# How do you monitor GitHub issues for competitors?

Updated October 2026

A competitor with public repositories publishes its users' feature requests, bug reports and frustrations in its issue tracker. This guide shows how to search those issues, how to read reactions and labels as rough demand, which issues come from users close to switching, and how to turn what you find into roadmap and positioning decisions without being rude in someone else's tracker.

## Quick answer

MarketHQ searches GitHub issues and pull requests for competitor names and your terms on every plan, and drops bot accounts. By hand, search each competitor's public repos for open issues sorted by reactions, plus issues about migrating or about whether the project is still maintained. Log repeated requests and turn them into roadmap notes and positioning, and never advertise in their tracker.

- Thumbs-up reactions on an issue give a rough ranking of what a competitor's users want most.
- Issues about migrating, breaking changes or whether a project is still maintained often come from users who are close to switching.
- MarketHQ searches GitHub issues and pull requests for your competitors' names on every plan and leaves out bot accounts.
- On paid plans, MarketHQ's weekly gap analysis compares you with each competitor, covering AI answers, community share of voice and sentiment, with the evidence attached.

## Which GitHub searches find the useful competitor issues?

Scope the search to the competitor's repos with repo: or org:, add is:issue, and combine it with label:, in:title or a reactions sort depending on what you want to find.

Start on the competitor's main repository and open its labels page. Projects name labels differently (enhancement, feature request, kind/feature), so check what this one uses before you search for it. Then save the searches below as bookmarks, with examplecorp replaced by the competitor's organisation and repo names.

## GitHub searches for competitor issues

| Search | What it finds |
| --- | --- |
| org:examplecorp is:issue is:open sort:reactions-+1-desc | Their most wanted open requests across all repos |
| repo:examplecorp/app is:issue is:open label:enhancement | Open feature requests, if the project uses that label |
| org:examplecorp is:issue in:title migrate | Users moving to or away from the product |
| org:examplecorp is:issue in:title maintained | 'Is this project still maintained?' threads |
| repo:examplecorp/app is:issue is:open comments:>20 | Long arguments, often about a breaking change or a missing feature |
| examplecorp is:issue -org:examplecorp | Issues in other projects that mention them, such as integrations or replacements |

## How do you read reactions and labels as demand?

Use thumbs-up and comment counts to rank requests within one repository, and treat them as a rough signal that says little about the size of the market.

Only signed-in GitHub users who found the issue can react, and older issues have had longer to collect votes. So an issue with 300 reactions from three years ago and one with 40 from last month may carry similar weight. Note the date next to every count.

Labels tell you how the maintainers see a request. An open request with a high reaction count and no maintainer reply is a gap they have not prioritised. A request closed as not planned, with users still commenting underneath, is a gap they have chosen to leave. Both are worth logging, and the second is the stronger signal for your positioning.

## Which issues signal users who might switch?

Migration questions, 'is this project still maintained?' threads, complaints after a breaking release, and threads reacting to a licence or pricing change.

These issues are written by users who have already invested in the competitor and are deciding whether to stay. The comments often say what would make them leave and where they are looking.

Do not reply in these threads. Read them, save the links, and use what you learn on your own pages: a migration guide from that competitor, a comparison page that answers the specific complaint, or a docs page that covers the setup they found painful.

## How do you turn issue patterns into roadmap and positioning?

Log each useful issue in one sheet, count the themes each month, and act on the themes that repeat across issues or across competitors.

A single issue is an anecdote. The same request in five issues, or across two competitors, is a pattern you can take to a product meeting with links attached.

- Step 1: log the competitor, issue link, theme, reaction count, date, and whether you already do this (yes, planned or no).
- Step 2: once a month, count issues and reactions per theme.
- Step 3: for themes where you answer yes, write it plainly on your comparison page and docs, using the users' own phrasing.
- Step 4: for themes where you answer planned or no, bring the count and links to your roadmap discussion as evidence.
- Step 5: when a theme shows up across several competitors, treat it as a gap in the whole category, which you could own.

## What is the etiquette for competitors' issue trackers?

Read their issues and do not post your product in them.

An issue tracker is where maintainers and users work through problems. A vendor dropping a link to its own product there reads as spam to everyone in the thread, can get your account reported, and tells the competitor's users something unflattering about you. Even when a frustrated user asks 'does anyone know an alternative?', leave it.

If you want to reach those users, do it on your own ground or where they asked in public, such as an Ask HN or Reddit thread, with your affiliation stated in the first line.

## How does MarketHQ monitor GitHub issues for competitors?

MarketHQ searches GitHub issues and pull requests for your brand, competitor names and keywords on every plan, and leaves out bot accounts.

Matches land in the same feed as Hacker News, Stack Overflow, Dev.to, Lobsters, blogs and news. Lite tracks two competitors and ten keywords, and every plan checks four times a day. Leaving out bots matters on GitHub, where dependency update bots open large numbers of pull requests that name packages.

Paid plans track up to 5 competitors on Startup and 10 on Growth, label mentions positive, negative or neutral, and run the weekly gap analysis, which turns gaps against each competitor into an action plan with the evidence attached. MarketHQ matches names on word boundaries, so add a qualifying keyword for a competitor with a common word as its name.

## What does a month of competitor issue mining turn up?

Illustrative example: one repeated request across two competitors becomes a roadmap item and a comparison page section.

Illustrative example: a company selling an API monitoring tool logs issues from two competitors for a month. The first competitor has an open request for OpenTelemetry export with a high reaction count and no maintainer reply in eight months. The second has three issues asking for the same thing, one closed as not planned. The team already supports it, so they add an 'OpenTelemetry export' section to both comparison pages and write a migration guide for the second competitor's users.

## What can competitors' public issues not tell you?

What paying customers ask for privately, and anything about competitors who keep their trackers closed.

Enterprise customers usually file requests through support or an account manager, so public issues lean towards open source and self-serve users. Closed-source competitors may have no public tracker at all. Reactions come from vocal users, who are not always the ones who pay. Use issues as one source next to sales calls, churn reasons and community threads.

## FAQ

### How do I find the most requested features in a GitHub repo?

Search the repo with is:issue is:open and sort by thumbs-up reactions, for example repo:owner/name is:issue is:open sort:reactions-+1-desc. Check each issue's date, since older issues have had longer to collect reactions.

### Can I suggest my product in a competitor's GitHub issue?

No. It reads as spam to the maintainers and users in the thread and can get your account reported. Use what you learn on your own comparison pages and docs, and reply only where people asked in public, with disclosure.

### What tool tracks competitors' GitHub issues?

MarketHQ searches GitHub issues and pull requests for competitor names on every plan, from Lite for two competitors, and leaves out bot accounts. Paid plans add the weekly gap analysis against each competitor.

### Why does MarketHQ leave out bot accounts on GitHub?

Bots such as dependency updaters open many pull requests that name packages and products. Leaving them out keeps the feed to issues and pull requests written by people.

## Related

- Competitor monitoring: /use-cases/competitor-monitoring (how MarketHQ watches rivals)
- Gap analysis for developer tools: /use-cases/gap-analysis-for-developer-tools (turning competitor gaps into an action plan)
- Monitor competitors on GitHub and HN: /blog/competitor-monitoring-on-github-and-hn (launches, complaints and 'alternative to' threads)
- Best competitor monitoring tools: /best/competitor-monitoring-tools-for-developer-tools (tools compared)