They have a lot of fans, of the type of people that haunt HN. High quality project that is useful for for small hobbyist projects, startups and large companies

They have a lot of fans, of the type of people that haunt HN. High quality project that is useful for for small hobbyist projects, startups and large companies alike. Persisting data something that is used in probably the majority of software projects across many verticals. It is OSS software that is easy to pick up. It is a values driven project (both technical and ethical). And the team maintaining it has kept it going for a long time, so as it get rediscovered by others it still has relevancy for many. Basically it is good software, with a wide TAM, and just enough quirks to appeal to the folks here.