Compare / Markets / Open Source vs Enterprise

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Open Source vs Enterprise: governance from the community, clarity from the sales team

Open-source providers outscore enterprise ones on contracts and governance. Enterprise vendors win on access clarity by nearly 12 points.

Open Source

30.8 average
thin on average
Agent readiness 17.1 · agent-aware
1160 scored providers · tag
VS

Enterprise

28 average
thin on average
Agent readiness 14.8 · agent-aware
679 scored providers · tag

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

Check this first: the gap is partly our coverageOpen Source scores 2.8 points higher than Enterprise AND is the better-enriched cohort: 4.8 points less catalog_gap and 4 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.

The 1,160 providers tagged open source average 30.8, against 28.0 for 679 tagged enterprise. The facets show two different strengths. Open source leads on contract quality (29.0 against 20.0), operational transparency (25.8 against 19.0) and developer ergonomics (36.7 against 30.1). 37% of open-source providers publish Spectral rules, the highest rate of any cohort on this page, against 24% for enterprise.

Enterprise wins clearly on one facet: access clarity, 32.4 against 20.7. Enterprise vendors publish plans, pricing and sign-up paths. Open-source projects often have none, because the code is free and the commercial offer, if there is one, lives elsewhere. Enterprise also leads on OAuth scopes (13% against 9%) and Arazzo workflows (4% against 2%).

The 2.8-point gap is depth-confounded, with four more artifact directories on the median open-source member. Open-source projects publish their contracts in public repositories, and that is exactly what our crawl finds best.

The distributions

Open SourceEnterpriseDelta
Kin Score, mean30.828+2.8
Kin Score, median3024.8+5.2
Kin Score, highest95.388.8
Kin Score, std dev15.818.6
Agent readiness, mean17.114.8+2.3
Agent readiness, highest66.466.5

Delta is Open Source minus Enterprise, as the tool returns it.

Where the providers sit

Open Source

exemplar 29strong 66developing 209thin 400emerging 330minimal 126

Enterprise

exemplar 17strong 51developing 139thin 110emerging 212minimal 150

Facet averages

FacetOpen SourceEnterpriseDelta
Discoverability 61.7 60.7 +1
Contract Quality 29 20 +9
Contract Governance 11 9.6 +1.4
Operational Transparency 25.8 19 +6.8
Developer Ergonomics 36.7 30.1 +6.6
Access Clarity 20.7 32.4 -11.7

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.

ArtifactOpen SourceEnterpriseDelta
First-party MCP server16%15%+1
Any MCP artifact (incl. derived)18%16%+2
OAuth scopes9%13%-4
Spectral rules37%24%+13
Arazzo workflows2%4%-2
Agent skills0%0%0
Security artifact97%99%-2

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.

Open SourceEnterprise
Declared members1187756
Scored (in the averages)1160 (98%)679 (90%)
Thinly covered879565
Median artifact directories1410
Mean catalog gap (points we could add)69.874.6
The full compare_cohorts response
{"a":{"kind":"tag","slug":"open-source","name":"Open Source","members":1187,"stats":{"kind":"tag","slug":"open-source","name":"Open Source","tier":"report","coverage":{"declared_members":1187,"resolved_members":1187,"scored_members":1160,"agent_scored_members":1160,"scored_share_pct":98,"unexamined_members":24,"enrichment_depth":{"mean_catalog_gap":69.8,"median_artifact_dirs":14,"n":1160,"thinly_covered":879,"thinly_covered_of":1160,"thin_coverage_note":"879 of 1160 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":30.8,"median":30,"min":0,"max":95.3,"stdev":15.8},"agent_readiness":{"mean":17.1,"median":19,"min":0,"max":66.4,"stdev":14.6},"band_distribution":{"exemplar":29,"strong":66,"developing":209,"thin":400,"emerging":330,"minimal":126},"facet_averages":{"discoverability":{"mean":61.7,"n":1160},"contract_quality":{"mean":29,"n":1160},"contract_governance":{"mean":11,"n":1160},"operational_transparency":{"mean":25.8,"n":1160},"developer_ergonomics":{"mean":36.7,"n":1160},"access_clarity":{"mean":20.7,"n":1160}},"adoption":{"mcp_pct":18,"mcp_first_party_pct":16,"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":9,"security_pct":97,"arazzo_pct":2,"rules_pct":37}}},"b":{"kind":"tag","slug":"enterprise","name":"Enterprise","members":756,"stats":{"kind":"tag","slug":"enterprise","name":"Enterprise","tier":"report","coverage":{"declared_members":756,"resolved_members":756,"scored_members":679,"agent_scored_members":679,"scored_share_pct":90,"unexamined_members":69,"enrichment_depth":{"mean_catalog_gap":74.6,"median_artifact_dirs":10,"n":679,"thinly_covered":565,"thinly_covered_of":679,"thin_coverage_note":"565 of 679 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":28,"median":24.8,"min":0,"max":88.8,"stdev":18.6},"agent_readiness":{"mean":14.8,"median":8.6,"min":0,"max":66.5,"stdev":16.3},"band_distribution":{"exemplar":17,"strong":51,"developing":139,"thin":110,"emerging":212,"minimal":150},"facet_averages":{"discoverability":{"mean":60.7,"n":679},"contract_quality":{"mean":20,"n":679},"contract_governance":{"mean":9.6,"n":679},"operational_transparency":{"mean":19,"n":679},"developer_ergonomics":{"mean":30.1,"n":679},"access_clarity":{"mean":32.4,"n":679}},"adoption":{"mcp_pct":16,"mcp_first_party_pct":15,"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":13,"security_pct":99,"arazzo_pct":4,"rules_pct":24}}},"comparable":true,"delta":{"kin_score_mean":2.8,"kin_score_median":5.2,"agent_readiness_mean":2.3,"facets":{"discoverability":1,"contract_quality":9,"contract_governance":1.4,"operational_transparency":6.8,"developer_ergonomics":6.6,"access_clarity":-11.7},"adoption":{"mcp_pct":2,"mcp_first_party_pct":1,"mcp_note":null,"skills_pct":0,"scopes_pct":-4,"security_pct":-2,"arazzo_pct":-2,"rules_pct":13},"enrichment_depth":{"mean_catalog_gap":-4.8,"median_artifact_dirs":4}},"depth_confounded":true,"depth_note":"Open Source scores 2.8 points higher than Enterprise AND is the better-enriched cohort: 4.8 points less catalog_gap and 4 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. Open Source and Enterprise each have their own page with the full roster and leaderboard.

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