Selection Criteria

AI-Buzz tracks 246 independent AI companies. We select companies based on developer footprint — measurable signals that developers are actually using a company's tools — not valuation or funding raised.

A company qualifies for tracking if it meets at least one of these criteria:

1.Published packages: Has npm or PyPI packages with measurable download activity (any non-zero 30-day downloads)
2.Open-source presence: Has a public GitHub repository with stars, forks, or recent commit activity
3.Developer community discussion: Mentioned on Hacker News within the last 30 days
4.Significant funding: Series A or later, from a company building developer-facing AI products

We exclude big tech AI products (Google AI, Azure AI, etc.) from independent company rankings. They can be viewed separately via the "Include Big Tech" toggle on the companies page.

Ranking Formula

Developer Footprint Score

Companies are ranked by their developer footprint score, calculated as the sum of 30-day package downloads across both ecosystems:

score = npm_downloads_30d + pypi_downloads_30d

This measures real developer adoption: someone ran npm install or pip install and integrated a package into their project.

Why Downloads, Not Funding

Funding reflects investor confidence, not developer adoption. A company can raise $100M without any developers using its tools. Package downloads measure actual usage in production code — the signal that matters for understanding which AI tools are gaining real traction. Funding data is available on every company page but does not factor into ranking.

Known Limitations

Companies without published packages (e.g., API-only services like OpenAI) rank lower despite high adoption via REST APIs
CI/CD pipelines can inflate download counts for some packages
Companies with packages split across many small modules may appear lower than their true adoption

For full details on download tracking methodology, see Package Download Tracking.

Company

npm (30d)

PyPI (30d)

Total

Pydantic (Samuel Colvin)

—

619.8M

LangChain

7.3M

225.1M

232.4M

OpenAI

52.9M

173.8M

226.8M

How Companies Are Added & Removed

Adding a Company

New companies are added through manual curation, not automated discovery. The process:

Identification: Company appears in Hacker News discussion, funding announcements, or developer community activity
Validation: Verify the company builds developer-facing AI products and meets at least one selection criterion above
Package mapping: Identify npm and/or PyPI packages associated with the company
Profile creation: Add company details, category assignment, and funding history

Want to suggest a company? Email hello@ai-buzz.com with the company name and why you think it should be tracked.

Removing a Company

Companies are removed or reclassified when:

Acquired: Marked as "Acquired" status (still tracked but excluded from independent rankings)
Shut down: Company ceases operations and packages are deprecated
Pivoted away from AI: Company no longer builds AI/ML developer tools
Reclassified as Big Tech: Company grows beyond independent status (e.g., IPO with market cap above threshold)

We never remove companies simply for having low download counts. Historical data is preserved for all tracked companies.

Category Assignment

Each company is assigned a primary domain based on its core product (e.g., Foundation Models, Code Generation, AI Agents). Companies may also have secondary domains for additional capabilities.

Category assignments are manually reviewed. As companies pivot or expand their product lines, categories are updated to reflect their current focus.

Browse companies by category on the companies directory.

Company Selection & Ranking