What We Track
Skillful.sh's statistics dashboard monitors the AI tool ecosystem across several health dimensions. Total tool count shows absolute growth. Growth rate shows whether the pace is accelerating or decelerating. Average security grades show whether ecosystem security is improving. Maintenance activity levels show whether tools are being kept up to date.
These metrics are computed from data aggregated across 50+ directories and registries. Because we're looking at the whole ecosystem rather than any single source, the trends we identify are representative of what's actually happening across the full landscape of MCP servers, skills, and agents.
Growth Trends
The ecosystem is still growing, but the composition of that growth matters more than the raw numbers. Growth concentrated in high-quality tools is healthier than growth concentrated in low-quality entries. We track growth by quality tier to distinguish between these patterns.
Trending analysis identifies which categories are seeing the most momentum. Database tools, code generation, and knowledge management are currently the fastest-growing categories, which reflects where developer demand is strongest.
Security Trends
One of the most important trends we track is the average security grade over time. If the ecosystem's average grade is declining, it means new tools are arriving with more security issues than existing tools. If it's improving, it means maintainers are responding to security feedback and updating their dependencies.
We also track the percentage of tools with critical vulnerabilities and how quickly those vulnerabilities get addressed after being discovered. These metrics indicate how responsive the ecosystem is to security concerns.
Why This Matters for Users
Ecosystem health indicators help you set expectations. In a healthy, growing ecosystem, you can expect new and better tools to appear regularly. In a stagnating ecosystem, what's available now is roughly what'll be available next quarter. For the AI tool ecosystem in early 2026, the indicators are strongly positive: consistent growth, improving security, and increasing maintenance activity.
Category-level health data also guides tool selection. If a category shows declining maintenance (fewer updates, more abandoned tools), you might want to prioritize tools with strong backing or consider building your own. If a category shows increasing investment, waiting a few weeks might surface a better option than what's currently available.
Related Reading
- What AI Ecosystem Growth Rates Tell Us About Adoption
- How Trending Detection Works for AI Tools
- How the AI Tool Ecosystem Grew So Fast
View ecosystem statistics on Skillful.sh. See trending tools. Search 137,000+ AI tools.