How Try or Bye Analyzes Software
Try or Bye answers one question before you buy, renew, or cancel: what actually goes wrong with this product? We currently track 252 products, 3192 problem signals, and 3069 answered questions.
1. Where the data comes from
For every product we research public user feedback across several independent source types, so one noisy platform can't dominate the picture:
- Review sites: G2, Capterra, Trustpilot, TrustRadius — recurring complaints in 1-3 star reviews
- Communities: Reddit, Hacker News, product forums, and official community boards
- App stores: Apple App Store and Google Play reviews for mobile apps
- Issue trackers: GitHub issues and public bug trackers for developer tools
- Official sources: Pricing pages, changelogs, status pages, and price-change announcements
We never copy or store raw reviews. We write original summaries of patterns that repeat across sources.
2. From complaints to signals
A signal is a problem pattern reported independently by multiple users — for example “sync conflicts on large workspaces” or “price increased 40% at renewal”. Each signal gets a category (pricing, performance, support, reliability, usability, onboarding, mobile, integrations, security, customization), an impact score (1-10), a frequency estimate, and an intent tag such as hidden costs, scaling breaks, or regret after purchase. One-off rants that don't repeat are discarded.
3. Balance
Problem-focused doesn't mean one-sided. Every product page also lists what users consistently like, which user types are a good fit, and when the product is the right choice.
4. Scores and verdicts
Products are scored 0-100 per category (pricing, usability, performance, support, reliability, and more) and overall. Scores weigh how severe and how frequent the signals are, not star ratings. The overall score maps to a verdict:
| Verdict | Score | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Try | 70-100 | Problems exist but rarely block typical users. |
| Try with caution | 50-69 | Works for some teams; recurring issues hit specific user types. |
| Bye | 0-49 | Frequent, high-impact complaints across many user types. |
5. Freshness
Software changes fast. Every page shows when it was last analyzed, and products are re-researched on a rolling basis — sooner when there is a price change, a major redesign, or a wave of new complaints.
6. Independence and corrections
Vendors can't pay to change a score. If you work at a company we cover and something is outdated or wrong, tell us — we verify the correction against public sources and update the page.