What ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok actually recommend when someone building alone asks what to use. The ranking publishes once the category clears the sample gate; the method is public already.
By Orbator · Updated Sep 4, 2026 · n and window on every figure
Someone searching for the best AI tools for indie hackers is asking two things at once. Which tools should a one-person company run on, and how does a product built by one person get in front of buyers. Both questions now get put to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok, and the answers differ from engine to engine. The AI Recommendation Index samples those answers with buyer-shaped prompts, no product names in them, and counts what each one recommends.
The ranking that publishes here is that count. Each tool carries the share of sampled answers that recommended it, and the same share per engine. A product named in passing, or named as a warning, does not add to its share. The engines rarely settle on one leader. Across 17 measured categories, a single product led every engine in 0% of them (n=17, 28-day window).
The second question, how a solo founder reaches buyers, also has a measured side. It starts with what the engines read before they answer. Across the whole Index, 52.9% of the pages the engines cited were published by a vendor in the category being asked about (2,144 of 4,055 citations, 28-day window).
The Index is sampling ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok with buyer questions about indie hacker and solopreneur tools. The ranking publishes once the category holds at least 20 sampled answers in its 4-week window. No figure appears here before it is measured.
52.9%
of the pages the engines cited across the Index were published by a vendor in the category being asked about (2,144 of 4,055 citations, 28-day window). For a solo founder this is the usable line. A plain page on your own domain that answers the buyer's question is the same kind of page that makes up that share of the reading list.
The sources behind your own category are listable the same way. The free check shows which pages each engine cited for one buyer question, and this guide walks through resolving every cited page to its owner. Channels with no citation behind them are left off this page on purpose.
The live ranking publishes here once the sample clears the gate. Browse the categories already published, or check your own AI visibility while you wait.
One real buyer question, every engine, and the pages each one read before answering. The same measurement as the ranking above, pointed at your product.
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