Trust, Advise, Suggest - hunt for real software reviews

Information technology research services are now provided free of charge. It sounds incredible, but true. Review platforms (translated from English - “Review Platforms”) accumulate the most popular content about software, services, hardware in their catalogs and collect feedback from the most real users of these information technology solutions. Now, when choosing IT products, CIO is not only interested in the opinions of specialists, but also browses the web pages of these independent sources of information.
You can call them differently: Review Platform, Review as Service, Technology Research Services, “IT Yelp”, or review platforms — but they have a similar pattern.
For the user, as we already mentioned, these services are free, they provide analytics of the position of products on the market by functions and occupied niche. Nevertheless, just the users are the aggregator of the most valuable content - reviews, and also act at different levels as a source of platform monetization. After all, one more target audience of Review Platform is manufacturers who not only find lawyers of their brand on such web services.
It’s just that manufacturers most often pay platforms for various additional services: collecting information about the needs of potential users, options for presenting products on the platform, conducting surveys, receiving requests from potential users (Lead Generation), checking the quality of lead by phone call, receiving new success stories. Sometimes the Pay Per Click (PPC) payment model is used.
Surveying platforms are also armed with tools such as Sales Enablement for IT sellers, giving information about products and their experience.
Some products use Artificial Intellect technology for collecting and analyzing feedback and are integrated with CRM to place feedback and request management in commercial offers (Leads Management).
Feedback technology filters out fake accounts and reviews. Identification of real users of the product occurs by all kinds of methods: phone call, screenshots of the products used, linkedin verification, etc.
Some platforms offer real users a reward for recalling about 10 USD and are ready to transfer this money to charity at the request of the user.
Despite the fact that Review Platforms help in selecting and comparing IT products and services, Review Platforms themselves are not very willing to compare. But we, as one of those, will try) and consider 5 platforms with close functionality, containing a catalog of IT products and information about user experience. See our full review platform review in our 15 Review Platform comparison chart..
Getapp

Product categories: SaaS software
Reviews: pros and cons, value for money, ease of use, functional options, support
Rating: based on reviews
Product comparison: functionality, prices, reviews - no more than 4 products at a time
Product information: functionality, price, screenshots, video review
Selection of products: recommendation of services based on the used
Verification: yes
Features:
The project is dedicated to SaaS services. Over 600 product categories. Data is available on the role of the reviewer in the company, industry, and company size. The recommendation service offers, after authorization through linkedin, the selection of services based on your data on the services already used and the size of the company.
Offers vendors order feedback and lead generation. Interviewers may receive $ 20 as a bonus for feedback.
ROI4CIO

Product categories: software, hardware, services
Reviews: only reviews of implementations, user size and industry, user information (if open), description of the implementation project, supplier, resolved problems, tasks received by the ROI, implementation status (including pilot projects)
Rating: based on the implementation of data obtained in the ROI them, the problems and challenges
product Comparison: functional characteristics
product Information: harateristiki, kvotatory rates, ROI-calculator, manufacturers, Supplies and ki, introduction, competitive products, and information for sellers (pitch, selling stories, the average size of transactions, the protection of the transaction, the discount)
Product selection: based on AI and manufacturers' recommendations
Verification: linkedin, email domain
Features:
It does not provide for subjective ratings and comments, and contains only objective characteristics, without data on support quality, user-friendly interface, etc. In product implementations, the supplier’s data is given, if the user has allowed it, then his data is given.
The project is a catalog of not only products, vendors and implementations, but also authorized vendors and users.
For receiving information about implementations and ROI, the project offers a 30 USD bonus. It also offers a mechanism for exchanging rebate to a buyer from a supplier or vendor for a reference for implementation.
Software Suggest

Product categories: software
Reviews: pros and cons, value for money, ease of use, functional options, support
Rating: based on reviews
Product comparison: functionality, prices, reviews - no more than 4 products at a time
Product information: functionality, price, screenshots , videobzor
selection of products: there are
Verification: there
Features:
Professional promotion services. The business model of the service is lead generation and additional promotion services. The project offers design services, SMM, copywriting, remarketing, banner advertising, e-mail newsletters, special badges, etc. Reviews include data on the positive and negative aspects of the product, value for money, ease of use, functionality and support.
Data on the company, the name and position of the interviewer in the company are available. The product description contains data on the price, functionality, screenshots, videos and information about competitors. Comparison of competitors' products and service according to product recommendations are available. The user can communicate with a consultant who will recommend the product to him by voice. The project offers comparison reports on products in categories.
Technologyadvice

Product categories: Software
Reviews: ease of use, functionality, price and support
Rating: reviews
Product comparison: functionality briefly, price level, business size of the target audience, comparison of no more than 2 products Product
information: description, which industries and business size suitable, screenshots, video
Product selection: on request
Verification: yes
Features:
Research Library - articles with analysis of products in Buyers' Guides categories and analytical reports.
Service experts provide services for individual selection of products. It offers lead generation services for vendors.
Trustradius

Product categories: software
Reviews: user name, user size, user industry, user role, functionality / return / pros / alternatives / examples of use / ROI quality / other software used / probability to recommend / key differences / support / integration
Rating: user reviews
product Comparison: user experience, function (up to 3 at a time)
product Information: functional, screenshots, category
selection products: no
Verification: giving feedback verifitsirova s on linkedin, verified by the experience of using the product
features:
Reseller reviews are published, but not used in the ranking. The project assigns a level (reputation) to the reviewers. For reviews, reviewers are invited both by the project and by manufacturers. Reviews can be sorted by customer size, by topics (“Pros and Cons”, “ROI”, “Alternative Products”, “Use”, “Probability to Recommend”). Functionality rating based on reviews.
Integration with salesforce and Hubspot is offered, allowing you to include reviews in commercial offers. There is analytical information about products of one category, designed in 2x-dimensional “TrustMap” charts for different sizes of business.
The company’s policy does not allow the inclusion of small vendor products (less than 10 employees.) The business model is based on providing vendors with tools to embed feedback into their information channels.
findings
All platforms try to give the most complete information about the product, but, as we have learned from our own experience, most often they complement each other: description, reviews, somewhere there are video reviews, somewhere prices, and somewhere for complex products calculators prices and ROI calculators.
More information on review platforms can be found in the comparison table, which contains 15 Review Platforms
