Glossary
The vocabulary of the index, in plain language. Alphabetical, short, and the same everywhere on the site.
- Alliance
- A named group formed on the platform. Infra alliances align vendors whose products complement each other for joint go-to-market; host alliances let independent hosts make purchasing decisions as a group.
- Claim
- Taking ownership of a profile with a work email on the company's own domain. A verified claim covers the whole organization — its host face, vendor face, and brands — and unlocks editing and declaring.
- Declaration
- A host stating, layer by layer, which product it runs. Declarations are the atomic unit of the index: market share, Pancake Scores, and vendor rankings are all computed from them.
- Disclosure states
- Every declaration is public, private, or hidden. Public shows on the host's profile and counts everywhere. Private counts toward aggregate market share without ever being attributed to the host. Hidden leaves the layer off the record entirely.
- Griddle
- The stack builder: pick your layers, pick vendors per layer, and build a stack you can save and share — including, eventually, what that stack truly costs.
- Layer
- One slot in the stack taxonomy that a host fills with a product — control panel, web server, DNS, backups, and so on. Hosts declare per layer; market share is measured per layer.
- Pancake Score
- A vendor's total adoption across its whole portfolio: every declaration of any of its products counts as one pancake. One host running two of a vendor's products adds two pancakes — so the score rewards both how many hosts run a vendor and how deeply each one does.
- Stack depth
- How many layers of the taxonomy a host actually runs and has declared. A host declaring twelve layers has a stack depth of twelve — the taller the stack, the more complete its record.
- Tier
- A band of related layers in the taxonomy, ordered from the metal to the market. The stack has six tiers; every layer belongs to exactly one.