HeroDevs Open Source Sustainability Fund grants for maintainers
The HeroDevs Open Source Sustainability Fund gives $2,500 to $15,000 grants to maintainers of open source developer tools with end of life versions. Applications are rolling.
The HeroDevs Open Source Sustainability Fund pays grants to maintainers of open source developer tools. HeroDevs launched the $20 million fund in 2025. Single grants range from $2,500 to $15,000.
The fund is for maintainers of projects under an OSI approved license whose older versions are approaching or past official end of life. The project must be a developer tool.
HeroDevs looks at how a project handles its versions: predictable version numbers, a clear supported, deprecated and end of life status, a deprecation policy, backporting critical fixes to long term support versions and a clear way to report security issues. HeroDevs helps funded teams meet these points.
Applications go through an online form that asks for the GitHub link, stars, criticality score, first release year and the estimated number of users or downloads on end of life versions. In a post on 20 October 2026, HeroDevs said it paid $476,654 to maintainers in 2026 through direct contributions and the fund.
Quick answers
Does any open source project qualify?
No. The project must be a developer tool, and some of its versions must be near or past official end of life.