Home / How we score
How tools are selected
Every tool is scored on six questions, 0 to 5 each, for a total out of 30. The questions come from the six ways Ivan Illich said tools tip out of balance, translated for software.
Footprint
Does it run light, work offline, and keep going on an old laptop, or does it need new hardware and a data centre?
Lock-in
Can you leave with your stuff in an open format, or does it make you depend on a whole category of product to take part?
Self-direction
Can a normal person learn it by using it and point it at their own purposes, without dark patterns training their habits?
Power
Who holds the controls? Team size, governance, open source, whether the price shuts people out, and whether your data is the product.
Longevity
Does it keep working if the company folds or you stop paying, and does it respect the hardware you already own?
Delivery
Does it actually do the job, without ads, engagement bait, or a promise the product can't keep?
What the totals mean
The total becomes a verdict, stamped on every review. The stamp is a judgement made by people, dated, and open to change.
Size: who makes it
- S
- One person or a few friends, usually self-funded. Most vibe-coded apps live here.
- M
- A small team or a community project with little or no outside money.
- L
- An established company with serious investors behind it.
- XL
- The behemoths. Reviewed rarely, as benchmarks outside the directory, to show what everything else is measured against.
Scope: how much of your life it holds
- Gadget
- Does one thing, usually needs no account. You could lose it without losing anything.
- Tool
- An app you use regularly as part of how you work or live.
- System
- Something your data lives in and your life runs on. Gets the most scrutiny.
Scope sets how deep a review goes. A gadget gets a short card. A system that holds your passwords or photos gets the long treatment.
The leaderboard
Every tool in the directory is ranked by its total on the leaderboard, so you can see at a glance which ones come out most convivial. A total hides detail, though, so open a review to see how a tool did on each of the six questions, and compare within a category when you are choosing, because a password manager and a painting program do different jobs.
Benchmarks
Now and then we score one of the giants, so you can see what everything else is measured against. These benchmark reviews use the same questions and the same scale, and they stay outside the directory and the leaderboard.
Our own tools
The founder of this site makes small software too. Those tools are scored with the same rubric and always carry a Made here label.
Credit where it's due
The idea of a convivial tool comes from Ivan Illich's 1973 book Tools for Conviviality, and the six questions follow the structure of its third chapter. The rubric itself is our own interpretation. Andrea Vetter's Matrix for Convivial Technology (2018) took on a similar task for engineers and is well worth reading.