The Rocket Web Framework appears only on the 3rd page of the explore GitHub Sponsors because I rely only on 3 projects they maintain, but for me those are rather important projects.

What to support?

This makes me think, what should be more important to me (and to others) to sponsor: The main web-framework I use or the 10 more lower-level libraries the code depends on?

The Rocket Web Framework and Foundation

The GitHub organization:

Rocket Web Framework Foundation · GitHub

Nonprofit foundation supporting Rocket's design, development, community and the surrounding ecosystem. - Rocket Web Framework Foundation

github.com

Apparently they set up a non-profit Foundation to support the project and proved some micro-grants to make certain improvements to the project. So if I am not mistaken donations by USA-based people and organizations are tax-deductible. I wonder how that works when sponsoring via GitHub.

At the bottom of the Rocket web site there are a few sponsors listed Kindness.ai, ohne Makler, 1Password, Signal Insight, and Edwin Olback.
There are more sponsors on GitHub sponsors page

It would be really nice to know why do these companies sponsor the project? Do they use it?

Specifically GitHub reports 16 sponsors.

Goals and status

They declared a goal to get $1000 / month and GitHub reports that they are at 41%. We already know that this is not exact but 1-2% off, but that's not a big difference. This means they get roughly $410 / month. That mean an average of $25 / month / sponsor.

Tiers

• $5, $10, $25 / month - receive a thank you in the next release
• $50 Bronze - Be listed on rwf2.org
• $100 Silver - Be listed on rwf2.org and on rocket.rs
• $250 Gold - above + Be mentioned on all minor and major version release notes.
• $500 Diamond - above + Schedule a monthly call with the board to discuss what's on your mind.

While it is nice to be listed on those web sites, the sponsors page does not say how many visitors are there and I doubt there are a lot. So unlike in some earlier cases where I thought having a busy web real-estate had a positive impact on having a few large sponsors, here I would not expect that.

Conclusion

They still need more sponsors to reach their goal.

Follow me / Sponsor me

If you'd like to read more such posts, don't forget to upvote this one, to follow me here on DEV.to and to sponsor me via GitHub Sponsors.