About AI Hot List
AI Hot List is a small, independent site that tracks which new AI tools are gaining traction right now. The list is rebuilt automatically about every 6 hours from public data; nobody pays to be listed or ranked.
How we rank
Each item gets a popularity signal from its own source: Hacker News points, GitHub stars per day since the repo was created, Hugging Face trending score, or Product Hunt votes. Signals are log-scaled and turned into a z-score within each source, so a source with big numbers can't drown out the others. The z-score is then multiplied by a relative source weight (Hacker News 0.200, GitHub 0.200, Hugging Face models 0.075, Hugging Face Spaces 0.075, Product Hunt 0.250). These weights sum to 0.80; they are relative to each other, not shares of 100%. A freshness decay of exp(−age in days ÷ 7) is applied as well. The hot page shows the top 50 items whose score is at least 1.
Sources
Hacker News “Show HN” posts about AI from the last 7 days with more than 15 points; new GitHub repositories tagged llm (created in the last 14 days); the top trending Hugging Face models and Spaces; and AI launches on Product Hunt from the last 3 days. For Product Hunt launches we link to the product's own website and credit the Product Hunt page.
Tools vs. models, demos and research
Not everything that trends is a ready-to-use tool. Model weights, Hugging Face demo Spaces, benchmarks, paper code and guides are labelled as such and listed in a separate “Models, demos & research” section below the tools.
Safety filtering
Items go through a keyword blocklist (for example vaping and e-cigarette products) and an automated review that drops items flagged as unsafe or not actually about AI. The same check runs on translated summaries. Summaries are written automatically and pricing is not verified, so always check the official website before you sign up or pay.
When a tool drops off the list
Every tool page stays online after the tool leaves the hot list. It shows a “No longer trending” notice with the date it was last listed, plus current alternatives.
Languages
The site is written in Chinese and English; other languages are machine-translated and may contain mistakes.
Contact
Found a mistake, want a tool removed, or have a suggestion? Message us on X at @lc0818036.