How we research

What a record is

Each record is one buying decision by one organization. A purchase can produce many documents (a request for proposal, amendments, an evaluation, an award and a contract), and we keep them together as one decision with several sources, rather than counting them as several purchases.

Where evidence comes from

• Firsthand accounts from people involved in the decision.
• Procurement documents: requests for proposal, evaluations, award notices and contracts.
• Independent tests published by testing organizations.
• Vendor documentation, used for what a product officially supports.
• Vendor-published customer stories, which record what a customer says happened. They are labeled and never treated as independent proof that a product is better.

Context, not generalization

Our readers are mostly U.S. private companies, but some of the best-documented purchases come from public bodies and from other countries. Every record shows its organization type and country, for example "Public sector · United Kingdom", so you can judge how well it applies to you.

How well supported is a record?

Each record carries an editorial rating (well supported, partly supported, thinly supported, or not yet reviewed) describing how well its sources support what we've recorded. A person on our team makes this judgment. It is never assigned automatically or by AI, and it is separate from the type of source and from whether a vendor published it.

Pricing

We record what a price included (software, managed service, implementation, incident response and other items) and whether the scope is clear enough to compare. We never divide a bundled contract by its endpoint count and call the result a license price.

Unknown means unknown

If a source doesn't state something, we show "Not disclosed." We don't estimate, infer or fill gaps.

Names

We name an organization when a public source identifies it and there's no reason to withhold it. Otherwise we use a description such as "Regional manufacturer, about 1,200 endpoints."

Corrections

When better evidence becomes available, we update the record and the page's last-reviewed date.