Shields.io is open-source infrastructure that renders millions of README badges a day, and nothing here is a criticism of it. The distinction is where the badge lives: Shields renders an SVG built for a README, while ours is HTML built for a web page — stylable, themed, and able to animate when the number changes.
The badge standard for READMEs. Less happy on a web page. Everything below is checked against shields.io itself — but pricing and limits move, so confirm anything that matters on their own page before deciding.
| FeedPulse | Shields.io | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free forever, same as theirs. | Free and open source, with no tier at all |
| Signup | None. | None — the badge is a URL you construct |
| What you get | HTML and CSS — themes, hover states, and a count-up animation when the number moves. | A static SVG image, cached by their CDN and GitHub's image proxy |
| Required link back | None required. | None required |
| Cookies & privacy | No cookies, no IP stored. | No cookies; requests go to their CDN |
| Customisation | Your fonts, your colours, your dark mode — it inherits your page styles. | Query parameters for colour, label and style — but it is still an image |
| Where the data lives | Cached counts served from our edge, refreshed on a schedule. | Pulled live from the upstream API on cache miss |
| Removing it | Delete the snippet. | Delete the image tag |
For a README, use Shields.io. It is the convention, it is free, it is open source, and GitHub's image proxy caches it for you. There is no argument to be made for us inside a markdown file — we cannot run JavaScript there.
Shields.io for READMEs and anywhere only an image tag is allowed. FeedPulse when the badge sits on your own site and should look like it belongs there.
Shields.io for READMEs and anywhere only an image tag is allowed. FeedPulse when the badge sits on your own site and should look like it belongs there. For a README, use Shields.io. It is the convention, it is free, it is open source, and GitHub's image proxy caches it for you. There is no argument to be made for us inside a markdown file — we cannot run JavaScript there.
No — GitHub strips script tags in markdown, so a JavaScript widget cannot run there. Use Shields.io for the README and FeedPulse on your project's actual website, where you can style the badge to match the page.
Nothing, at any traffic level. There is no paid tier to upgrade to, no session cap and no card on file — the whole product is free, including every other widget and all the SEO tools.