G2 alternatives: where B2B software buyers actually read reviews
Most teams go looking for a G2 alternative after seeing the price of a paid profile. The better question is where your reviews earn the most, and for a lot of software companies the answer is the marketplace that already distributes the product. Here is the order we would work in, and the rules that conflict between platforms.
Teams usually go looking for a G2 alternative after seeing the price of a paid profile, or after noticing their category on G2 is half empty. Both are reasonable, and both start from the wrong question. Where your reviews earn the most depends on how your product reaches customers, and for a lot of software companies that puts an app marketplace ahead of any review site.
The order that works for most software companies: the marketplace that distributes your product first, G2 second, then Capterra and the wider set of review sites. None of those three tiers is optional if you sell software at any scale. They just pay off in that sequence.
- The marketplace that distributes your productShopify App Store, WordPress.org, WooCommerce, Xero, QuickBooks and othersThe buyer already inside the ecosystem, at the moment they decide whether to install.
- G2Almost every B2B SaaS categoryThe buyer still comparing you against three competitors, before they open any app store.
- Capterra, Gartner Peer Insights, TrustRadiusPlus GetApp and Software Advice, which come with CapterraSMB and long-tail categories, IT and security buyers, and mid-market deals that turn on detail.
Why the marketplace comes first
If a marketplace distributes your product, that listing sits inside the buying flow rather than beside it. Someone browsing the Shopify App Store for an email tool is already a merchant with that problem and a budget for it, and the rating next to your listing decides whether they install or keep scrolling.
Marketplace reviews also feed things a review site cannot touch. On Shopify, Built for Shopify status requires 50 net installs from active shops on paid plans, 5 reviews and an unpublished minimum recent rating. On the WooCommerce Marketplace, a product's reviews stay hidden entirely until it has at least three. A weak marketplace rating quietly costs you installs every day, in a way a thin G2 profile does not.
From active shops on paid plans, plus 5 reviews and an unpublished minimum recent rating, for Built for Shopify status.
Below three, a product's reviews stay hidden from the listing entirely.
In a single category, before your product appears in that category's Grid Report at all.
So a WordPress plugin team with 400 WordPress.org reviews and no G2 profile is in better shape than the reverse. Every marketplace writes its own rules, and they diverge enough that one campaign run across two of them will break something on at least one.
Why G2 still matters
G2 is where the comparison happens. A buyer who has already decided they need a category of software goes to G2 to see who is in it, and 74% of B2B buyers use reviews to inform purchase decisions, per the TrustRadius 2026 B2B Buying Disconnect (n=1,862, fielded January 2026).
G2 also carries weight in AI answers, which is where a growing share of software research now starts. G2's own Answer Economy research from April 2026 (n=1,076) found 51% of B2B software buyers begin research in an AI chatbot rather than a search engine, up from 29% a year earlier, and 45% said citations from software review sites were the most confidence-inspiring signal in an AI answer.
For a marketplace-distributed product, G2 is where you win the buyer who is comparing you against three competitors before they ever open the app store. For a product with no marketplace at all, G2 moves into first place.
Capterra and the wider set
Capterra, GetApp and Software Advice reach SMB buyers and cover long-tail categories thinly served on G2. Gartner Peer Insights reaches IT and security buyers. TrustRadius reaches mid-market and enterprise buyers who want a long read. Each of those is worth having once the first two tiers are healthy.
| Platform | Who can review | How they are verified | Vendor incentives | Best fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| App marketplacesShopify, WordPress.org, WooCommerce, Xero, QuickBooks and others | Customers of that marketplace | Install, purchase or connection, checked by the marketplace | Mostly banned outright, with some marketplaces permitting prize draws | Any product distributed through a marketplace |
| G2 | Verified reviewers | Business email or LinkedIn | Allowed, capped at $100 per review, labelled, must be disclosed to G2 | Almost every B2B SaaS category |
| Capterra, GetApp, Software Advice | Identity-verified first-hand users | Capterra’s own verification | Allowed at "nominal value, as defined by applicable law". No dollar figure published. Capterra distributes the gift cards itself | SMB buyers, and long-tail categories G2 covers thinly |
| Gartner Peer Insights | "Qualified IT professionals or technology decision makers", Gartner clients or not | Gartner validation, takes several business days | $25 gift cards. Gartner funds your first 50 approved reviews. Vendors can self-fund up to $10,000 per market per year | Enterprise and IT buyers, anything a CIO signs off on |
| TrustRadius | Verified users with recent product experience | LinkedIn or work email, then a human researcher reads each review | Allowed, disclosed with the review, no published dollar figure | Mid-market and enterprise, longer and more detailed reviews |
Running three tiers at once is where most programmes fall over, because each listing has its own login, its own rules and its own review count to track. Revly pulls every connected listing into one dashboard with rating trends and a per-platform breakdown, which is the difference between knowing your position and guessing at it.
Capterra, GetApp and Software Advice are one platform now, and not the one you think
G2 acquired all three from Gartner in February 2026, so the natural assumption is that Capterra has become a G2 property in every sense that matters. As of the guidelines rewrite on 4 May 2026, Capterra reviews syndicate to Capterra, Software Advice and GetApp, and G2.com is absent from that list.
Same owner since February 2026. The two review pools still never meet.
A Capterra review therefore stays a Capterra review, and collecting across both remains two campaigns with two sets of mechanics. G2 left both rulebooks untouched, seven months and one full guidelines rewrite after the deal closed, so a Capterra campaign still runs through Capterra's Vendor Portal with its own required disclosures and its own rules on which reviews you have to accept.
Gartner Peer Insights reaches a buyer nobody else does
This is the platform most Series A marketers have never looked at, and it is worth ten minutes if you sell to IT or security.
The reviewer bar is the whole story. Peer Insights reviewers have to be qualified IT professionals or technology decision makers, Gartner clients or not, and every submission goes through a validation process that takes several business days. Sell to marketing, ops or finance and most of your customers will fail that bar before they write a word.
Sell to a CIO and the same bar becomes the point. A Peer Insights review carries weight in enterprise procurement that a G2 review does not, the category is far less crowded than G2's, and Gartner funds a new vendor's first 50 approved reviews rather than asking you to.
TrustRadius produces the longest reviews in the category
TrustRadius belongs to HG Insights now, and its reviews read more like case studies than ratings. Their research team reads every submission before publication, verifies the reviewer has recent experience with the product, and rejects about 3% for fraud or quality. Average review length runs around 400 words, according to TrustRadius's content integrity page.
That length is the reason to bother. A 400 word review answers the objections a sales call would otherwise handle, and it gives you far better raw material to quote in marketing than a four star rating with "great tool" underneath. Revly's Claude and ChatGPT connector lets you ask your own review data in plain language for exactly that, pulling the quotes that mention a specific objection or feature across every platform at once instead of reading through them by hand.
Where the rules actually conflict
Every platform on this list writes its own rules on who may review, how they get verified, what you may offer in return and where the review ends up. Running one programme across several of them means running several rulebooks at once.
| Rule | App marketplaces | G2 | Capterra family | Gartner Peer Insights | TrustRadius |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Incentive cap | Mostly banned | $100 | "Nominal value", unpublished | $25, fixed | Unpublished |
| Who fulfils the incentive | Not applicable | You | Capterra does | Gartner or you | You |
| Reviewer must be a verified customer | Yes on most marketplaces | Yes | Yes | Yes, and an IT professional | Yes, human-checked |
| Where the review appears | That marketplace only | G2 only | Capterra, Software Advice and GetApp | Peer Insights only | TrustRadius only |
The practical consequence is that a single campaign cannot be run the same way twice. What passes on one platform gets an app pulled from another, so the routing matters more than the copy. Revly handles that from a single collection link, applying each platform's own rules per campaign, then sends everything that lands back to one place: drafted replies for reviews sitting unanswered, and embeddable widgets that refresh themselves, so a Shopify App Store review and a G2 review can sit side by side on your own pages.
Platforms we would not spend time on
SourceForge and Slashdot carry software listings and reviews and occasionally rank well. Neither has influenced a B2B software purchase we have seen, and we would not put a campaign there ahead of anything above.
Product Hunt is excellent for a launch, and the reviews stay up and get indexed afterwards. The audience skews toward builders, so it earns one good launch and rarely justifies a quarterly programme.
How we would choose
Start with how your product reaches customers.
A Shopify app belongs on the Shopify App Store first, with enough reviews and a high enough rating to clear Built for Shopify. A WordPress plugin belongs on WordPress.org, where the directory is the highest-intent traffic that plugin will ever see. A WooCommerce extension belongs on the WooCommerce Marketplace, where nothing shows until three reviews exist. The same logic holds for any other marketplace your product ships through. Those listings are the ones losing you installs today if the rating is weak.
G2 comes next in every one of those cases, because the marketplace listing wins the buyer already inside the ecosystem and G2 wins the buyer still comparing categories. Products with no marketplace to list on start at G2 instead.
Capterra, Gartner Peer Insights and TrustRadius come third, chosen by who your buyer is. SMB and long-tail categories point at Capterra. IT and security point at Peer Insights, where Gartner funds your first 50 reviews. Mid-market and enterprise deals that turn on detail point at TrustRadius.
Then stop adding platforms for a while. Ten reviews on two listings beats four reviews on five, because every site here sets a minimum before your product appears in anything, and a scattered programme clears none of them. G2 wants 10 in a single category before your product shows up in a Grid Report, and reviews in your other categories do not count toward it.
