Curating the AI tool firehose, one affiliate link at a time

What it does

This is a classic “awesome list” — a hand-curated directory of hundreds of AI tools sorted by category. You’ll find text models, chatbots, image and video generators, coding assistants, marketing suites, and even AI phone agents. Each entry is a short description and a link, with an “Editor’s Choice” section at the top for quick picks.

The interesting bit

The list is as much a lead-generation vehicle as it is a public service. Nearly every entry routes through referral or affiliate links, and the maintainer actively promotes their own tool directory, altern.ai, and the Altern Newsletter. It is essentially a categorized phone book for the current AI gold rush, where the mapmaker also sells picks and shovels.

Key highlights

• Covers the full generative AI stack: LLMs, chatbots, search engines, writing assistants, code generators, image/video/audio tools, and AI phone agents
• Mixes commercial SaaS with open-source projects like privateGPT, quivr, and MemFree
• Includes an “Editor’s Choice” shortlist and links to sibling awesome-lists for deeper verticals
• Maintained with a companion newsletter for weekly updates

Caveats

• Heavy on affiliate and referral links; editorial independence is unclear
• Descriptions often read like vendor marketing copy rather than technical evaluation
• No stated criteria for inclusion, ranking, or how “Editor’s Choice” is determined

Verdict

Developers who need a broad, categorized starting point to survey the AI tool landscape will find it useful. Anyone seeking rigorous benchmarks, reproducible tests, or unbiased reviews without commercial incentives should look elsewhere.