Disclosure
How this site makes money, and what it is not allowed to buy.
Three things can pay us. None of them can move a tool up a list, because the thing that orders the lists never reads them.
1. Affiliate links
Some "Open tool" buttons are affiliate links: if you start a paid plan after clicking one, the tool pays us a share. Those links are marked affiliate link where they appear, and carry rel="sponsored" for machines. Every one of them, right now:
Nothing on this site is an affiliate link today. When the first one goes up, it will be named here on the same build.
2. A sponsored box
A maker can buy one labeled box above one use-case list for 7 days, 29 USDC. It is marked Sponsored, it sits outside the ranked list, and it can only show a tool that is already in the catalog.
3. The data
The dataset is free under CC BY 4.0 for anyone, including commercially, with a link. Custom cuts and licences that drop the attribution requirement are things we would charge for.
Why a paid link cannot change a rank
The ranking is computed by one program, nightly, from public evidence: GitHub stars and velocity, Hacker News mentions, Wikipedia readership, release activity and free access. The formula is published. That program has no access to the affiliate file or the sponsor ledger - the links are attached afterwards, when the pages are written. A test in the build asserts that populating the affiliate file leaves every list in exactly the same order, so this is checked on every build rather than promised.
What that cannot fix by itself is which tools are in the catalog at all. So: tools are added when they appear in the release feed with real traction, never because they have a programme to join, and 0 of 333 tools carry a paid link today. If a tool with no programme is the better answer, it stays on top - the lists would be worth nothing otherwise, and the lists are the only thing here worth having.
What we will not do
No paid placement in a ranked list, ever. No "sponsored" review. No removing a tool because a competitor pays us. No affiliate link that is not labeled. If any of that changes, this page changes first, and the git history will show when.