Nothing. Nothing whatsoever. I look first at whether the project solves my problem within my constraints. Then I look at who is involved, what is their commitm

Nothing. Nothing whatsoever. I look first at whether the project solves my problem within my constraints. Then I look at who is involved, what is their commitment level to the project (if it matters), and how they seem to be handling issues and PRs. Then I do a quick scan of the code to see if it’s reasonable, look at dependencies, etc. Then I test it out. If I’m weighing it against other projects, I usually do a back-of-the-envelope muscow type analysis and comparison and weight them based on my proclivities. General popularity? Not usually a big factor unless it seems like the project might get abandoned (if that even matters).