I think given the size of the potential user base for such a thing that a low number like 8 would be a contrary indicator of the claims being made.

But in general I'd agree that stars can be a deceptive metric.

I mean...there are 102 as of this writing.

The project has not, I stress, changed in the interim. ;)

It's a weak signal for the maturity of the ecosystem around it, but it's a signal.

It's hard to define what's "the best in the world" so users are totally justified in looking at different metrics to figure out what that actually means, if there is no clear defined metrics to compare against.