In Cardano, one of the core ideas is that people delegate to a “good” pool. Everyone has a different opinion of what a “good” pool is. In my eyes, good pools are contributing to the ecosystem more than by just running cardano-node. They are grabbing a shovel and build on Cardano.

This article is for people who either want to know what is being built on Cardano today or who are looking to support stake pools that “quietly and secretly” provide the entire ecosystem with great tools. I write “quietly and secretly” because many of the ones listed here don't have a large audience or reach. Because they build instead of making podcasts. They rather sit in front of their shell (command-line tool) instead of a social network app.

Cardano block explorers are browsers for the Cardano blockchain. They can display the contents of individual blocks and transactions.

Adaex [POOLS, CRDNS, CRDN1, CRDN2]
A classic block explorer that also offers a Cardano rich list. Built and operated by the well-known Cardanians.

Adastat [STAT]
Built and operated by Dmitry Stashenko. Ruslan Soluyanov, who is the owner of the Cardano Russian Telegram group has contributed to the Adastat design. One of five projects that received a grant in 2020 from the Cardano Foundation within the scope of a request for proposal (RFP).

Adascan [SCAN]
Built and operated by Iaku Bovich. Was one of the first block explorers that provided a rich list. Despite excellent work, the pool has never managed to attract many delegates. The website adascan.net disappeared in October 2020.

Blockchair
Multi-chain block explorer that supports Cardano. It also provides blockchain size stats among others.

Cardano Explorer
The Cardano explorer built by IOHK, one of the founding entities of Cardano.

Cardano Scan [CSN1]
A combination of block explorer and pool tool, built and operated by Ashish Prajapati. Uses it's own implementation of db-sync. Despite excellent work in the past, the pool has never managed to attract many delegates.

Pool PM [SMAUG]
Relatively new explorer that focuses on what has just happened now or recently. He brought out a new, refreshing concept to visualize transactions. Make sure to look at the Cardano whale watching and the page about the current delegations of the Cardano Foundation.

Tools that provide special insights around Cardano.

Adatools Hologram [AOAUS]
This site provides a stunning visualization of Cardano nodes on a world map. Do not try to open it on mobile unless you have a high-end device.

Cardano Updates
This page aggregates all changes made to Cardano related code. Follow the development of Cardano in real time without the “hassle” of GitHub. You can also search for commits, hashes or file contents. Mind-blowing if you see it the first time.

Cardano Canucks [CANUK]
This site offers different insights, like pool pledge vs pool stake and return of ada vs stake.

Clio UTxO Distribution [CLIO1]
This tool shows the ada distribution per address over time, which ends up being the balance per address. Certain history milestones are tagged. Built by Markus Gufler, not updated since the change from Cardano SL to Cardano-node.

Flipside Crypto
Flipside Crypto is a blockchain analytics firm. In collaboration with the Cardano Foundation this is a transparency initiative which provides a public and shareable view of networks' on-chain activity. It provides real-time transaction visualisations to better understand the asset-flows, geographic activity, and behaviors of stakeholders on Cardano.

See ADA
This site provides insights to stake distribution, that tracks the controlled stake of the top pool operators. They do not operate a pool themselves but encourage delegation to small pools featured on their page.

Operator tools are used by stake pool operators to create, manage and maintain Cardano stake pools.

Cardano on the Rocks [CLIO1]
Open hardware project by Markus Gufler to build an energy (just 5 watts) and cost efficient stake pool node base on a RockPi.

CNTools - Guild Operators
One of the most comprehensive community projects: cntools, topology updater, ITN metadata proof, staking guides and tutorials, live view among other things. They collaborate through GitHub, everything is open and free. People who have been contributing consistently to the Guild Operators:

[AAA] - Michael and Homer J.
[AEON] - Matthijs
[AHL] - Ola Ahlman
[BUFFY] - Adam Dean
[CLIO1] - Markus Gufler
[EDEN] - Damjan
[FAY] - Danny
[LOVE] - Mike Fullman
[NUTS] - Marek Mahut
[PEGA] - Mask
[PHX] oldcryptogeek
[RDLRT] - Priyank
[SMAUG] - Smaug
[STKH1] - Malick Mbengue
[STR8] - Chris K.
[UNDR] - Pal Dorogi
[1LOVE] - Glitch

Hitchhiker's Guides [UNDR]
Pal Dorogi is contributing to the Cardano ecosystem since 2017. Visit his GitHub Gist and dive into the Hitchhiker's Guides, cold key generation, exercise sheets, monitoring scripts, crypto explanations in ELI20.

JorManager [BCSH] [BCSH0] [BCSH1] [BCSH2]
This is probably the most common tool with which pools are managed. There have been 45 public releases of JorManager during the ITN only by Andrew Westberg. One of five projects that received a grant in 2020 from the Cardano Foundation within the scope of a request for proposal (RFP).

Python LeaderLog and getSigma scripts [LOVE] [BUFFY] [STR8]
LeaderLog (a way to retrieve the block schedule up front) for stake pool operators who prefer the command line interface.

Voting by Dust [BUFFY] [SPIKE]
The “Voting by Dust” solution makes smart usage of metadata on Cardano to do actual on-chain-voting. Was first used to allow voting for the SPOCRA organization. (Stake Pool Operator Collective Representation Assembly)

Pool tools provide delegates with the necessary tools to find a good pool.

Adafolio
Adafolio provides a place to create and share multi-delegation portfolios. At the time of writing this article, it is too simple to be useful yet but hopefully they can expand on it when we have one-to-many delegation in the wallets.

Adapools [POOLS, CRDNS, CRDN1, CRDN2]
Built and operated by the well-known Cardanians. One of five projects that received a grant in 2020 from the Cardano Foundation within the scope of a request for proposal (RFP).

PoolTool App (former Pegasus App) [PEGA] [SKY] [LOVE]
This is basically a pool tool as a mobile app, what makes it so cool is that you can get notifications when the epoch ends and you get the rewards. One of five projects that received a grant in 2020 from the Cardano Foundation within the scope of a request for proposal (RFP). Gabor Peto [PEGA] started this project but has teamed up with Umed Saidov [SKY] and Mike Fullman [LOVE] in 2020.

Pooltool [LOVE] [PEGA] [SKY]
Mike Fullman built one of the first, if not the first pooltool for Cardano, it has many unique and clever features. Also one of five projects that received a grant in 2020 from the Cardano Foundation within the scope of a request for proposal (RFP). Mike Fullman [LOVE] teamed up with Umed Saidov [SKY] and Gabor Peto [PEGA] in 2020.

Cardano wallets store the public and/or private keys to access and manage your funds. Wallets are avaible as device, physical medium, software or services. Read more about wallets and their attack vectors.

Adalite [ADLT] [ADLT2] [ADLT3]
AdaLite was developed by vacuumlabs, they were also responsible for the Cardano Ledger app and won the crypto puzzle at the IOHK Summit 2019.

Atomic Wallet
Multi-cryptocurrency wallet that supports Cardano. During the integration they contributed code to the Cardano Rust library.

Daedalus Wallet
Daedalus is a full node, it downloads the whole blockchain and validates all transactions and blocks. Daedalus is developed by IOHK, one of the founding entities of Cardano.

Infinito Wallet
Another multi-cryptocurrency wallet that supports Cardano.

Medusa Adawallet [MDS]
Denis Kalinin, a well-known member of the Russian Cardano community, develops and runs this web wallet where you can create, restore existing addresses, make transactions and delegate to pools. Medusa Wallet is the first entirely community-created secure shared custodial wallet. (keys are known to you, but also backed up in an encrypted format on the Medusa Wallet server)

Tangem
Tangem offers a unique wallet that stores the key on trusted hardware. You can not copy (or backup) these cards so they can be used for “offline transactions”.

Yoroi Wallet
Yoroi is a lightweight node. This means it doesn't need to download and synchronize with the blockchain itself. It rather connects to a service that provides this data while ensuring that critical data like private keys are not transferred. Yoroi is developed by EMURGO, one of the founding entities of Cardano.