Evaluation guide
Compare evidence, not vendor adjectives.
Give your buying team one set of requirements and one set of demonstration scenarios. Product editions and terms change; compare current primary documentation and tests in your environment.
Build one requirements matrix
List required workflows, integrations, data classes, user roles, deployment boundaries, accessibility, security, privacy, AI controls, regulatory evidence, migration, support, recovery, exit, and total cost. Mark whether each item is mandatory, preferred, or informational.
Require dated primary evidence
For every vendor, record the product edition, release, source URL or contract exhibit, evidence date, limitations, and evidence owner. Do not treat a reseller article, search snippet, demo statement, or this website as proof of another vendor’s current functionality or price.
Run the same acceptance scenarios
Use the same representative data and scripted tasks for each product. Include ordinary workflows, permission failures, integration outages, audit retrieval, correction and deletion, backup restore, AI error handling and disablement, mobile and keyboard use, export, termination, and incident escalation.
Price the full lifecycle
Compare implementation, migration, integrations, infrastructure, usage, support, training, testing, security review, compliance evidence, upgrades, internal staffing, renewal increases, data export, and exit, not only subscription price.