Provider at a glance
- Category
- Dev Frameworks
- Entity
- Not verified
- Official website
- apeworx.io
Independent rankingchecked How it works
Details
Scored 61 out of 100 under methodology 2026.10.18, from the evidence read in September 2026.
ApeWorX (Ape)
Python smart-contract toolchain
Dev Frameworks
#6 Overall
Ranked #6 of 7 dev frameworks in the published ranking
61
ChainChoice Score
The ChainChoice Score, shown against 100: published scores run from 41 to 99.- High evidence confidence
Is ApeWorX (Ape) right for you?
Look elsewhere if these come first
- Maintenance That Is Actually Happening6/10 here; Remix IDE scores 10
- Testing Depth The Toolchain Itself Ships6/10 here; Anchor (Solana) scores 9
- Lock-In And Documented Exit Path5/10 here; Remix IDE scores 9
- Distribution, Pinning And Disclosure8/10 here; Anchor (Solana) scores 9
Not yet tested for your country. Markets it lists: Global.
to test where you can use it.
The rank above is the published one, the same for every reader. Find my best development framework shows where it lands for you.
What will ApeWorX (Ape) cost you?
Not priced on this basis
- Usage per month
- 10
How safe is ApeWorX (Ape)?
- Evidence: verified4 of 4 criteria rest on quoted, sourced receipts. Read September 2026.
- LicenceMiCA (EU): no register record on file here.
Alternatives to ApeWorX (Ape)
Compare all 4- 4Remix IDE8 points above · stronger on maintenance cadence (10 against 6)69
- 5Anchor (Solana)6 points above · stronger on native testing depth (9 against 6)67
- 7Scaffold-ETH 29 points below · stronger on maintenance cadence (7 against 6)52
For your setup
Find out if ApeWorX (Ape) fits you
The rank above is the published one — the same for every visitor. Answer the category's questions and this section shows where ApeWorX (Ape) lands for you, which criteria your answers weight up, and which stated needs the record does or does not meet. The published rank stays beside it.
- A few questions
- No account required
- Ranking-blind: no commercial input
- Personalised in under 60 seconds
Find my best development frameworkNothing is inferred from clicks, popularity or commercial value.
Why this rank
Why ApeWorX (Ape) ranks #6
Each strength is read from evidence on a 0–10 ladder and weighted as the published methodology states. The 32 objective points these produce (19.4 here) sit inside the score; availability, friction, trust record and measured data add the rest.
4 published criteria · Σ weight 100
CriterionWeightStrength · 0–10ScoreContrib.MedianBestRankEvidence
306+5.769.010#7/7Loading evidence…
306+5.769.010#5/7Loading evidence…
255+4.006.09#5/7Loading evidence…
158+3.848.010#3/7Loading evidence…
Hairline = best in this ranking · tick = its median · a missing bar is "not scored", never zero
Margin−6behind Anchor (Solana), #5
RobustnessHoldsacross a one-point change to each of its 4 criterion scores, the re-run scores 60–63 and stays #6
Evidence4 of 4 scored4 quoted, 4 with a source link
What would move the rank
Each line is the ranking run again with one of ApeWorX (Ape)’s criterion scores changed and every other value held: the smallest whole-point change on that criterion that moves its rank, and where the re-run puts it. Up to 4 climbs and 3 falls are listed, smallest change first. Nothing here is a forecast.
Maintenance That Is Actually Happening 6 → 10 on its ladder · passes Anchor (Solana)+469#6 → #5
Testing Depth The Toolchain Itself Ships 6 → 10 on its ladder · passes Anchor (Solana)+469#6 → #5
Lock-In And Documented Exit Path 5 → 9 on its ladder · passes Anchor (Solana)+468#6 → #5
Maintenance That Is Actually Happening 6 → 1 on its ladder · Scaffold-ETH 2 passes it−552#6 → #7
Testing Depth The Toolchain Itself Ships 6 → 1 on its ladder · Scaffold-ETH 2 passes it−552#6 → #7
Smallest climb: maintenance That Is Actually Happening 6 → 10 passes Anchor (Solana), #5.
Strengths
0 from the score dataWhere it leads
No scored criterion is at or within one point of the category best, so no strength can be stated from the data.
Tradeoffs
4 from the score dataWhere it trails
Not for readers who put first
- Maintenance That Is Actually Happening — 6/10 against a category best of 10/10
- Testing Depth The Toolchain Itself Ships — 6/10 against a category best of 10/10
- Lock-In And Documented Exit Path — 5/10 against a category best of 9/10
- Distribution, Pinning And Disclosure — 8/10 against a category best of 10/10
Record watch-outs
- Ape is the strongest Python option in this pool and the wrong default for most teams, for one structural reason: its tests are Python, and Python is not a language any other EVM toolchain runs. The exit bill is the entire tests/ and scripts/ trees rewritten in Solidity or TypeScript — a cost Foundry and Hardhat users do not carry against each other. Buy Ape when your quant, data or backend stack is already Python and you want contract tests in the same language as everything else; nothing else here offers that adjacency. Do not buy it expecting Foundry-class testing: fuzzing and invariant testing exist nowhere in the product (re-verified 2026-08-12 by grepping the whole docs/ tree — zero hits — and by parsing the full 384KB search index, whose 3,407 terms contain no fuzz/invariant/hypothesis key), so property-based coverage means adopting hypothesis as a third-party dependency the vendor explicitly disclaims. Ape's headline capabilities route through OTHER packages with their own, worse cadence: forking and call-level gas detail need ape-foundry (newest release 0.8.12, 2026-02-16) or ape-hardhat (0.8.5, 2024-12-09 — twenty months stale); without one, the docs say gas reporting "is limited to receipt-level data". `dev_message` revert assertions are worse than described: testing.md:478 requires a tracing provider like ape-hardhat AND testing.md:495 states dev_messages work only for contracts compiled with ape-vyper, "but not for those compiled with ape-solidity" — a Solidity team cannot use that feature at all. Non-EVM is documented but not maintained: Starknet appears in three core doc pages, yet ape-starknet last shipped 0.6.0 on 2023-02-01. Two dated facts to re-check before committing: on 2026-09-28 the stable channel's newest releases are 0.8.51 (2026-08-22) and 0.8.52 (2026-09-25), but the default branch carries only 9 commits since 2026-06-30, one short of the 10 the next maintenance band asks for. Ape is maintained, not abandoned, but a team betting a 2027 codebase on it should watch whether that commit pace holds. You are buying a Python driver over someone else's node, not an independent execution stack.
Competitive position
Where ApeWorX (Ape) leads and where it trails
Rank on every objective dimension among the rows scored on it. A criterion in the top third of its pool is listed as a lead, the bottom third as a trail; the middle is neither. Popularity, size and commercial terms are not dimensions.
Availability#1 / 714.0 of 20 · constant here
Published criteria#6 / 714.5 of 30 · best 22.8
Friction#1 / 72.7 of 10 · constant here
Trust record#1 / 73.2 of 8 · constant here
Measured data#1 / 78.3 of 18 · constant here
Where ApeWorX (Ape) leads
- Distribution, Pinning And Disclosure#3 / 7
Where it trails
- Maintenance That Is Actually Happening#7 / 7
- Testing Depth The Toolchain Itself Ships#5 / 7
- Lock-In And Documented Exit Path#5 / 7
Closest alternatives
The 3 nearest rows by score
Nearest by published score in either direction. Each card states the criteria on which the two rows differ and the cost difference under the same scenario inputs; the compare arithmetic below shows why the higher one ranks higher.
Anchor (Solana)#5 of 7 · score 67 · 6.0 points ahead
ApeWorX (Ape) leads on
- Lock-In And Documented Exit Path5 vs 2
Anchor (Solana) leads on
- Maintenance That Is Actually Happening8 vs 6
- Testing Depth The Toolchain Itself Ships9 vs 6
- Distribution, Pinning And Disclosure9 vs 8
Largest single reason Anchor (Solana) is ahead: published criteria (+5.7 display points).Scenario cost: Anchor (Solana) has no verified pricing for this scenario.
Remix IDE#4 of 7 · score 69 · 8.0 points ahead
ApeWorX (Ape) leads on
- Testing Depth The Toolchain Itself Ships6 vs 4
- Distribution, Pinning And Disclosure8 vs 6
Remix IDE leads on
- Maintenance That Is Actually Happening10 vs 6
- Lock-In And Documented Exit Path9 vs 5
Largest single reason Remix IDE is ahead: published criteria (+8.1 display points).Scenario cost: Remix IDE has no verified pricing for this scenario.
Scaffold-ETH 2#7 of 7 · score 52 · 9.0 points behind
ApeWorX (Ape) leads on
- Testing Depth The Toolchain Itself Ships6 vs 2
- Lock-In And Documented Exit Path5 vs 4
- Distribution, Pinning And Disclosure8 vs 6
Scaffold-ETH 2 leads on
- Maintenance That Is Actually Happening7 vs 6
Largest single reason ApeWorX (Ape) is ahead: published criteria (+9.1 display points).Scenario cost: Scaffold-ETH 2 has no verified pricing for this scenario.
Against the leader
83 vs 61 · gap 22.0Why Foundry ranks above ApeWorX (Ape)
The compare workspace's arithmetic applied to these two rows. Each dimension's share of the gap is its weight × the difference, on the displayed scale — it reproduces the displayed gap of 22.0 to within rounding.
DimensionThisFoundryGap share
Availability · 23% weight · constant here14.014.0same
Published criteria · 35% weight14.522.8−21.6, worse
Friction · 12% weight · constant here2.72.7same
Trust record · 9% weight · constant here3.23.2same
Measured data · 21% weight · constant here8.38.3same
Published criterionThisFoundryPoints
Maintenance That Is Actually Happening · w30610−3.84, worse
Testing Depth The Toolchain Itself Ships · w30610−3.84, worse
Lock-In And Documented Exit Path · w2558−2.40, worse
Distribution, Pinning And Disclosure · w15810−0.96, worse
Net6183−22.0
Your scenario
ApeWorX (Ape) is not priced for this scenario
Metered usage beyond whatever the plan includes, for a year. Excludes egress, support tiers and enterprise minimums. Change an input and every figure recomputes from the published rate; the published rank does not move.
your cost/yr · default scenario — set your own
Usage per month · your input10
Rate read from the provider’s published pricing ↗ on 28 September 2026.
your cost/yrCost is stated as your cost/yr in USD; it is never a yield, never annualised, and it does not enter the score.
Not priced on this basis
Under the default inputs · USDCategory medianNot priced0 of 7 rows priced
Cheapest pricedNone pricedDifference not stated · availability not applied — set your country to filter
7 of 7 rows in this ranking have no verified rate for this scenario and are absent from the median, not counted as free.
Evidence
Evidence read 28 September 2026
One row per published criterion: the page each strength was read from, its source type by domain, the reading date and whether the file and the published table agree. Open a row for the quote and the receipt.
4 of 4 cells scored
Score evidenceVerified4 of 4 criteria reconstruct from receipts
4 of 4 criteria reconstruct from a quoted, sourced receipt equal to the published strength.Public receiptsReading…4 quoted with a source URL
The receipt file has not been read yet.Evidence confidenceHighcoverage and corroboration, never freshness
4/4 criteria scored, with 4 dated sources quoted.RobustnessHoldsrank #6 across every one-point re-run
Whether the position holds when one criterion score is changed by one point and the ranking is run again. It is always a re-run of the ranking, never an estimate.The newest evidence read on the platform is 3 November 2026; this category's reading is older. The scores stand as read on 28 September 2026.
Reading the evidence ledger…
CriterionSourceTypeReadFreshnessStatusReceipt
Maintenance That Is Actually Happeningstrength 6 · weight 30Report an error—28 September 2026*
Unknown
No reading date is recorded for this cell or its category.No receipt
A strength is published but no quote or source page is on file for it.Testing Depth The Toolchain Itself Shipsstrength 6 · weight 30Report an error—28 September 2026*
Unknown
No reading date is recorded for this cell or its category.No receipt
A strength is published but no quote or source page is on file for it.Lock-In And Documented Exit Pathstrength 5 · weight 25Report an error—28 September 2026*
Unknown
No reading date is recorded for this cell or its category.No receipt
A strength is published but no quote or source page is on file for it.Distribution, Pinning And Disclosurestrength 8 · weight 15Report an error—28 September 2026*
Unknown
No reading date is recorded for this cell or its category.No receipt
A strength is published but no quote or source page is on file for it.How you can lose money here, and what the ranking scores
- Contract failure (ApeWorX (Ape) 8/10): the code holding the funds is exploited.Scored by Distribution, Pinning And Disclosure · 15%
- Exit failure: you cannot get out at par, on time, or with what is yours.Scored by Maintenance That Is Actually Happening · 30% (ApeWorX (Ape) 6/10)Scored by Lock-In And Documented Exit Path · 25% (ApeWorX (Ape) 5/10)
Not assessed by this ranking: Liveness failure. A high place says nothing about these; the Methodology tab says what each means. Also scored, as cost, quality or a summary of several families: Testing Depth The Toolchain Itself Ships (30%).
Facts
facts, not scoresWhat the record publishes
- Pricing
- No price is published, and none is owed: Ape is free open-source software. The vendor's framework page (https://
www .apeworx .io /framework /, HTTP 200, fetched 28 September 2026) carries no pricing, cost or plan language at all; it presents the tool as "Ape Framework is an easy-to-use Web3 development tool. Users can compile, test, and interact with smart contracts all in one command line session." and its only acquisition step is "pip install eth-ape". The ApeWorX homepage (https:// www .apeworx .io /, HTTP 200, fetched 28 September 2026) now states it outright: "Everything we build is open-source and free to use, modify, and distribute." The licence is carried in the distributed package: PyPI reports license_expression "Apache-2.0" for eth-ape 0.8.52 (https:// pypi .org /pypi /eth-ape /json, fetched 28 September 2026). Distribution is free on PyPI (`pip install eth-ape`, or via pipx) and as container images at ghcr.io/apeworx/ape. No commercial-support tier, enterprise SKU or paid edition appears on either page, and the security policy still states "ApeWorX does not currently have any bug bounty programs." Treat total cost as engineering time, not licence fees.ApeWorX (Ape) — official pricing page ↗ · 28 September 2026 - Prices published in
- USDApeWorX (Ape) — official pricing page ↗ · 28 September 2026
- Licences held
- Not published
- Compliance level
- partial
- Regulatory note
- Not published
- Supported chains
- Not published
- Markets served
- global
- Primary markets
- Not published
- Restricted markets
- Not published
- Operating limits
- Not published
- Availability note
- Not published
No confirmed legal entity is on file for this record. Nothing is inferred from the brand name.
If something goes wrong with ApeWorX (Ape): where to complain, and where to report a scam
Loading the routes for your country.
How this page is reviewed
Reviewed means this product in this category was read against its sources on or after that date; every ranked category is re-read at least every 45 days. Models research, extract and parse. A deterministic engine ranks. Every quote passes an adversarial refute pass.
Accountable for this review: Mathias Siemonsmeier, Founder.
How we review · Review calendar · Corrections log · How we make money
History
What the record carries
Changes to published ranks are recorded in a ledger; every step and its cause is listed on the rank-history page. The entries below begin with the current verified snapshot, then the methodology versions whose changes applied to this category, newest first.
8 methodology entries
- 28 September 2026Current verified snapshot · methodology 2026.10.18Score 61, #6 of 7. 4 of 4 criteria scored. History starts here; earlier values are not interpolated.
- 10 October 2026
2026.10.8When nothing serves your country, the list shown for reference is the published ranking · platform-wide- fixed The reference list shown when nothing serves your country is the published order with the published scores, and a build check now fails any such list out of that order or with a score the ranking does not publish.
- fixed The explorer prints an overall rank only for a row the published ranking holds; a country entrant such as Coinbase Commerce for US merchants shows no overall rank.
- changed Published orders do not move. Country results change only where nothing serves the country: in India bill pay keeps Bitcoin Well first and now shows Strike second, as published; 35 such runs across all categories and countries now match the published list exactly.
- 10 October 2026
2026.10.6A criterion you require re-scores the rows that meet it · platform-wide- changed The explorer sends each criterion you require, at any band, as fit_required with your other answers; region, licence, chain and fact filters stay filters. On /best, a required criterion joins For you as a marked preference does, which needs your country; Overall stays the published ranking, filtered.
- added Every published criterion has a golden case as the explorer sends it (require:<criterion>), so the order a requirement gives is replayed and gated as the published order is, and a change to it needs an entry here.
- 16 September 2026
2026.09.15Dimension scores carry tenths, and eleven more categories are re-read from primary sources · platform-wide- changed Dimension scores resolve to tenths of a point (O-04b), and weightedTotal is rounded to six decimal places before the order is read. 518 published scores move across 107 categories that were not re-read; none of them moves by more than 4 points, and most move by 1.
- fixed 66 published scores change in the eleven re-read categories, against a verbatim source each. The largest moves are Reflexer RAI (−16), Beefy and Unrekt (−11), Aztec (−10) and Golem (+9) — all of them rows whose sources had moved since their last read.
- changed Published order moves in 38 of 119 categories and three #1s change: smart_contract_audits (Zellic → Certora) and travel_rule_compliance (Sumsub Travel Rule → CodeVASP) on the finer resolution, kyc_compliance (Veriff → Sumsub) on the re-read.
- added availabilitySource (O-04g): for a reader who states a country, a row whose availability in that country rests on a region tag its record gives no source for sorts below every sourced row. It is inert in every order published here, which states no country.
Methodology 2026.10.18, the same published run every visitor sees · receipt dev_frameworks:apeworx:2026.10.18:a4b48562d27b
Are you ApeWorX (Ape)? Reply to this verdict, or send evidence, ask for a correction or claim the listing. Every message gets a public ticket number; none of it changes a rank unless a public page or a signed statement supports it.