Harpd Answers · Explained
What is the Harpd market index?
The Harpd market index is the published breakdown of Harpd Rank participation by category: product counts, share of listings and the leading product per category, with an explicit disclosure that this is not global market share.
Quick answer
What is the Harpd market index?
The Harpd market index is the category-level view of the Harpd Rank board: for each category it publishes the product count, the share of all listed products, the total Rank Points held and the leading product. It is available at /data/market-index.json and rendered on the data pages.
- Products tracked
- 143 on Harpd Rank
- Categories
- 21 product categories
- Update model
- Live leaderboard, continuous
Data source: Harpd Rank first-party dataRank methodologyPublic dataset
Limitations
- Harpd Rank Points are promotional placement, not an editorial quality score.
- Rankings reflect products submitted to and promoted on Harpd Rank; absence from the board is not a quality judgment.
Data source: Harpd Rank first-party data
How it works
The mechanics, plainly
Listings are grouped by their approved category, counted, and converted to a share of total listings. The index also publishes the total Rank Points held across the board. A disclosure travels with the data stating that share here means share of Harpd Rank participation, not share of the global software market.
How it compares
Harpd vs the traditional approach
| Aspect | Harpd / this model | Traditional |
|---|---|---|
| What it measures | Share of Harpd Rank participation | Claimed market share |
| Disclosure | Carried in the dataset itself | Often omitted |
| Granularity | Per category, with leader and points | Aggregate only |
| Access | Open JSON under CC BY 4.0 | Report or paywall |
Why it matters
Category concentration is the fastest way to understand what a product market looks like. Publishing it with an honest scope statement means it can be quoted without the reader being misled about what it measures — which is the failure mode of most "market share" statistics.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Harpd market index market share?
No, and the dataset says so explicitly. It is the distribution of listings across Harpd Rank categories — a measure of participation on Harpd, not of the global market.
Which category is largest?
See /data/market-index.json for the current leader and its share. The ordering changes as products are approved into categories.
Does a bigger category mean a more important market?
Not necessarily. It means more products are listed on Harpd in that category, which reflects both market size and how many makers chose to list.