G2: compare business software through user reviews
A free-to-browse marketplace of software reviews, with category rankings, G2 Grid charts and comparison pages for checking vendors and competitors.
The site: G2. Cost: Free. Useful for: product and design.
What it is
G2 is a software review marketplace. Its homepage cites more than 3.7 million reviews across categories ranging from project management to CRM and ERP systems.
Each category page lists products with an average rating out of five and a total review count, and many include a G2 Grid, which plots products by customer satisfaction and market presence. A Compare Software feature puts products side by side. Category pages can be read without signing in. Some listings are marked as sponsored content, and some products carry G2 Deal offers.
Use it for
- Shortlisting software for your own team
- Reading what users like and dislike about a competitor’s product
- Seeing which products lead a category on satisfaction and market presence
- Finding the language buyers use when they describe a problem
For a software company, a competitor’s lower-rated reviews are one of the best free sources of unmet needs.
How to use it
- Go to g2.com and open All Categories, or search for a category.
- Scan the category list for average ratings and review counts.
- Look at the G2 Grid to see which products sit where on satisfaction and market presence.
- Use Compare Software to put two or three products side by side.
- Read a sample of the most critical reviews as well as the best.
Read reviews from companies of your size. A tool loved by large enterprises can frustrate a five-person team, and the reverse. Read recent reviews too, because software changes quickly and a complaint from three years ago may already be fixed. Copy the exact phrases reviewers use for their problems; they are often better marketing language than anything written in-house.
Example
A product manager at a CRM startup can open the CRM category, note the average rating and number of reviews for the leaders, then read their lower-rated reviews. Recurring complaints about setup time or reporting suggest where a challenger could stand out.
Watch out for
- Vendors encourage customers to leave reviews, so ratings can lean positive.
- Some listings are sponsored; check the label.
- Review counts favour large, well-known products.
It works well alongside Product Hunt, Mobbin and Similarweb.
Checklist
Put it to work
Recap cards
Tap a card to check yourself.
Sources and credits
