compare_cohorts
Cybersecurity vs Developer Tools: who governs their own APIs better?
Developer tools lead on score and ergonomics, but cybersecurity companies are likelier to publish OAuth scopes. The gap is small and depth-confounded.
Cybersecurity & Identity
Developer Tools & DevOps
Each sun is drawn from the cohort's averages: six facet rings, the mean Kin Score and mean agent readiness.
Two of the deepest industries in the catalog, with 2,313 scored cybersecurity and identity providers and 2,996 in developer tools and DevOps. Developer tools come out ahead at 33.4 against 31.1, with 118 exemplars against 71. The biggest single gap is developer ergonomics, 40.4 against 35.1. Companies that sell to developers tend to document for them too.
Cybersecurity has a lead of its own: 19% publish OAuth scopes, against 12% in developer tools. Identity companies are the ones defining scopes for everyone else, so they publish their own. Developer tools answer with Spectral rules, which 30% publish against 21% in security.
Both are well enriched, with medians of 14 and 15 artifact directories, so this is one of the fairer comparisons on the page. The flag is still raised, because the 2.3-point gap is only a little larger than the 2.9-point difference in catalog gap.
The distributions
| Cybersecurity & Identity | Developer Tools & DevOps | Delta | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kin Score, mean | 31.1 | 33.4 | -2.3 |
| Kin Score, median | 30.1 | 33 | -2.9 |
| Kin Score, highest | 91.6 | 89.2 | |
| Kin Score, std dev | 18.4 | 17.9 | |
| Agent readiness, mean | 17.7 | 18.7 | -1 |
| Agent readiness, highest | 73.8 | 74.4 |
Delta is Cybersecurity & Identity minus Developer Tools & DevOps, as the tool returns it.
Where the providers sit
Cybersecurity & Identity
Developer Tools & DevOps
Facet averages
| Facet | Cybersecurity & Identity | Developer Tools & DevOps | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Discoverability | 63.5 | 63.1 | +0.4 |
| Contract Quality | 25.3 | 28.5 | -3.2 |
| Contract Governance | 10.1 | 10.6 | -0.5 |
| Operational Transparency | 21.2 | 24.1 | -2.9 |
| Developer Ergonomics | 35.1 | 40.4 | -5.3 |
| Access Clarity | 31.2 | 31.5 | -0.3 |
What they publish
Share of each cohort's providers publishing each artifact. mcp_pct counts any mcp/ artifact including ones API Evangelist derived from the provider OpenAPI; mcp_first_party_pct counts only servers the provider publishes. Prefer the latter.
| Artifact | Cybersecurity & Identity | Developer Tools & DevOps | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| First-party MCP server | 18% | 23% | -5 |
| Any MCP artifact (incl. derived) | 19% | 25% | -6 |
| OAuth scopes | 19% | 12% | +7 |
| Spectral rules | 21% | 30% | -9 |
| Arazzo workflows | 4% | 4% | 0 |
| Agent skills | 0% | 0% | 0 |
| Security artifact | 97% | 97% | 0 |
How well we know each cohort
The coverage behind the averages. A cohort with a higher catalog gap and fewer artifact directories has been enriched less, so part of any difference is our coverage rather than the market.
| Cybersecurity & Identity | Developer Tools & DevOps | |
|---|---|---|
| Declared members | 2464 | 3131 |
| Scored (in the averages) | 2313 (94%) | 2996 (96%) |
| Thinly covered | 1960 | 2422 |
| Median artifact directories | 14 | 15 |
| Mean catalog gap (points we could add) | 73.9 | 71 |
The full compare_cohorts response
{"a":{"kind":"industry","slug":"cybersecurity","name":"Cybersecurity & Identity","members":2464,"stats":{"kind":"industry","slug":"cybersecurity","name":"Cybersecurity & Identity","tier":"report","coverage":{"declared_members":2464,"resolved_members":2464,"scored_members":2313,"agent_scored_members":2313,"scored_share_pct":94,"unexamined_members":104,"enrichment_depth":{"mean_catalog_gap":73.9,"median_artifact_dirs":14,"n":2313,"thinly_covered":1960,"thinly_covered_of":2313,"thin_coverage_note":"1960 of 2313 scored members had under half their catalog-attributable points satisfied at all (catalog_earned / catalog_max < 0.5). They are INCLUDED in the mean above. A large share here means the cohort mean is partly a measurement of how far our enrichment reached, not only of how these providers publish.","note":"Rubric points API Evangelist could add to the average member with no action by the providers, and the median count of artifact directories we hold on them. A cohort with a higher gap and thinner artifacts has been enriched less, so part of any difference between its mean and another cohort's is our coverage rather than the market. Compare two cohorts only when this figure is comparable. It is an upper bound on our backlog: it says who CAN close a gap, not who did."},"unexamined_note":"Excluded from the distribution: these carry a catalog-owned needs_work flag (never enriched, or no resolvable host). They are listed as members and keep their own page and score; they do not vote in the averages, because their score measures our coverage rather than their posture."},"sufficient":true,"kin_score":{"mean":31.1,"median":30.1,"min":0,"max":91.6,"stdev":18.4},"agent_readiness":{"mean":17.7,"median":18.7,"min":0,"max":73.8,"stdev":16.2},"band_distribution":{"exemplar":71,"strong":202,"developing":528,"thin":510,"emerging":614,"minimal":388},"facet_averages":{"discoverability":{"mean":63.5,"n":2313},"contract_quality":{"mean":25.3,"n":2313},"contract_governance":{"mean":10.1,"n":2313},"operational_transparency":{"mean":21.2,"n":2313},"developer_ergonomics":{"mean":35.1,"n":2313},"access_clarity":{"mean":31.2,"n":2313}},"adoption":{"mcp_pct":19,"mcp_first_party_pct":18,"mcp_note":"mcp_pct counts any mcp/ artifact including ones API Evangelist derived from the provider OpenAPI; mcp_first_party_pct counts only servers the provider publishes. Prefer the latter.","skills_pct":0,"scopes_pct":19,"security_pct":97,"arazzo_pct":4,"rules_pct":21}}},"b":{"kind":"industry","slug":"developer-tools","name":"Developer Tools & DevOps","members":3131,"stats":{"kind":"industry","slug":"developer-tools","name":"Developer Tools & DevOps","tier":"report","coverage":{"declared_members":3131,"resolved_members":3131,"scored_members":2996,"agent_scored_members":2996,"scored_share_pct":96,"unexamined_members":116,"enrichment_depth":{"mean_catalog_gap":71,"median_artifact_dirs":15,"n":2996,"thinly_covered":2422,"thinly_covered_of":2996,"thin_coverage_note":"2422 of 2996 scored members had under half their catalog-attributable points satisfied at all (catalog_earned / catalog_max < 0.5). They are INCLUDED in the mean above. A large share here means the cohort mean is partly a measurement of how far our enrichment reached, not only of how these providers publish.","note":"Rubric points API Evangelist could add to the average member with no action by the providers, and the median count of artifact directories we hold on them. A cohort with a higher gap and thinner artifacts has been enriched less, so part of any difference between its mean and another cohort's is our coverage rather than the market. Compare two cohorts only when this figure is comparable. It is an upper bound on our backlog: it says who CAN close a gap, not who did."},"unexamined_note":"Excluded from the distribution: these carry a catalog-owned needs_work flag (never enriched, or no resolvable host). They are listed as members and keep their own page and score; they do not vote in the averages, because their score measures our coverage rather than their posture."},"sufficient":true,"kin_score":{"mean":33.4,"median":33,"min":0,"max":89.2,"stdev":17.9},"agent_readiness":{"mean":18.7,"median":19.6,"min":0,"max":74.4,"stdev":16},"band_distribution":{"exemplar":118,"strong":296,"developing":694,"thin":791,"emerging":746,"minimal":351},"facet_averages":{"discoverability":{"mean":63.1,"n":2996},"contract_quality":{"mean":28.5,"n":2996},"contract_governance":{"mean":10.6,"n":2996},"operational_transparency":{"mean":24.1,"n":2996},"developer_ergonomics":{"mean":40.4,"n":2996},"access_clarity":{"mean":31.5,"n":2996}},"adoption":{"mcp_pct":25,"mcp_first_party_pct":23,"mcp_note":"mcp_pct counts any mcp/ artifact including ones API Evangelist derived from the provider OpenAPI; mcp_first_party_pct counts only servers the provider publishes. Prefer the latter.","skills_pct":0,"scopes_pct":12,"security_pct":97,"arazzo_pct":4,"rules_pct":30}}},"comparable":true,"delta":{"kin_score_mean":-2.3,"kin_score_median":-2.9,"agent_readiness_mean":-1,"facets":{"discoverability":0.4,"contract_quality":-3.2,"contract_governance":-0.5,"operational_transparency":-2.9,"developer_ergonomics":-5.3,"access_clarity":-0.3},"adoption":{"mcp_pct":-6,"mcp_first_party_pct":-5,"mcp_note":null,"skills_pct":0,"scopes_pct":7,"security_pct":0,"arazzo_pct":0,"rules_pct":-9},"enrichment_depth":{"mean_catalog_gap":2.9,"median_artifact_dirs":-1}},"depth_confounded":true,"depth_note":"Developer Tools & DevOps scores 2.3 points higher than Cybersecurity & Identity AND is the better-enriched cohort: 2.9 points less catalog_gap and 1 more artifact directories on the median member. The market difference and our coverage difference point the same way, so this delta cannot be attributed to the markets on its own. Close the enrichment gap, or report both figures together."}
Result read 2026-10-27. Cybersecurity & Identity and Developer Tools & DevOps each have their own page with the full roster and leaderboard.
Run this comparison yourself
Everything above came from one call to compare_cohorts. Swap in any two tags, industries, regions, areas or VC portfolios and you get the same answer for your own shortlist. It is an Understanding tool, included in the Understanding and Influence plans, or pay per call.
https://apis.io/mcp:
{"name": "compare_cohorts", "arguments": {"a": "industry:cybersecurity", "b": "industry:developer-tools"}}
Over the REST API:
curl "https://apis.io/api/v1/cohorts/compare?a=industry:cybersecurity&b=industry:developer-tools" \
-H "X-API-Key: $APIS_IO_KEY"
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