[github] Github: Can I see the number of downloads for a repo?

In Github, is there a way I can see the number of downloads for a repo?

Based on VonC and Michele Milidoni answers I've created this bookmarklet which displays downloads statistics of github hosted released binaries.

Note: Because of issues with browsers related to Content Security Policy implementation, bookmarklets can temporarily violate some CSP directives and basically may not function properly when running on github while CSP is enabled.

Though its highly discouraged, you can disable CSP in Firefox as a temporary workaround. Open up about:config and set security.csp.enable to false.

I have written a small web application in javascript for showing count of the number of downloads of all the assets in the available releases of any project on Github. You can try out the application over here: http://somsubhra.github.io/github-release-stats/

The Github API does not provide the needed information anymore. Take a look at the releases page, mentioned in Stan Towianski's answer. As we discussed in the comments to that answer, the Github API only reports the downloads of 1 of the three files he offers per release.

I have checked the solutions, provided in some other answers to this questions. Vonc's answer presents the essential part of Michele Milidoni's solution. I installed his gdc script with the following result

# ./gdc stant
mdcsvimporter.mxt: 37 downloads
mdcsvimporter.mxt: 80 downloads
How-to-use-mdcsvimporter-beta-16.zip: 12 downloads

As you can clearly see, gdc does not report the download count of the tar.gz and zip files.

If you want to check without installing anything, try the web page where Somsubhra has installed the solution, mentioned in his answer. Fill in 'stant' as Github username and 'mdcsvimporter2015' as Repository name and you will see things like:

Download Info:
mdcsvimporter.mxt(0.20MB) - Downloaded 37 times.
Last updated on 2015-03-26

Alas, once again only a report without the downloads of the tar.gz and zip files. I have carefully examined the information that Github's API returns, but it is not provided anywhere. The download_count that the API does return is far from complete nowadays.

To try to make this more clear:
for this github project: stant/mdcsvimporter2015
https://github.com/stant/mdcsvimporter2015
with releases at
https://github.com/stant/mdcsvimporter2015/releases

go to http or https: (note added "api." and "/repos")
https://api.github.com/repos/stant/mdcsvimporter2015/releases

you will get this json output and you can search for "download_count":

    "download_count": 2,
    "created_at": "2015-02-24T18:20:06Z",
    "updated_at": "2015-02-24T18:20:07Z",
    "browser_download_url": "https://github.com/stant/mdcsvimporter2015/releases/download/v18/mdcsvimporter-beta-18.zip"

or on command line do:
wget --no-check-certificate https://api.github.com/repos/stant/mdcsvimporter2015/releases

For those who need the solution in Python, I wrote a simple script.

Python Script:

• GitHub Download Stats

Usage:

ghstats.py [user] [repo] [tag] [options]

• Arguments
• Examples

Support:

• Supports both Python 2 and Python 3 out of the box.
• Can be used as both a standalone and a Python module.

As already stated, you can get information about your Releases via the API.

For those using WordPress, I developed this plugin: GitHub Release Downloads. It allows you to get the download count, links and more information for releases of GitHub repositories.

To address the original question, the shortcode [grd_count user="User" repo="MyRepo"] will return the number of downloads for a repository. This number corresponds to the sum of all download count values of all releases for one GitHub repository.

Example:

VISITOR count should be available under your dashboard > Traffic (or stats or insights):

Formerly, there was two methods of download code in Github: clone or download as zip a .git repo, or upload a file (for example, a binary) for later download.

When download a repo (clone or download as zip), Github doesn't count the number of downloads for technical limitations. Clone a repository is a read-only operation. There is no authentication required. This operation can be done via many protocols, including HTTPS, the same protocol that the web page uses to show the repo in the browser. It's very difficult to count it.

See: http://git-scm.com/book/en/Git-on-the-Server-The-Protocols

Recently, Github deprecate the download functionality. This was because they understand that Github is focused in building software, and not in distribute binaries.

See: https://github.com/blog/1302-goodbye-uploads

11 years later...
Here's a small python3 snippet to retrieve the download count of the last 100 release assets:

import requests

owner = "twbs"
repo = "bootstrap"
h = {"Accept": "application/vnd.github.v3+json"}
u = f"https://api.github.com/repos/{owner}/{repo}/releases?per_page=100"
r = requests.get(u, headers=h).json()
r.reverse() # older tags first
for rel in r:
  if rel['assets']:
    tag = rel['tag_name']
    dls = rel['assets'][0]['download_count']
    pub = rel['published_at']
    print(f"Pub: {pub} | Tag: {tag} | Dls: {dls} ")

Pub: 2013-07-18T00:03:17Z | Tag: v1.2.0 | Dls: 1193 
Pub: 2013-08-19T21:20:59Z | Tag: v3.0.0 | Dls: 387786 
Pub: 2013-10-30T17:07:16Z | Tag: v3.0.1 | Dls: 102278 
Pub: 2013-11-06T21:58:55Z | Tag: v3.0.2 | Dls: 381136 
...
Pub: 2020-12-07T16:24:37Z | Tag: v5.0.0-beta1 | Dls: 93943 

Demo

I had made a web app that shows GitHub release statistics in a clean format: https://hanadigital.github.io/grev/

Very late, but here is the answer you want:

https://api.github.com/repos/ [git username] / [git project] /releases

Next, find the id of the project you are looking for in the data. It should be near the top, next to the urls. Then, navigate to

https://api.github.com/repos/ [git username] / [git project] /releases/ [id] / assets

The field named download_count is your answer.

EDIT: Capitals matter in your username and project name

As mentioned, GitHub API returns downloads count of binary file releases. I developed a little script to easly get downloads count by command line.

Here is a python solution using the pip install PyGithub package

from github import Github
g = Github("youroauth key") #create token from settings page


for repo in g.get_user().get_repos():
    if repo.name == "yourreponame":
        releases = repo.get_releases()
        for i in releases:
            if i.tag_name == "yourtagname":
                for j in i.get_assets():
                    print("{} date: {} download count: {}".format(j.name, j.updated_at, j._download_count.value))

Answer from 2019:

1. For number of clones you can use https://developer.github.com/v3/repos/traffic/#clones (but be aware that it returns count only for last 14 days)
2. For get downloads number of your assets (files attached to the release), you can use https://developer.github.com/v3/repos/releases/#get-a-single-release (exactly "download_count" property of the items of assets list in response)

GitHub has deprecated the download support and now supports 'Releases' - https://github.com/blog/1547-release-your-software. To create a release either use the GitHub UI or create an annotated tag (http:// git-scm.com/book/ch2-6.html) and add release notes to it in GitHub. You can then upload binaries, or 'assets', to each release.

Once you have some releases, the GitHub API supports getting information about them, and their assets.

curl -i \
https://api.github.com/repos/:owner/:repo/releases \
-H "Accept: application/vnd.github.manifold-preview+json"

Look for the 'download_count' entry. Theres more info at http://developer.github.com/v3/repos/releases/. This part of the API is still in the preview period ATM so it may change.

Update Nov 2013:

GitHub's releases API is now out of the preview period so the 'Accept' header is no longer needed - http://developer.github.com/changes/2013-11-04-releases-api-is-official/

It won't do any harm to continue to add the 'Accept' header though.

I ended up writing a scraper script to find my clone count:

#!/bin/sh
#
# This script requires:
#   apt-get install html-xml-utils
#   apt-get install jq
#
USERNAME=dougluce
PASSWORD="PASSWORD GOES HERE, BE CAREFUL!"
REPO="dougluce/node-autovivify"

TOKEN=`curl https://github.com/login -s -c /tmp/cookies.txt | \
     hxnormalize | \
     hxselect 'input[name=authenticity_token]' 2>/dev/null | \
     perl -lne 'print $1 if /value=\"(\S+)\"/'`

curl -X POST https://github.com/session \
     -s -b /tmp/cookies.txt -c /tmp/cookies2.txt \
     --data-urlencode commit="Sign in" \
     --data-urlencode authenticity_token="$TOKEN" \
     --data-urlencode login="$USERNAME" \
     --data-urlencode password="$PASSWORD" > /dev/null

curl "https://github.com/$REPO/graphs/clone-activity-data" \
     -s -b /tmp/cookies2.txt \
     -H "x-requested-with: XMLHttpRequest" | jq '.summary'

This'll grab the data from the same endpoint that Github's clone graph uses and spit out the totals from it. The data also includes per-day counts, replace .summary with just . to see those pretty-printed.

To check the number of times a release file/package was downloaded you can go to https://githubstats0.firebaseapp.com

It gives you a total download count and a break up of of total downloads per release tag.