How listings get here, what our rating means, what it does not mean, and how we keep the directory honest. We would rather tell you exactly what we do than claim more than we actually do.
How tools are selected
We track AI products across every category we cover and work from that list rather than waiting for submissions. Candidates are checked against the existing directory first, both by name and by domain, so the same product does not appear twice under a rebrand or a slightly different spelling. We prioritise covering the categories people actually search for over chasing every launch.
How every tool is verified
This is the part we take most seriously, because a directory that lists products which no longer exist is worse than no directory. Before anything is published we fetch the product’s own site and check what is actually there. A page returning a success code is not enough on its own — plenty of dead products still return one.
Listings are rejected when the check finds any of the following:
- The domain has been taken over. Expired domains are routinely re-registered by unrelated operators. We have caught several that had become gambling, adult or streaming-piracy sites while still being listed elsewhere as AI tools.
- The product has shut down. We read the page for shutdown language, including notices that a company has been acquired, sunset a product, or archived its site.
- The name no longer matches the product. Domains get repurposed and companies pivot. If the site describes something other than the tool being listed, it does not go up.
- The link is an affiliate or referral URL. Directory listings frequently circulate with tracking links in place of the real product URL. We replace them with the vendor’s own address.
- It is not an AI tool. Documentation pages, developer frameworks with no AI product, and app-store listings get filtered out.
Automated checks catch most of this. The rest is caught by reading the entry, which is still the only way to spot a product that is technically live but no longer what it claims to be.
How listings are written
Each listing is written from the vendor’s own material and other published sources — what the product says it does, how it is priced, what it integrates with, and what it is built for. We do not copy text from other directories. Where a tool has a notable history, such as a rebrand, an acquisition or a pivot, we say so in the listing, because that is usually the thing a reader most needs to know and the thing older reviews get wrong.
What our rating is, and what it is not
Our rating is an editorial assessment based on published evidence: what the product does, how it is priced against alternatives in the same category, how clearly it is positioned, and how well it fits the job it claims to do. It is ours, it is labelled as ours, and it is never for sale.
It is not a hands-on lab test. We do not claim to have signed up for and personally used every tool in the directory, because with a catalogue this size that would not be true. Where a listing draws on hands-on use we will say so explicitly. If you need a verdict that depends on daily use, treat our rating as a shortlist tool and trial the product yourself — that is what the free tiers and trials we note are for.
We also do not publish user reviews or aggregate user ratings. If we introduce them in future they will come from verified real users, and we will say plainly how they were collected.
How listings are kept current
- Every listing shows the date it was last reviewed, so you can judge how fresh it is.
- Every published page is checked automatically each day, so pages that break or disappear surface quickly rather than sitting dead for weeks.
- When a product shuts down, rebrands or pivots, we update the listing or retire it and redirect to the successor. Retired listings are not silently deleted.
Independence and disclosure
Rankings are never for sale. Some outbound links are affiliate links that support the directory at no extra cost to you; they are labelled, and they never change a tool’s score or position. Featured and sponsored placements are always marked as such and kept separate from editorial assessments.
Corrections
If a listing is wrong — outdated pricing, a product that has changed hands, a capability we have described inaccurately, or a tool that has shut down — tell us and we will correct or retire it. Getting this right matters more to us than the size of the directory. Send us a correction.