Catalog statistics
Government vs commercial data: market structure in one catalog
As of August 2026 · computed on 2026-08-25
- datasets
- 1,744
- industries
- 144
- sources
- 1,055
- top coverage
- 66
Government vs commercial data at a glance
| Metric | Value | Denominator | Source section |
|---|---|---|---|
| Public datasets (government class) | 781 (44.8%) | 1,744 datasets | Source-type mix |
| Average quality score | 7.81 / 10 | 1,744 datasets | Quality rubric |
| Government-named top picks, average score | 8.81 / 10 | 229 scored entries, 24 briefs | Quality gap |
| Non-government top picks, average score | 8.47 / 10 | 229 scored entries, 24 briefs | Quality gap |
| Perfect-10 picks held by public sources | 16 of 22 | 22 scored-10 entries | Quality gap |
What share of the catalog do government publishers hold?
Of the 1,744 datasets Datadory catalogs, 781 (44.8%) are typed public_dataset, meaning they come from statistical agencies, regulators and public-science institutions. That makes government the largest single source class, ahead of every commercial model individually, and no commercial class reaches half the public share:
Concentration runs deeper than class counts: 204 of the 1,124 unique sources publish more than one dataset, and the heaviest multi-dataset publishers in the catalog are statistical agencies running dozens of series apiece.
Is government data higher quality than commercial data?
Yes, by every measure in the catalog. Catalog-wide the average quality score is 7.81 out of 10, and 1,096 datasets (62.8%) score 8 or higher. Narrowing to the 229 top-dataset entries carrying explicit scores across 24 industry briefs, government-named sources average 8.81/10 with 75.7% scoring 9 or higher, versus 8.47/10 and 46.6% for non-government entries. At the ceiling the gap widens: 16 of the 22 perfect-10 top picks are government or public-science products, including FEC Campaign Finance Data & OpenFEC API, openFDA Drug APIs, ClinicalTrials.gov, NCBI GenBank, PubChem, NCBI GEO, NCI Genomic Data Commons, Nevada Gaming Control Board gaming statistics, IPEDS, USDA FoodData Central, Census County Business Patterns and Eurostat's PRODCOM/COMEXT Data Browser.
| Group | Entries scored | Average score | Share scoring 9+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Government-named top datasets | 229 sampled | 8.81 / 10 | 75.7% |
| Non-government top datasets | 229 sampled | 8.47 / 10 | 46.6% |
| All cataloged datasets | 1,744 | 7.81 / 10 | 38.9% |
Only 30 datasets across the entire catalog score 4 or below, and they concentrate in thin industries rather than in the regulator-published core.
Questions worth asking
Is government data better quality than commercial data?
In Datadory's scoring, yes. Across 229 scored top-dataset entries in 24 industry briefs, government-named sources average 8.81/10 with 75.7% scoring 9 or higher, versus 8.47/10 and 46.6% for non-government entries. Sixteen of the 22 perfect-10 picks are government or public-science products.
Cite this
Every figure here traces to one programmatic rollup of the Datadory catalog, so quote it with the snapshot attached: “of the 1,744 datasets Datadory catalogs as of August 2026…”. Keep the denominator next to the percentage — 1,744 of an unspecified universe is a different claim.
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