How we rank

What a rank means

Each use case is its own list. Position is an editorial judgment about fit for that job: whether the product is built for the work, whether a person can start using it without a research project, and how directly it matches the task. A general assistant can rank high for writing and stay off the coding list.

The sentence under each rank is the argument. If that sentence is not persuasive, the number should not be either. We do not publish scores, win rates, or user counts we did not measure.

What we leave out

Descriptions stick to what a product is for. Pricing notes say what to confirm on the vendor site, because plans change. If a fact was uncertain, the copy stays generic instead of filling the gap.

Pricing labels

• Free. No vendor fee. If you still pay a model provider for an API key, the note says so.
• Freemium. A free tier plus paid plans, or a free open-source release plus a paid host. Read the note. Do not assume a free cloud account.
• Paid. The vendor charges to use the product. A trial may exist. The note says when we know that.

Sponsorship

A paid placement is a card labeled Sponsored. It can sit above a list. It cannot change the numbers in the list. The homepage and category slots render only when the data file has an active placement, so an empty file leaves no broken box. See the tiers.

Dates

“Added” is the day an entry joined this directory. It is not a launch date. The new releases section is that field, newest first.