All software categories
139 products ranked across 13 categories. Every score is editorial; where we have not tested a product ourselves, the review says so.
Marketing & content
Reach people and make the things you show them.
Infrastructure & communications
The plumbing: cloud, email delivery, phones, domains and servers.
Cloud ManagementMulti-cloud and infrastructure management platforms.10 rankedEmailEmail marketing and transactional email platforms.9 rankedVoIPBusiness VoIP and phone system providers.12 rankedDomain NamesDomain registrars compared on the price you actually pay (the renewal, not the first-year promo), plus WHOIS privacy, DNS freedom, transfer-out policy and whether you can reach a human in the UK.10 rankedVPS & HostingCloud servers compared on what a real server costs per month (the instance, backups and a public IP, then the egress bill), where the data sits and who owns the company, whether the one-click images stay maintained, and the services a small team uses: managed databases, Kubernetes, object storage, an API and Terraform.11 ranked
Security & identity
Who gets in and what they can reach: private networks and credentials.
VPNVPN providers compared on the price you actually pay (the renewal, not the two-year promo), plus who owns them, where they answer to, whether the no-logs claim was audited, and the features a small team needs: fixed IP, device-to-device networking, SSO.10 rankedPassword ManagersPassword managers compared on the price per user you will actually pay on the business tier, on both bases, whether the vendor has been breached and how it behaved afterwards, whether the code is open source and audited, where the company and your vault sit, and the features a small team needs: passkeys, two-factor codes, shared vaults, SSO and an MCP server.11 rankedAntivirus & Endpoint SecurityBusiness antivirus and endpoint security compared on the price per device you will actually pay for the business tier, on both bases, what the independent test labs say, whether EDR and servers are included, whether you can buy and deploy it yourself without a reseller, and who owns and engineers it, with Russian or Chinese links recorded and marked down.13 ranked
Business tools
Running the company day to day.
CRMCRM software compared on the price you will actually pay, not the entry tier: the plan a small team needs, its seat minimum and onboarding fee, what the contract allows at renewal, how much you can set up yourself, and the features that matter (sequences, marketing automation, quotes, phone, EU data hosting, an MCP server). Also: when a spreadsheet and Mailchimp are all you need.12 rankedAccounting SoftwareAccounting software compared on what it costs once the introductory discount ends, whether HMRC recognises it for Making Tax Digital, whether your accountant will work in it, how well bank feeds and payment collection work, and what it plugs into: payroll, receipt capture, an API and an MCP server.11 ranked