Soft.xyz is an independent, data-driven platform that compares 232+ developer tools across 69 categories by real metrics — GitHub activity, npm downloads, actual pricing, DX scores, and community sentiment. Unlike pay-to-play review sites, every ranking on Soft.xyz is based on publicly verifiable data pulled from GitHub, npm, and official pricing pages.

How does Soft.xyz collect data?

Soft.xyz pulls data from public APIs including GitHub (stars, forks, commits, open issues, last commit date), npm (weekly download counts), and official pricing pages. Community sentiment data comes from Reddit and Hacker News mention tracking. All metrics are refreshed weekly and timestamped so you can see exactly when data was last updated.

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Yes, Soft.xyz is completely free to use. All tool pages, comparisons, benchmarks, DX scores, pricing analysis, and category rankings are available at no cost. For teams that need a deeper analysis, we offer a paid Stack Audit report ($199) that evaluates your entire tech stack with personalized recommendations. An API is also available for programmatic access to our dataset.

How many tools does Soft.xyz track?

Soft.xyz tracks 232 developer tools across 69 categories including databases, hosting, authentication, payments, analytics, CI/CD, monitoring, search, CMS, and more. Each tool page includes real-time GitHub metrics, npm download counts, pricing breakdowns, and side-by-side comparisons with alternatives in the same category.

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Apiary

Acquired & Killed — January 2024

Reviewed byRoman K· 2024-01-15

What was it?

API design and documentation platform. API Blueprint format, mock servers, testing.

What happened?

Oracle acquired Apiary in 2017. Gradually neglected, finally shut down. Users given migration period.

Migration Guide

Swagger/OpenAPI + Swagger UI, Stoplight, or Postman for API design and documentation.

Timeline & context

Apiary acquired & killed in January 2024, 2 years ago. It sat in the backend category, where Soft.xyz tracks 7 discontinued products in total. If you are still running it in production, the migration path above is the shortest route off it.

FAQ

Why did Apiary shut down?

Oracle acquired Apiary in 2017. Gradually neglected, finally shut down. Users given migration period.

What should I migrate Apiary to?

No drop-in replacement is tracked yet — check the backend category for current options.

Is there a free alternative to Apiary?

Not among the tracked alternatives.

Also dead in backend

Google Cloud Functions Gen 1 — 2025 Firebase Spark Legacy Quotas — 2024 Standard Library (stdlib) — 2023 Google IoT Core — 2023 Google Cloud IoT Core — 2023 HashiCorp Vault Community Edition (free name) — 2023