Vendor review rounds let a vendor correct facts about its own product before publication. They do not let a vendor change criteria, weights or other vendors' results. Forrester describes feedback on scores and a courtesy preview about five days before publication, and GigaOm describes two structured fact-check rounds.
What Forrester describes
The methodology page says that in the scoring and feedback stage, vendors can give feedback on their scores and profiles, and that after scores and profiles are finalized vendors receive copies as a last look. The courtesy preview comes about five days before publication, and no new information is accepted then.
The vendor review policy fills in the limits. Participating vendors can see scorecard feedback, their write-up and placement. They can escalate factual score disagreements to a research director, then to a group director and a center of excellence, which Forrester may decline. They cannot dispute criteria, scales or weightings, challenge the reading of customer feedback, raise concerns about other vendors, escalate during the courtesy preview, lobby executives or account managers, or give false or misleading information. Only full participants are covered.
What GigaOm describes
GigaOm's pages say there are two structured fact-check rounds, and describe results as not vendor self-attestation. On its current pages it says two structured fact-check rounds come before anything is scored. The public pages I fetched do not describe what happens after scoring or how disagreements are resolved.
What reviews are good for
- Catching factual errors about product behavior, such as a supported ecosystem or deployment option.
- Making sure the product description reflects what was generally available at the cut-off.
What reviews do not do
- They do not turn a vendor's claims into verified results. Forrester's methodology says data comes from a questionnaire, demos and reference interviews, combined with analyst expertise.
- They do not freeze the market. New releases after the cut-off may not appear.
- They do not remove analyst judgment. Criteria and weights remain opinion.
How to use this as a buyer
- Treat a report as reviewed for factual accuracy, not as certified performance.
- Where a capability matters, ask the vendor to show it live.
- Note the date of the data cut-off and ask what has changed.
- Ask whether the vendor was a full participant.
A fair reading of "reviewed"
When a vendor says its profile was reviewed, that tells you the vendor checked facts. It does not say the analyst agreed with the vendor's framing. The analyst keeps the scores. For example, if a vendor says a feature is available and the analyst could not confirm it in a demo or reference, the written profile may still reflect that doubt.
Read the text around the chart for such notes. They often carry more usable detail than the placement.
Quick check
Can a vendor change a Wave's criteria during review?
No. Per the vendor review policy, vendors may not dispute criteria, scales or weightings.
Can a vendor add new information during the preview?
Forrester says no new information is accepted during the courtesy preview.
Safeguard offers a free scan so you can see SBOM and dependency scanning results first-hand and not rely on a description.
Sources
- The Forrester Wave Methodology
- Forrester Wave Vendor Review Policy
- GigaOm methodology
- GigaOm Radar reports
Last reviewed: 19 October 2026.
