Every tool looks good on its own pricing page. We look at the tier you will actually end up on, what happens to your data, and how hard it is to leave.
The real price, the limits that bite, and who each one genuinely fits.
We have not used these products and we never pretend we have. We read the specs, the certifications and thousands of owner reports, so you do not have to.
The free plan is marketing. We cost the plan a working team ends up on.
Where it lives, who can see it, and what happens when you cancel.
If your data will not come out cleanly, that is part of the price.
Response times as reported by customers, not as promised in the tier table.
More often than the industry would like. For a lot of small teams the free tier genuinely covers the job, and we say so plainly instead of pushing everyone toward a subscription.
Because it is the difference between choosing a tool and marrying one. If your information only comes out as a mangled file, switching later becomes expensive, and that risk belongs in the review rather than in a footnote.
Where a link earns us something, it is marked. It plays no part in what ranks where, and we regularly recommend the product that pays us nothing because it is the better tool.
Far less than most end up paying, usually because seats get added and never removed. We price each tool at a realistic team size and flag the add-ons that quietly appear on the invoice.
For public networks and for privacy from your own provider, yes, within limits. The marketing around security is wildly overstated though, and we are direct about what a VPN does not protect you from.
A small, slightly obsessive crew who'd rather read a spec sheet than a press release.
Ran IT procurement for years and has read more bad contracts than anyone should.
Goes through data handling and breach history so a slick interface does not hide a bad record.
Judges tools by whether a five person team can run them without hiring someone to run them.