Each firm measures something different. One scores weighted criteria and customer feedback, another plots growth and innovation, another rates product, market and innovation leadership, another gates on pass/fail criteria and scores through executive lenses. A vendor can rank differently on each chart without any of them being wrong.
What each firm says it measures
- Firm and format: Forrester Wave. What its public pages describe: Weighted criteria scored against written scales, three bands, customer feedback shown on the graphic
- Firm and format: GigaOm Radar. What its public pages describe: Pass/fail gate, three executive lenses, unranked quadrants, separate velocity label
- Firm and format: KuppingerCole Leadership Compass. What its public pages describe: Product, Market, Innovation and Overall leadership, each with three tiers, five-level ratings
- Firm and format: Frost Radar. What its public pages describe: Growth and innovation as the two axes, with four classifications since June 2026
- Firm and format: IDC MarketScape. What its public pages describe: One scoring method, qualitative and quantitative criteria, comparing offerings, capabilities and strategies
All of this comes from each firm's own public description. None of it says how any individual product scored.
Four sources of difference
Different questions. Growth and innovation is not the same as product depth, and neither is the same as fit for a CISO.
Different gates. GigaOm describes pass/fail criteria before scoring. Forrester evaluates only generally available products at a cut-off date. KuppingerCole says vendors can be left out for limited visibility, declining to participate, insufficient information or marginal overlap.
Different weights. Forrester weights by analyst opinion. GigaOm gives each lens 30 percent. KuppingerCole weights product categories heavily.
Different dates. Each has its own data collection window and publication date.
What to do with conflicting charts
- Do not average them. Treat each as an answer to its own question.
- Write the question each chart answers in one line.
- Pick the questions that match your decision. A procurement team worried about vendor viability may weight growth and market position. An engineering team may weight functionality and deployment.
- Resolve remaining disagreements by test.
Try it yourself
A chart cannot tell you how a tool treats noise in your dependencies. Open the demo and see how reachability analysis changes the list of findings that need attention, then ask each shortlisted product for the same view.
Click through it at your own pace, or open it full screen.
A short example
Imagine a young product with strong technology and a small customer base. A chart that rewards innovation may place it favorably. A chart that gives weight to partner networks or market presence may place it lower. Neither reading is mistaken. They describe different things, and a buyer with a specific narrow need may care only about the first.
Now imagine a long-established product with a broad footprint and a slower release pace. The reverse may happen. If you read both charts as one verdict you lose that information.
Quick check
If two charts disagree, which is right?
Probably both, since they answer different questions. Read the method and decide which question matches your purchase.
Should I average placements across firms?
No. The scales and axes differ, so averaging mixes unlike things.
Safeguard offers reachability analysis, a GA capability, so you can compare a tool's findings with and without it on your own code.
Sources
- The Forrester Wave Methodology
- GigaOm methodology
- About KuppingerCole's Leadership Compass
- Frost and Sullivan press release on the Frost Radar update
- IDC MarketScape model description as hosted in a publisher excerpt page
Last reviewed: 19 October 2026.
