◈ Case Study · 2026

The Story
Behind GitCity

Who coined "GitHub as a city," why GitCity exists, and what makes it genuinely different — told honestly, with full credit to prior work.

Where the concept comes from

No one person invented the idea of rendering GitHub contributions as a 3D city. It has a clear, traceable lineage going back to GitHub itself.

2020
GitHub Skyline — GitHub, Inc.
GitHub introduced the metaphor: your contribution graph rendered as 3D terrain, downloadable as an STL file. The language of "commits = building height" and the word "skyline" originate here. Every subsequent project builds on this visual grammar.
~2021
bentolor/gitcity — bentolor
A VR/3D exploration of a Git repository's file structure as a walkable city. Different concept (repo files, not contribution history), but predates both later projects on the "git + city" naming.
2022
GithubCity — Jan Hannemann (honzaap)
The first widely-known implementation of "each contribution day = one building in a Three.js 3D city." Ranked #2 on Product Hunt with 248 upvotes. honzaap's own words: "GitHub already did that with GitHub Skyline and when I looked at it I thought it looked like a city." This is the direct creative ancestor of the per-day building model.
2025–2026
thegitcity.com — Samuel Rizzon
A social-network pivot: every GitHub user becomes one building in a shared global city. Completely different data model from honzaap. Reached viral scale (~1M views). Requires account, offers paid cosmetics.
2026
GitCity — Natraj X · you are here
A personal developer tool. Each building = one day of your commit history. Three views: Isometric 3D Skyline, Bird's Eye Heatmap, and a driveable City Simulation. Embeddable as a live SVG. No account required.
Key fact: The idea of representing GitHub contributions as 3D buildings is not proprietary to any individual. It originates with GitHub's own 2020 product. Multiple developers have explored it independently with different angles. The concept is open.

What problem GitCity actually solves

Discovering thegitcity.com mid-build clarified what GitCity should not be. The goals diverged immediately:

Problem GitCity's answer
No README embeds for 3D skylines /api/svg?u=USERNAME — one-line Markdown embed
All tools require accounts or tokens Username only — no OAuth, no PAT, no session
No tool lets you inhabit your own data Driveable Three.js city built from real commit days
Social tools mix your data with others Your city only contains your history. Nobody else.
No all-years history Fetches every year since account creation

What was actually built

Three distinct views

Isometric 3D Skyline — rendered in SVG (not canvas). The SVG choice was deliberate: it makes the same render serveable as a static API response, enabling README embeds. 6 themes, year/rolling filters, hover tooltips.

Bird's Eye Heatmap — classic GitHub-style grid using the same data pipeline. Good for comparing years side by side.

City Simulation — the genuinely novel part. Your commit data becomes the city geometry. Days with commits become buildings (height = commit count). Days without commits become roads.

Systems built from scratch for the simulation

CityTraffic.js — AI vehicle pathfinding PedestrianSystem.js — NPC walkers WeatherSystem.js — rain, wind, day/night CityAssets.js — procedural building geometry Player vehicle — WASD driving physics /api/svg — SVG embed API /api/og/[username] — OG image generation

None of these systems exist in honzaap's GithubCity or thegitcity.com.

The embed API

[![My GitCity Skyline](https://gitcity.natrajx.in/api/svg?u=USERNAME)](https://gitcity.natrajx.in/USERNAME)

Single GET request. Themed SVG. Cacheable. Works in any Markdown renderer including GitHub READMEs. No equivalent exists in any prior "GitHub as city" project.

Side-by-side comparison

Feature GitCity honzaap/GithubCity thegitcity.com
Building represents One day of YOUR commits One day of commits One GitHub user
Driveable simulation ✅ Yes ❌ No ❌ No
README SVG embed API ✅ Yes ❌ No ❌ No
Account required ❌ No ❌ No ✅ Yes
Social network ❌ No ❌ No ✅ Yes
All-years history ✅ Yes ❌ No ❌ No
AI traffic + pedestrians ✅ Yes ❌ No ❌ No
Weather system ✅ Yes ❌ No ❌ No
OG image generation ✅ Yes ❌ No ❌ No
License MIT — do anything MIT AGPL-3.0
Monetisation Free Free Paid items ($1–3)

On the name overlap

The name "GitCity" overlaps with bentolor's older Kotlin VR project and sounds similar to thegitcity.com. That was a mistake — a distinct name would have been smarter.

The product concept is defensible. The name choice was not careful enough. This document, HISTORY.md, and ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.md exist to make the distinction clear for anyone who encounters the confusion.

For Product Hunt / social discussions: "The concept of visualising GitHub contributions as a 3D city originates with GitHub Skyline (2020) and honzaap's GithubCity (2022). GitCity is a distinct personal developer tool — not a social network — built independently with features that exist in neither prior project: driveable simulation, README embed API, and no-account access."

Credits

Conceptual lineage

GitHub, Inc. — originated the skyline metaphor (2020)
Jan Hannemann (honzaap) — first contributions-as-city Three.js implementation (2022)
Samuel Rizzon — social-network angle that clarified what GitCity should not be
bentolor — early "git + city" naming (different concept)

Open source dependencies

Three.js (MIT) · React (MIT) · Vite (MIT) · react-helmet-async (MIT) · Vercel · GitHub GraphQL API

HISTORY.md · ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.md · COMPARISON.md