| Documenso (GH / PH) | 12.1k | 🥇1st | – | – | Golden Kitty 2023 Open Source Runner-Up |
| Lago (GH / PH) | 9k | 🥇1st | 🥇1st | 🥇1st | 🥇1st place in Day/Week/Month |
| Polar (GH / PH) | 9k | 🥇1st | 🥇1st | – | Won Developer Product of the Week |
| Papermark (GH / PH) | 8k | 🥇1st | – | – | Won Daily 🥈2nd with “Papermark AI” in December 2023 |
*GitHub Stars are approximate values as of January 6, 2026
After researching the READMEs of each repository, I found that badge placement methods can be broadly divided into two strategic patterns.
A Product Hunt launch is a major event that can dramatically increase a project’s visibility. Many projects placed badges in the most prominent location of their README—directly below the title or just after the overview.
This effectively sends a strong signal to visitors: “This project is getting a lot of attention right now.” It’s a highly effective tactic for converting initial momentum into community growth.
On the other hand, projects that have been around longer since their launch tend to place badges in a different location. Cal.com and Documenso are prime examples of this.
These repositories created a dedicated ## Recognition section where they consolidated Product Hunt badges, Golden Kitty Award nominations, and other media coverage.
This approach has the following benefits:
I believe a hybrid strategy could be effective: “Place badges at the top right after launch to maximize momentum, then move them to a Recognition section as the project matures.”
Based on this research, we at the Giselle team decided to first adopt Pattern 1: “Top of README” strategy.
Right after our launch, we prioritized letting more people know about our Product Hunt success and maximizing the project’s momentum.
This change was implemented in the following Pull Request:
docs(readme): add Product Hunt weekly and featured badges · Pull Request #2601 · giselles-ai/giselle
As the project matures in the future, we’re considering creating a Recognition section like Cal.com and Documenso, and moving the badges there.
Winning on Product Hunt is more than just an honor for Open Source projects. It’s a powerful signal that your product has been recognized by the market.
How effectively you display this signal on your GitHub README is an important part of your marketing strategy to build project credibility and attract new contributors and users.
I hope the insights from this research will be helpful to other Open Source developers who are planning to launch on Product Hunt or have already achieved success there.
That’s all from the Gemba, where I researched the best placement for Product Hunt badges on GitHub READMEs.