G2's 2026 Best Software Awards reveal major market shifts

G2 has published its Best Software Awards for 2026, ranking software companies and products based on verified user reviews and market-presence signals. The results highlight shifts in which vendors and tools buyers are backing.

The awards span 46 lists and draw from a catalogue of more than 175,000 vendors on the platform. Less than 1% made the 2026 awards-about 0.6%.

Global Leaders

Salesforce took the top spot in G2's Best Global Software Companies list, followed by Google, HubSpot, Rippling and Gusto. The rankings point to continued strength among large, established groups, while also showing movement among mid-sized vendors that have gained share on buyers' shortlists.

Salesforce also ranked in the top six across G2's lists. Canva, Microsoft and Hootsuite each secured three, while SAP recorded two.

The Top 100 Global Software Companies list saw substantial turnover, with 34 new entrants, representing a 34% shake-up from the prior year, according to G2.

Several companies posted large year-on-year gains in the Top 100. Constant Contact rose 71 places, PandaDoc climbed 64, UiPath moved up 56, and ADP increased by 54.

Top Products

In the Best Software Products list, Hootsuite ranked first overall. RUN Powered by ADP placed second, with Slack third, Microsoft Power BI fourth and Microsoft Teams fifth.

Year-on-year movement data shows the Top Products list changed materially. Slack rose 82 places, Microsoft Teams moved up 76, and Microsoft Power BI climbed 72. RUN Powered by ADP rose 29 places, and Hootsuite gained 13.

Several products also posted large jumps outside the top five. Semrush rose 52 places, SAP Concur increased by 42, and Workvivo moved up 40.

New entrants to the Top 100 Best Software Products list include Achievers, Dropbox, Salesforce Agentforce, Attentive, Culture Cloud by O.C. Tanner, and Canva.

Overall churn was high: 47% of the 2026 Top 100 Best Software Products did not appear on last year's list. That shift suggests buyers are revisiting vendor choices and re-checking product performance more frequently, particularly as AI-related features spread across categories and product lines.

Fast Growth

The Fastest-Growing Products list ranks tools by "momentum scores," which G2 describes as a measure of how quickly buyers are adopting them. TradeInt, n8n, Retell AI, Synthflow, and Handoff ranked in the top five.

Turnover was unusually high: 86 of the Top 100 Fastest-Growing Products are new for 2026, signalling rapid shifts in buyer attention across emerging tools and categories.

Among products that remained on the list, G2 highlighted year-on-year gains for KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training, ThreatLocker Platform, Rippling and RemoFirst.

Satisfaction Scores

The Highest Satisfaction Products list is based on satisfaction scores rather than category prominence or sales traction. Gusto ranked first, followed by Notion, Wincher, CRMOne and Rippling.

The top five span payroll, knowledge management, SEO tools and CRM, suggesting customer sentiment does not map neatly to any single software segment. G2 also noted large year-on-year movement among the leaders.

Gusto improved by 90 positions versus 2025. Notion moved up 56 places, and Wincher appeared as a newcomer in 2026.

New Entrants

G2 also published a "Rookies of the Year" list, featuring products that received their first review in 2025 and were newly listed on the platform. Leo, ClickRank, SurveyMars, Cuebo and Atria AI were named as the top five rookies.

Repeat Winners

Across the full awards programme, a small group of large vendors accounted for most placements. Microsoft, Salesforce and Google were the only vendors with more than 30 placements across G2's 46 lists: Microsoft had 65 mentions, Salesforce 55 and Google 43.

On the product side, Slack appeared 10 times across lists. Asana and Canva each appeared nine times. ClickUp, Salesforce Sales Cloud and monday Work Management each recorded eight mentions.

New Categories

The 2026 awards added two new lists: Best Agentic AI Products and Best ERP Software Products. In an email pitch summarising category leaders, G2 cited ChatGPT as Best AI Product and Salesforce Agentforce as Best Agentic AI Product. The same message named IBM Guardium Data Protection as Best Data Privacy Product and Google Cloud BigQuery as Best IT Infrastructure Product.

G2 set an eligibility threshold for the awards: a product or company must have received at least 10 reviews in the prior calendar year. For functional product lists, a product must have at least 10 reviews during the eligibility period in at least one relevant category aligned with the list's persona area.

In its pitch, G2 framed the awards around the growing challenge of software trust in an AI-heavy buying environment, where discovery is faster and vendor claims harder to verify.

G2 also said it expects more consolidation among software discovery brands after acquiring Capterra, Software Advice and GetApp, describing the move as a way to expand the information available to buyers as software evaluation changes in the age of AI.