“Top 10” Buyers’ Guide Inclusion Criteria

How Expert Insights Reviews Vendors

Expert Insights is an independent review platform that helps organizations to make the right cybersecurity purchasing decisions. Our “Top 10” Buyers’ Guides help organizations to research and compare solutions across different market categories. These lists are written by Expert Insights’ own editorial team, with guidance from our in-house technical experts. They recognize vendors based on product features, market perception, customer usage, and product heritage. These are qualitative judgments made by Expert Insights based on our own independent research—our editorial and technical teams never allow anyone to influence our reviews of software solutions.

Expert Insights’ in-house editorial team is fully independent of any software vendors. The team conducts their own research and analysis when creating content, which involves reviewing product information, technical demos, customer reviews, and reviews from our technical experts. Our team also speaks with representatives from software vendors as part of the research and review process; however, this does not affect the integrity of our reviews.

Expert Insights’ in-house team of technical experts has extensive experience working with enterprise cybersecurity solutions. Our technical team regularly speaks to end users to understand their typical needs and the challenges they’re facing with their current architecture. The team also tests cybersecurity solutions and services; these tests provide editorial content direction and form the basis for our reviews.

Expert Insights may recognize software vendors in our “Top 10” lists from which we receive compensation in return for web traffic and sales opportunities generated through our pages. This compensation may impact how vendors are displayed in these articles (e.g., the order in which they appear). However, all review content—unless clearly marked “Sponsored Content”—is completely independent of software vendors. For more information on our partnerships with vendors, visit our advertising policy page.

Expert Insights’ Product Criteria

Features         

• The product must meet a set list of features
• Product features must be regularly updated by the vendor
• Product features should be evaluated as effective and user-friendly through product demos and independent tests

Market Perception

• The product must have favorable, objective user reviews
• The product must have a credible website
• The vendor should highlight strong customer case studies for the product
• The product may have a strong social media presence 
• The product may have won awards within the cybersecurity industry
• The product may have gone through multiple rounds of investment

Customer Usage

• The product should have a strong market share
• The product should serve a large number of customers (where data is available) 
• The product should serve customers of a relevant size (where data is available)
• The product may have high share prices

Product Heritage

• The vendor should be well established in their category
• The product should have been launched at least a year ago 
• The product should fit within a certain market segment
• The vendor may have been founded less recently
  • Note: this is not a direct indication of product quality, but how established the vendor is
• The vendor should be based in a recognized territory
• The vendor/product may historically have been seen as a market leader in the space
• The product may have been acquired by another company