Forrester vs IDC
A side-by-side comparison of Forrester and IDC — two options for due diligence. Pricing, features, and honest pros and cons.
Category
Due Diligence
Due Diligence
Rating
4.2 / 5
4.2 / 5
Pricing
Enterprise / Custom
Enterprise / Custom
Best for
Diligence on CX, martech and enterprise buyer dynamics
Funds needing citable market data for infrastructure theses
Key features
- Forrester Wave competitive vendor evaluations
- Customer-experience and buyer-behavior research
- Role-based Forrester Decisions subscriptions
- Analyst inquiry and guidance sessions
- Market forecasts and technology adoption data
- Quarterly Trackers for share and shipment data
- Worldwide spending guides by segment and geography
- Technology market forecasts and sizing
- Custom research and analyst access
- Deep coverage of infrastructure, devices and AI markets
Pros
- Waves give structured, criteria-based competitive maps
- CX and buyer research is genuinely differentiated
- Slightly more accessible pricing than Gartner
- Hard numbers where others sell narratives
- Granular segmentation supports defensible TAM math
- Long historical time-series for trend analysis
Cons
- Smaller analyst bench and coverage than Gartner
- Emerging categories often uncovered until late
- Datasets are priced for corporates, not seed funds
- Less useful for application-software niches