Guides

Ten categories, walked product by product

A guide takes one category's standing from the October 2026 Edition and walks the top eight products in order: the share and rank each holds for each buyer, what the fourteen models said for and against it in their own words, and where the answer changes with the framing or the size of the company asking. Every figure is the category page's own; a guide adds no opinion, only the reading.

IT operations and endpoint

IT service management

Freshservice leads at 58% of first choices, clear leader. The top six of six ranked products, with what the models said for and against each.

IT operations and endpoint

Infrastructure monitoring

Datadog leads at 28% of first choices, contested. The top eight of nine ranked products, with what the models said for and against each.

IT operations and endpoint

Application performance monitoring

New Relic leads at 46% of first choices, clear leader. The top eight of nine ranked products, with what the models said for and against each.

IT operations and endpoint

Log management

Datadog Log Management leads at 28% of first choices, contested. The top seven of seven ranked products, with what the models said for and against each.

Cloud and infrastructure

Backup and disaster recovery

Veeam Data Platform leads at 38% of first choices, contested. The top four of four ranked products, with what the models said for and against each.

IT operations and endpoint

IT asset management

Freshservice leads at 31% of first choices, contested. The top six of six ranked products, with what the models said for and against each.

IT operations and endpoint

Endpoint protection

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint leads at 22% of first choices, contested. The top eight of eight ranked products, with what the models said for and against each.

Identity and access

Business password managers

1Password leads at 47% of first choices, clear leader. The top four of four ranked products, with what the models said for and against each.

Cloud and infrastructure

Cloud cost management

Vantage leads at 45% of first choices, clear leader. The top eight of twelve ranked products, with what the models said for and against each.

Developer platform

CI/CD platforms

GitHub Actions leads at 68% of first choices, clear leader. The top four of four ranked products, with what the models said for and against each.

Why these ten

Guides are added a few categories at a time and measured before more follow. Every category has its standing, its warnings and every answer on its own page whether or not a guide exists for it yet.