May 2026 snapshot
Snapshot date: 2026-05-04 · Previous: 2026-04-28 · Live leaderboard ↗
The ranking
| # | App | Tokens (B) | Share | Δ Rank | Δ Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | OpenClaw | 240.0 | 18.78% | NEW | NEW |
| 2 | Hermes Agent | 217.0 | 16.96% | — | ▼4.7pp |
| 3 | Kilo Code | 160.0 | 12.51% | ▼2 | ▼10.4pp |
| 4 | Claude Code | 84.2 | 6.58% | ▼1 | ▼3.7pp |
| 5 | pi | 37.8 | 2.96% | ▲2 | ▲1.3pp |
| 6 | Cline | 21.8 | 1.70% | ▼1 | ▼0.7pp |
| 7 | Lemonade | 21.5 | 1.68% | ▼3 | ▼0.7pp |
| 8 | Roo Code | 17.3 | 1.35% | ▼2 | ▼0.6pp |
| 9 | Agent Zero | 4.18 | 0.33% | ▼1 | ▼0.2pp |
| 10 | Zed Editor | 3.67 | 0.29% | NEW | NEW |
Ranks 11–20: Qwen Code (3.29B), GDevelop (3.13B), OpenHands (2.94B), Studs.gg (2.11B), Portkey AI (1.79B), Deep Agents CLI (1.75B), Crush (1.1B), zorai (0.781B), Ito (0.504B), OpenSquilla (0.388B)
What's interesting (our take)
- OpenClaw debuted at #1 with 240B tokens. The original platform that all major forks descend from reclaimed the top position in a single month — it either wasn't tracked by OpenRouter previously or had a dramatic activation event. At 18.78% share it sits above Kilo Code's previous peak (22.9% in April, but measured against a smaller total market).
- The fork chain is fragmenting. Kilo Code (a Cline-fork) fell from #1 to #3 and lost 28B tokens in absolute terms — the only app in the top 10 to shrink month-over-month. Roo Code and Cline also fell in rank. The forks are being cannibalized by their upstream as OpenClaw's own feature velocity accelerated.
- Total market volume grew ~56% month-over-month (estimated ~821B → ~1,278B total tokens), making this expansion, not zero-sum competition. Nearly every app gained absolute tokens; Kilo Code's absolute shrink is therefore notable — it lost users while the category boomed.
- pi surged from #7 to #5, more than doubling its tokens (13.9B → 37.8B). pi is primarily a conversational companion product, not a dev-focused agent. Its rise into coding territory likely reflects developers using it for pair-programming discussion and architecture review rather than direct code generation — a use pattern worth watching.
- Lemonade reversed sharply, falling from #4 to #7 despite absolute token growth. Last month's vertical-specialist story (Roblox-focused coding) appears to have been a timing coincidence rather than durable adoption. Vertical specialists may face stickier competition from general-purpose agents that can be prompted into any vertical.
- Long-tail expansion: 8 new entrants in positions 11–20 including Qwen Code, Zed Editor, Studs.gg, and Portkey AI. Top-3 concentration dropped from ~55% to ~48% of total volume. The category is broadening even as the top two positions consolidated.
What we'll watch next month
- Can Kilo Code arrest its absolute token decline, or will it continue ceding ground to OpenClaw? A second month of shrinkage would be a structural signal, not noise.
- Will pi's coding-category surge continue? If it crosses 5% share it will be the clearest signal yet that conversational agents are encroaching on dev-tool territory.
- Can Qwen Code or Zed Editor break into the top 5? Both entered the top 20 this month — Qwen Code especially benefits from its open-weight model base and lower per-token cost on OpenRouter.
- Does OpenClaw hold #1, or was this entry spike a model-launch artifact? The May snapshot will tell us if the 240B total is a new floor or a one-time activation event.