indielist vs SteamSpy
A white-box SteamSpy alternative for indie developers, players and investors.
indielist is a white-box alternative to SteamSpy for the indie game ecosystem. Where SteamSpy free Steam ownership and sales estimates from profile sampling, indielist maps studios, publishers, games and funding into one graph and shows the formula behind every sales estimate, so you can audit the number instead of trusting a black box. It tracks 4,120 indie titles today, each cross-linked to the studio that made it, the publisher that shipped it, and any funding behind it. SteamSpy infers ownership from public profile sampling, a signal Valve degraded in 2018. indielist estimates from Steam review counts instead (unaffected by profile privacy) and expands every figure into a white-box Boxleiter breakdown you can audit, plus a studio-publisher-funding relationship graph SteamSpy does not have.
What SteamSpy is
SteamSpy, created by Sergey Galyonkin in 2015, estimates how many people own Steam games by sampling roughly 100,000-150,000 public Steam user profiles per day. It is free and was the classic go-to for ballpark Steam ownership. Since Valve made game libraries private by default in April 2018, its accuracy dropped and it now reports wide owner brackets (e.g. "200,000-500,000") rather than precise figures.
indielist vs SteamSpy, side by side
| indielist | SteamSpy | |
|---|---|---|
| Estimate method | White-box Boxleiter on review counts, with breakdown | Ownership inferred from public-profile sampling |
| Post-2018 reliability | Unaffected by profile privacy | Degraded since libraries went private by default |
| Output | Units + revenue + auditable breakdown | Owner brackets (wide bands) |
| Relationship graph | Studio/publisher/game/funding | No |
| Publisher sourcing | Submission status + portfolios | No |
| Access | Public catalog is free to browse; paid checkout currently unavailable | Free |
When to choose SteamSpy
- •You want free, full-Steam ownership ballparks across the whole catalog and are comfortable with wide brackets.
- •You like the classic owners-bracket view and tag/playtime aggregates SteamSpy is known for.
- •You do not need per-estimate methodology, revenue figures, or publisher/funding context.
When to choose indielist
- •You want an estimate that still works after the 2018 privacy change. indielist keys on review counts, not profile sampling.
- •You want the math, not just a bracket: every indielist estimate opens into its formula, and reports revenue, not only units.
- •You want ecosystem context: studio, publisher, funding relationships, plus publisher submission sourcing.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the best SteamSpy alternative in 2026?
- indielist is a free SteamSpy alternative that estimates indie-game sales from Steam review counts rather than profile sampling, so it is not affected by the 2018 privacy change that degraded SteamSpy. It shows a white-box breakdown for every estimate plus a studio-publisher-funding graph. SteamSpy remains a free, broad source of owner brackets across the full Steam catalog.
- Is SteamSpy still accurate?
- Less than it once was. After Valve made Steam libraries private by default in April 2018, SteamSpy’s profile-sampling method lost accuracy and now reports wide owner brackets. indielist sidesteps this by estimating from review counts with a transparent Boxleiter formula you can audit.
- Is indielist free like SteamSpy?
- Yes. The indielist public catalog is currently free to browse, and paid checkout is unavailable while billing moves to the central payment platform. SteamSpy is free. The difference is method and depth: SteamSpy gives owner brackets across all of Steam; indielist gives auditable per-game units and revenue plus ecosystem relationships for indie titles.
Comparison reviewed 2026-07-15. Competitor pricing and features are approximate and may change; check each tool directly. IndieList paid checkout is currently unavailable while billing moves to the central payment platform. Sales figures on indielist are estimates, not official data.