Methodology
Every board on this site is an editorial ranking built from data we hold ourselves: the date we added a tool to the directory, the official votes members cast here, and clearly labelled paid placements. It is not an estimate and not a black box. This page states which signal each board ranks by, how each board is calculated, and what happens when something turns out to be wrong. Board pages and this page are generated from the same definitions, so if they ever disagree, tell us and we will correct both.
What we rank, and how each board is calculated
Four boards, one shared rule: the formula is published, and the ranking is exactly that formula applied to the data on record. Nothing is smoothed, and ties are broken by the rule written in the formula — a lower-numbered tie is not "more important", it is just resolved in a stated, repeatable way.
New Listings
Newly added AI tools, newest first. This is the directory's front door: every listing appears here the moment it is added, so a tool does not need votes or a paid plan to be seen.
| Formula | Ordered by the date this directory added the listing, newest first. A monthly period lists the tools added in that month; a yearly period lists the whole year. There is no score and no threshold — being listed is enough, which is deliberate: a board that only shows paid or popular tools is not a useful directory. Ties break toward the record added later so the order is stable. |
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| Open the board | New Listings → |
Community Favorites
All-time community favorites, ranked by official votes. Every visitor can leave a vote, but only votes from people who have submitted a tool themselves count toward the ranking — open voting is buyable, so this board is peer-reviewed instead.
| Formula | Ranked by the total number of official votes a tool has received since it was listed, descending. This board is not bound to a period: the same tool keeps its accumulated votes across months, which is what makes it an all-time list. Official votes come only from accounts that confirmed their email and are bound to a tool submitted here; votes from other visitors are shown as reference votes and are excluded from the ranking. One account may vote once per tool per period, enforced by a database uniqueness constraint rather than an application check. Ties break toward the lower tool id so the order is stable and reproducible. No payment of any kind can buy a position on this board. |
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| Open the board | Community Favorites → |
Top This Month
The same votes as Community Favorites, but scoped to a single month. A tool that launched recently can top this board without waiting years to catch up with an all-time list.
| Formula | Ranked by the number of official votes received within the period, descending. A monthly period counts that month only; a yearly period sums the year's months. The voting rules are identical to Community Favorites: official votes require an account bound to a tool submitted here, and other visitors' votes are reference votes that never count. Unlike Community Favorites, this board resets every month — which is the point, since it is the only way a newly listed tool can lead. No payment of any kind can buy a position on this board. |
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| Open the board | Top This Month → |
Featured
Paid and editorially picked placements, labelled as such. This board is listed separately on purpose: paid visibility must never be mixed into a ranking, or a reader cannot tell a paid position from an earned one.
| Formula | Lists tools whose placement window overlaps the period, with sponsored placements first, then by remaining window. A placement covers a fixed window (15 days on the current plans); the window is stored as an expiry timestamp and the start is derived from the plan length. This board is deliberately kept apart from Community Favorites and Top This Month: sponsored and featured tools appear here and here only (plus a labelled badge on their own page), and they are given no advantage in either votes board. A historical period on this board is a frozen record of who was placed then, which is why placements are snapshotted like every other board. |
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| Open the board | Featured → |
Periods, freezing and history
A period is a calendar month (YYYY-MM) or a calendar year (YYYY). All periods use UTC, so "September 2026" starts on the same instant in Tokyo and in San Francisco.
- Provisional. While a month is still running, its board is computed live and can change as new listings or votes arrive. The board page says so, and badges for that period are not yet final.
- Frozen at close. When the period ends, the board is computed once and written to a snapshot: the ranks, the scores, and the exact inputs behind each score. From then on the snapshot is read, not recomputed.
- Permanent and replayable. A frozen period's URL never changes its answer. That is what makes a badge able to say "#3, September 2026" and mean something, and what lets a historical record be built from real records instead of memory.
Why freeze at all. If a past board were recomputed from today's data, last month's rank could change after the fact, and every badge and citation pointing at it would become a lie. Freezing means an old result keeps the data it was computed from, even after the underlying data is corrected going forward.
What "provisional" does not mean. It does not mean the method changes — only that more listings or votes can still arrive. The formula is fixed for the period; only the inputs filling it can grow until close.
Changes to the method
Changing a formula or a threshold breaks comparability with earlier snapshots, so a change is never silent. Every change is published with its version, the date, and which kind of change it was (algorithm, scope, data handling, or policy). Once a period is frozen, a later method change applies to later periods only — the frozen snapshot keeps the method it was computed under, and its algorithm version is recorded with it.
Corrections and removal
A misread figure or a wrong listing causes real harm to real businesses, so every page carries a correction route and every request is answered, not just logged.
- Anyone can file a correction. A founder, a customer, a competitor — the request is judged on the evidence attached, not on who sent it.
- We check, then act. If something is wrong, we correct it and note the change. If a tool should not be listed at all, we remove it and say so.
- Disagreement is recorded, not erased. If a claim cannot be verified, we do not delete a disputed entry on request alone — we record the dispute alongside it so a reader can see both sides. Deleting data because someone objected, without checking, would be the fastest way to make the whole site worthless.
What we will always do on request: correct a demonstrably wrong figure, fix a name or logo attribution, and honour a legitimate trademark or delisting request. What we will not do: remove accurate, sourced data simply because the party it describes would prefer it gone, or move a product up a board for any reason. Rank follows the formula, not the request.