Review Methodology

Last updated: May 2026 · Version 3.2

We're a research-led review site. For every product we cover, we analyze live pricing, public benchmarks, trial accounts where a free tier exists, user feedback at scale, and vendor documentation — then score against a published rubric.

We do not claim to run controlled-lab benchmarks on every product. When a verdict relies primarily on third-party data, we cite the source in the article. When it includes our own first-hand time, we say so in the "Testing notes" block.

The six scoring pillars

Every product is scored 0–10 on each pillar. The final rating is the weighted average shown below.

Performance (30%)

Public benchmarks (GTmetrix, WebPageTest, Ookla, independent test rigs) cross-checked against our own first-hand notes when a free tier or trial is available.

Security & privacy (25%)

Independent audit recency, encryption standards, jurisdiction, ownership chain, and documented incident history.

Support (15%)

Documented SLAs, response time benchmarks from third-party reviewers, and our own trial-ticket experience where applicable.

Value (15%)

Live intro vs renewal pricing checked on the date of publication. Total cost of ownership over a typical 3-year horizon.

Features (10%)

Coverage vs the category baseline; weighted by what readers actually use, not vendor feature-count marketing.

Reliability (5%)

Public status-page history and third-party uptime monitoring data over the prior 12 months.

Sources we use

Live vendor pages for pricing, plans, and feature claims — captured with a date.
Independent benchmarks: GTmetrix, WebPageTest, Pingdom, Ookla Speedtest, and category-specific lab reports.
Audit & compliance reports (e.g. no-logs audits, SOC 2, ISO 27001) from the named auditor's site.
User feedback at scale: Trustpilot, G2, Reddit threads, and review aggregators — weighted, not cherry-picked.
Hands-on trials on free tiers, money-back-guarantee periods, or paid trial accounts when available.
Vendor documentation and changelogs for verified feature coverage.

Freshness & changelogs

Every review carries a Last Updated date. We update pricing, ownership, and benchmark sources when a vendor ships a material update or when a reader flags stale data. Changes that affect the verdict are logged in the article's public changelog. See our editorial policy for fact-checking and corrections, or our corrections page to flag an error.