Methodology

Source selection

We cite the organization that produced the data: national statistical offices, central banks, international bodies, peer-reviewed research and the companies or institutes that ran a survey. We do not cite aggregator sites that repeat other people's figures.

Recording a figure

Each figure records the publisher, the title of the source, its address, the year the data describes and the exact sentence from the source that contains the number. Our own sentence states the scope: who was measured, where and when.

Automated verification

A checker re-fetches every source page and confirms that the quoted sentence is still there and contains the published value. Figures that fail are corrected or removed before publication, and each dataset shows how many of its quotes passed the latest check.

Source types

Figures are labelled as official statistics, research or industry reports based on the publisher. Industry reports can be useful but often come from companies with an interest in the result; the dataset pages show the mix.

Charts

Each chart uses data from a single source, quoted on the chart, so that values are comparable. Every chart includes a data table.

Rankings

• Features, 35%
• Adoption and reviews, 35%
• Value, 30%

Adoption scores rely on citable figures such as user counts in company filings or independent survey results, shown in each entry. We compared documented features and published prices; we did not run hands-on tests. See the rankings.