But what exactly is Hacktoberfest? For those who might not know, Hacktoberfest is an annual, month-long celebration of open source software, held in October. It’s organized by DigitalOcean and encourages participation in the open source ecosystem, whether you’re a seasoned contributor or a first-timer. The event is open to everyone and all backgrounds and skill levels are encouraged to participate. In 2024, there’s been a greater focus on low- and no-code contributions, which has been great to see.

This year, we’ve experienced our most successful Hacktoberfest ever, and we couldn’t have done it without the amazing contributions from our Mautic community.

Over the course of October we’ve onboarded over 50 new contributors, which has been a record-breaker. Together, we’ve achieved:

• Completion of over 40 no-code tasks
• Completion of 18 pull request reviews
• Awarding of over 15 unique Holopin badges

Everyone who contributed received a ‘holobyte’ which allows them to claim our exclusive series of Hacktoberfest Holopin badges – don’t forget to check your GitHub issues and PRs if you haven’t claimed yours yet!

We’re incredibly proud of these achievements, but we also know that there’s always room for improvement. That’s why we’d love to hear your feedback on this year’s Hacktoberfest. 

Whether or not you contributed to Mautic during October, please take a moment to fill out the form here. Your insights will help us make future Hacktoberfests even better.

While Hacktoberfest may be over, the spirit of contribution lives on! We know that some of you didn’t manage to get around to contributing this time, but we’d love to have you joining us even outside of Hacktoberfest if you’re still looking for an opportunity to contribute to Mautic.

If this applies to you, please fill out the form above and select ‘yes’ in the field ‘do you still want to contribute to Mautic’. We’ll be in touch to give you a hand in getting started. You’ll receive an email with the relevant information for the tasks you wanted to contribute towards.

We’d like to extend a huge thank you to everyone who showed interest in contributing to Mautic. It’s incredibly exciting to see that over 300 of you cared enough to complete the form!

As we look forward to the future, we’re excited about the potential for growth, innovation, and community-building that lies ahead. Thank you for being a part of this journey. Here’s to many more successful Hacktoberfests!

What is Community 2.0?

Over the years, Mautic has grown thanks to the passion and contributions of its diverse community. Now, it’s time to go even further—to ignite fresh ideas, streamline how we collaborate, and empower more people to get involved. Community 2.0 is all about pushing boundaries and creating a more impactful, inclusive space for everyone who uses and supports Mautic.

Introducing the Next-Level Initiatives

At the heart of Community 2.0 are the new initiatives that will shape the future of Mautic. Our mission is to:

• Expand Global Awareness: We’re on a mission to make Mautic’s open source marketing automation platform known worldwide. Through enhanced outreach efforts, content creation, and global campaigns, we’re aiming to showcase Mautic’s powerful potential to a broader audience.
• Strengthen Local User Groups: Our community is strongest when we come together. With Community 2.0, we’re supporting local Mautic user groups to host meetups, workshops, and in-person events, empowering users to share knowledge and collaborate in meaningful ways.
• Spark New Projects: Expect fresh, community-driven initiatives that will engage members in exciting ways. Whether it’s hackathons, webinars, or other community projects, we’re paving the way for more innovation and contributions to the platform.
• Clearer Guidelines, Smoother Contributions: We’re making it easier than ever for people to get involved, whether you’re a developer, marketer, or content creator. With clear guidelines, documentation, and support, Community 2.0 will make contributing smoother and more accessible for everyone.

What Community 2.0 Means for You

Mautic Community 2.0 is more than just a refresh—it’s a new way of thinking, collaborating, and creating together. Here’s what you can expect:

• Greater Opportunities to Contribute: Whether you’re a first-time contributor or a seasoned Mautician, you’ll find more pathways and support to make your mark on the Mautic platform.
• More Engaging Events: From local meetups to global hackathons, the Mautic community will be buzzing with activity, offering more opportunities to connect, learn, and grow.
• Focused Innovation: With dedicated campaigns and initiatives, we’ll be tackling the most important challenges and opportunities to ensure Mautic continues to lead in the open source marketing space.

Join the Movement and Ignite the Future of Mautic

This is your chance to be part of the exciting future of Mautic. Community 2.0 is about empowering everyone to get involved, make contributions, and shape the future of this incredible platform. With new ideas, fresh energy, and the support of a global community, we are ready to ignite the next chapter of open source marketing automation.

Our kickoff meeting on Thursday, 17th/Oct at 11:00 a.m. UTC (see in your time zone: https://everytimezone.com/s/bd455280) marks the beginning of something big, and we want you to be a part of it. Let’s come together, elevate our efforts, and make Mautic Community 2.0 a beacon of innovation, collaboration, and success!

Please join us live via this meeting link or if you can’t make it, make sure to join the Mautic Slack chat (see https://www.mautic.org/slack) and hop on the #t-community channel where will continue the topics in an asynchronous meeting format.

Adrian still believes in “making Mautic accessible to everyone”. As more and more customers relied on Mautic to grow their business, Aivie was born. Aivie offers cloud-hosted Mautic, support, training, themes and plugin development.

The New Mautic Email and Landing Page Builder

Adrian was not planning to contribute code to Mautic on such a big scale. At some point he realized that Mautic needs a new email builder to stay competitive. So he co-launched the Builder initiative. And that’s when he stumbled into the development of the new email and landing page builder, which had been initiated by Webmecanik but needed further refinement to be incorporated as the default builder for Mautic.

He started first by contributing a few changes in the codebase, then moved to code refactoring where he felt there was a need for improvement, and changing tools to establish a better architecture, laying the foundation for future improvements and a higher quality of code.

The initial intent to make just some quick changes to the Mautic codebase, turned into many weeks enjoying improving things for everyone. He also tried as much as possible to test, clean up and remove any unnecessary code and files, making the Mautic codebase as streamlined as possible.

What’s Next With The New Builder?

Introducing the new email and landing page builder in Mautic 4 was a giant step. There are still improvements and features that could be added, as suggested by the community. Adrian is looking forward to building up basic functionality, adding animations, videos, and a reusable content block, and having a global footer that can be used in every email without the need to create them each time an email is to be sent.

There is a lot of room for improvement, and Adrian wants everyone to join in contributing too. Are you wondering how you can contribute to the new builder? Yes, you can contribute! Here are some ideas:
 

• Create email and landing page templates for different purposes which can help community members to quickly set up email campaigns or landing pages by only changing the text and maybe some few blocks and colors,
• Write documentation or knowledgebase articles on how to work with the new email and landing page builder:
  • Docs.mautic.org for factual, product documentation,
  • Developer.mautic.org for developer-focused documentation,
  • Kb.mautic.org for how-to tutorials, guides and best practice information,
• Help to triage and fix open issues,
• Test new features and bug fixes,
• If you can’t contribute in these ways, consider making a financial donation to the builders project here. This helps us to support external specialists with skills we need to expand our builder by adding new functionality.

Why Contribute to Open Source

For an open source project to thrive it requires that there are people contributing to the project, and Adrian strongly encourages Mautic users to give back in whatever way they are able. It is not only developers that can contribute to Mautic but marketers who benefit from using it too – marketers can help with testing, reviewing new features, and providing input of what might be missing from the new builder.