Methodology

What a ranking is, and isn’t

A ranking is our structured judgment of how well each tool meets a specific set of published criteria, given the evidence we could gather. It is not a measure of which tool is best for you. Your needs may weight the criteria very differently, which is why we publish the per-criterion scores alongside the total.

How we build a category

1. Define the category and what’s in and out of scope.
2. Publish criteria and weights before scoring any tool.
3. Gather evidence for each tool: hands-on tests where we can get access, documentation, public pricing, and interviews with customers we find independently.
4. Score each criterion from 1 to 5 in half points, with a written rationale.
5. Compute the weighted overall score. Tied scores share a rank.

Scoring scale

• 5: Fully meets the criterion, verified hands-on.
• 4: Meets it with minor gaps.
• 3: Partially meets it, or meets it without verification.
• 2: Significant gaps.
• 1: Doesn’t meet it, or we found no evidence that it does.

Uncertainty

Each listing has a confidence level (low, medium, or high) based on the depth of evidence. A tool we couldn’t test hands-on is marked low confidence, however good its documentation. We treat overall score differences under 0.3 as within our margin of judgment.

Capabilities are recorded as yes, no, or not verified. “Not verified” means we couldn’t confirm either way.

Freshness

Every listing shows its last-reviewed date. Listings older than 180 days are flagged as due for re-review. Software changes quickly; check the date before relying on a listing.

Category-specific criteria

Each category page lists its criteria, weights, and what we assess for each.