Skills intelligence · RankedLightcast Open Skills
Lightcast Open Skills is a skills taxonomy that catalogs over 34,000 skills and is updated monthly, giving organizations a standard language for describing and analyzing workforce capabilities · lightcast.io ↗
Read the same way at every company size.
The standing depends on who is buying. Every model is asked the same questions for each company size.
Skills Base is first at 55%.
Skills Base is first at 28%. 0 of 14 models made it the first choice when asked directly.
Eightfold AI is first at 33%.
Why models recommend it
“my default for a mid-sized B2B company would be Lightcast as the external reference taxonomy, with a small company-specific layer”GPT-6 Luna · Paraphrase question · first choice
“Skills taxonomy: Lightcast Open Skills as the reference taxonomy, customized to your roles and terminology.”Perplexity Sonar · Paraphrase question · first choice
“Best Overall for Data & API-First Integration: Lightcast (Skills API & Open Taxonomy)”Gemini 3.5 Flash · Paraphrase question · first choice
“Recommended Skills Taxonomy: Lightcast Skills Taxonomy”Kimi K2 · Paraphrase question · first choice
What gives them pause
“Avoid These if Budget is a Constraint ... Lightcast ... priced via quote only and typically target enterprises”DeepSeek V4 Flash · Budget-constrained question · warning
“Avoid for mid-market: ... or Lightcast—they're often overkill”Grok 4.20 · Direct question · warning
Also on the shortlist
The products named in the same answers as Lightcast Open Skills, over the 43 answers that named it, and how often each was the first choice instead.
| Product | Named together | Picked instead | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 36 | 13 | View → | |
| 35 | 6 | Compare → | |
| 25 | 1 | View → | |
| 25 | 0 | View → | |
| 13 | 7 | Compare → | |
| 11 | 0 | Compare → | |
| 11 | 0 | View → | |
| 10 | 0 | View → | |
| 8 | 1 | Compare → | |
| 8 | 0 | View → |
What the models named instead of Lightcast Open Skills →
A side-by-side page exists where both products are among a category's top eight.
At a glance
Stated on Lightcast Open Skills's own site, not checked by Gane.
- For
- HR departments, educational institutions, workforce developers
- Price stated
- free of charge
- Free plan or trial
- See all 34,000+ skills in the Lightcast taxonomy right here, for free. ... When you register to use Lightcast Skills, we'll set you up with full access, free of charge.
- Integrations
- 150
How this is measured
Fourteen AI models from 12 labs are asked the same buying questions six ways, for three company sizes. Standings refresh every edition.
Gane sells AI visibility software. No company can pay to change a result.
Read the method →Sources returned with these answers
Fourteen of the fourteen models returned a source list in this edition: five return the pages they cited and nine the search results they consulted. These counts come from 39 of the 43 answers that named Lightcast Open Skills and are not a share of its labels.
Domains cited
102 of the 129 domain citations in answers naming Lightcast Open Skills came from a third party's page. Eighteen were to the publisher's own pages (the Gane Index), which the models cite like any other source; they are not counted as a third party.
Pages cited
Pages are listed as the models cited them.
By model
| Model | First choice | Alternative | Mention | Warning | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Perplexity Sonar | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Grok 4.20 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Mistral Small | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Llama 4 Maverick | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Kimi K2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |