Compare / Markets / North America vs Europe

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North America vs Europe: Europe publishes the cleaner API estate

European providers outscore North American ones on the Kin Score, agent readiness and all six facets, and this is a comparison the coverage check allows.

North America

17.8 average
emerging on average
Agent readiness 8.2 · agent-aware
2728 scored providers · region
VS

Europe

21.4 average
emerging on average
Agent readiness 11.3 · agent-aware
1822 scored providers · region

Each sun is drawn from the cohort's averages: six facet rings, the mean Kin Score and mean agent readiness.

A clean comparisonThe higher-scoring cohort is not the one we enriched more deeply (depth_confounded: false), so this gap can be read as a difference between the markets.

The usual assumption is that the US sets the pace on APIs. On the catalog’s rubric, Europe is ahead. The 1,822 scored European providers average 21.4 against 17.8 for the 2,728 in North America. Europe also leads on agent readiness (11.3 against 8.2) and on every one of the six facets, most clearly on contract quality (15.2 against 10.1) and operational transparency (11.7 against 8.4).

What makes this one worth quoting is the flag that is not raised. depth_confounded is false: Europe scores higher without being the cohort we enriched more deeply. Both regions sit at a median of seven artifact directories. North America simply has a longer tail of thin profiles, and its median is 11.9 against Europe’s 14.4.

The top of the market tells a different story. North America has the higher ceiling (87.6) and more exemplars (25 against 22). The leaders are American. The European middle is better behaved.

The distributions

North AmericaEuropeDelta
Kin Score, mean17.821.4-3.6
Kin Score, median11.914.4-2.5
Kin Score, highest87.684.9
Kin Score, std dev15.217.1
Agent readiness, mean8.211.3-3.1
Agent readiness, highest64.171.6

Delta is North America minus Europe, as the tool returns it.

Where the providers sit

North America

exemplar 25strong 71developing 216thin 303emerging 894minimal 1219

Europe

exemplar 22strong 69developing 245thin 265emerging 517minimal 704

Facet averages

FacetNorth AmericaEuropeDelta
Discoverability 56.4 58.5 -2.1
Contract Quality 10.1 15.2 -5.1
Contract Governance 5.6 6.4 -0.8
Operational Transparency 8.4 11.7 -3.3
Developer Ergonomics 17.4 21.7 -4.3
Access Clarity 21.1 23.8 -2.7

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.

ArtifactNorth AmericaEuropeDelta
First-party MCP server7%9%-2
Any MCP artifact (incl. derived)10%9%+1
OAuth scopes11%14%-3
Spectral rules8%10%-2
Arazzo workflows1%1%0
Agent skills0%0%0
Security artifact98%99%-1

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.

North AmericaEurope
Declared members30711954
Scored (in the averages)2728 (89%)1822 (93%)
Thinly covered25991690
Median artifact directories77
Mean catalog gap (points we could add)81.579.2
The full compare_cohorts response
{"a":{"kind":"region","slug":"north-america","name":"North America","members":3070,"stats":{"kind":"region","slug":"north-america","name":"North America","tier":"report","coverage":{"declared_members":3071,"resolved_members":3070,"scored_members":2728,"agent_scored_members":2728,"scored_share_pct":89,"unexamined_members":288,"enrichment_depth":{"mean_catalog_gap":81.5,"median_artifact_dirs":7,"n":2728,"thinly_covered":2599,"thinly_covered_of":2728,"thin_coverage_note":"2599 of 2728 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":17.8,"median":11.9,"min":0,"max":87.6,"stdev":15.2},"agent_readiness":{"mean":8.2,"median":0,"min":0,"max":64.1,"stdev":13.3},"band_distribution":{"exemplar":25,"strong":71,"developing":216,"thin":303,"emerging":894,"minimal":1219},"facet_averages":{"discoverability":{"mean":56.4,"n":2728},"contract_quality":{"mean":10.1,"n":2728},"contract_governance":{"mean":5.6,"n":2728},"operational_transparency":{"mean":8.4,"n":2728},"developer_ergonomics":{"mean":17.4,"n":2728},"access_clarity":{"mean":21.1,"n":2728}},"adoption":{"mcp_pct":10,"mcp_first_party_pct":7,"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":11,"security_pct":98,"arazzo_pct":1,"rules_pct":8}}},"b":{"kind":"region","slug":"europe","name":"Europe","members":1954,"stats":{"kind":"region","slug":"europe","name":"Europe","tier":"report","coverage":{"declared_members":1954,"resolved_members":1954,"scored_members":1822,"agent_scored_members":1822,"scored_share_pct":93,"unexamined_members":124,"enrichment_depth":{"mean_catalog_gap":79.2,"median_artifact_dirs":7,"n":1822,"thinly_covered":1690,"thinly_covered_of":1822,"thin_coverage_note":"1690 of 1822 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":21.4,"median":14.4,"min":0,"max":84.9,"stdev":17.1},"agent_readiness":{"mean":11.3,"median":0.6,"min":0,"max":71.6,"stdev":15.5},"band_distribution":{"exemplar":22,"strong":69,"developing":245,"thin":265,"emerging":517,"minimal":704},"facet_averages":{"discoverability":{"mean":58.5,"n":1822},"contract_quality":{"mean":15.2,"n":1822},"contract_governance":{"mean":6.4,"n":1822},"operational_transparency":{"mean":11.7,"n":1822},"developer_ergonomics":{"mean":21.7,"n":1822},"access_clarity":{"mean":23.8,"n":1822}},"adoption":{"mcp_pct":9,"mcp_first_party_pct":9,"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":14,"security_pct":99,"arazzo_pct":1,"rules_pct":10}}},"comparable":true,"delta":{"kin_score_mean":-3.6,"kin_score_median":-2.5,"agent_readiness_mean":-3.1,"facets":{"discoverability":-2.1,"contract_quality":-5.1,"contract_governance":-0.8,"operational_transparency":-3.3,"developer_ergonomics":-4.3,"access_clarity":-2.7},"adoption":{"mcp_pct":1,"mcp_first_party_pct":-2,"mcp_note":null,"skills_pct":0,"scopes_pct":-3,"security_pct":-1,"arazzo_pct":0,"rules_pct":-2},"enrichment_depth":{"mean_catalog_gap":2.3,"median_artifact_dirs":0}},"depth_confounded":false}

Result read 2026-10-27. North America and Europe 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.

From any MCP client connected to https://apis.io/mcp:
{"name": "compare_cohorts", "arguments": {"a": "region:north-america", "b": "region:europe"}}
Over the REST API:
curl "https://apis.io/api/v1/cohorts/compare?a=region:north-america&b=region:europe" \
  -H "X-API-Key: $APIS_IO_KEY"
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