How we score every product we rank.
Every number on this site is the output of a documented process. Here's exactly how it works.
What a GAX score actually means.
Scores represent a weighted composite across five dimensions — not an average of user reviews. A 90+ product genuinely leads its category on capability, pricing honesty, and operational quality. A product scoring below 40 has meaningful gaps that create real operational risk.
Colour bands at a glance.
Every ranking page displays scores alongside colour-coded indicators. The gradient below maps directly to the bands on the left.
Five dimensions. 100 points. No black boxes.
Weights are fixed between quarterly recalculations. The same formula applies to every product in every category.
Four steps from product to published score.
Product research
We gather all publicly available information: documentation, pricing pages, changelogs, blog posts, and third-party benchmarks. No NDAs. If it isn't public, it doesn't count.
Hands-on evaluation
Where a free tier or trial is available, we run standardised test scenarios against each product. Real usage, real latency, real integration time — not the vendor's demo.
Community validation
Practitioner interviews, forum threads, and Reddit signal surface the gaps that don't appear in docs. We weight first-hand operator experience heavily in the DX and reliability dimensions.
Score calculation
The weighted formula is applied, producing a raw composite. A second editor peer-reviews the score inputs against the evidence log before any score is published or updated.
Scores don't go stale — by design.
Quarterly full recalculation
Every score across every product is recalculated from scratch in January, April, July, and October. Products are never grandfathered — a product that was #1 last quarter must earn that position again. No score carries over without fresh evidence.
Continuous monitoring
Major product changes — pricing overhauls, significant feature launches, downtime incidents, or public controversy — trigger an out-of-cycle score update. Once triggered, the updated score is published within 30 days of the event, with a timestamped change note on the ranking page.
Disagree with a score? Tell us.
We actively want to be corrected. The process is transparent, time-bound, and publicly logged.
Every change to this document is logged.
All scoring weight changes trigger a full recalculation of affected rankings before publication. Questions about a specific version? Email methodology@gaxonline.com.