Is Up For Grabs free to use?

Updated

Yes. Up For Grabs is free to browse and use. It is a directory of open source projects that have curated tasks specifically for new contributors, and nothing on the site suggests a paywall, subscription, or paid tier. You can explore the project list, follow links to repositories, and start contributing without paying anything.

What the site actually is

Up For Grabs describes itself as "a list of projects which have curated tasks specifically for new contributors." Its purpose is to help people who want to contribute to open source but are not sure where to start. The site surfaces projects and labels such as good first issue and up-for-grabs, which project maintainers use to flag tasks suitable for newcomers.

The value it provides is discovery and curation, not hosting or tooling you would pay for. The projects listed are independent open source repositories hosted elsewhere, and their own licenses and contribution rules apply.

Why there is no cost

  • The site is a community-maintained index, not a commercial product.
  • The listed projects come from the open source community and are themselves free to access.
  • The page evidence shows only project names, descriptions, tags, and issue counts — no pricing links, payment platforms, or subscription signals.

Because no pricing information is mentioned anywhere in the available material, there is no basis to claim paid features exist. Equally, the absence of pricing signals is not proof of a formal "always free forever" commitment — it simply means no paid model is presented.

How to support the site and the ecosystem

Since there is no paid option, support takes non-monetary forms:

  1. Contribute to a listed project. Pick a task labeled good first issue or up-for-grabs, follow the repository's contribution guide, and submit a pull request. This is the primary way the site's purpose is fulfilled.
  2. Add or maintain a project listing. If you maintain an open source project with newcomer-friendly tasks, the site's model is built around such curated lists, so listing your project extends the resource.
  3. Give feedback. Reporting broken links, outdated entries, or unclear labels helps keep the directory useful.

A practical note

If you land on the site with JavaScript disabled, the page falls back to rendering a selection of available projects rather than the full interactive list. That fallback is still free to use — it just shows fewer projects at once. For the complete experience, enable JavaScript.

In short: browsing and contributing through Up For Grabs costs nothing. The only "cost" is the time you invest in actually working on the projects you find there.