Every directory is defined by what it leaves out. Ours leaves out four things on purpose, and each exclusion costs us something.
1. Traffic estimates
Every directory publishes monthly visitor numbers for tools. The numbers are inferred from a panel, rounded to be plausible, and wrong by an order of magnitude. We do not have them, and inventing them would make every other number on the page negotiable.
2. Star counts as a ranking signal
GitHub stars measure attention, not use. A library can have 40,000 stars and no maintenance; another can have 900 and be the dependency behind half a stack. We mention stars only where the repository is the product — and never as a ranking input.
3. Paid placement inside rankings
A sponsored slot is labelled and separated. What we will not do is reorder a comparison or a best-of list because someone paid. The moment a ranking is for sale, the label 'reviewed' is worth nothing.
4. Reviews of tools we have not used
There are entries here we have not run in anger — that is what the reviewed/listed split is for. But nothing in the reviewed tier is written from a press release alone.
What this costs
**Volume.** A directory willing to publish inferred traffic numbers has more 'data' on every page.
**Revenue.** Paid reordering is where a lot of directories actually make money.
**Credibility with vendors.** Some want their metrics published and will go elsewhere when told no.
Why it is still the right trade
A directory is a trust product. Its only inventory is the claim that what it says is true. Every excluded category above is one where the true answer is expensive and the false answer is cheap — which is exactly the pattern that pulls a content site toward fabrication.
The editorial policy states these rules, and the methodology page describes the checks behind them. If a page here contradicts either, that is a bug, not a policy.