G2 released its 2026 Best Software Awards this week. Less than 1% of the 175,000+ vendors on G2 made the list. 47% of the top 100 products are new compared to last year. On the company side, 34% turnover.
Scott Brinker picked up the data and ran with it. We liked it and ran after him.
If you don't know Brinker — he's the person who started putting martech logos on a slide back in 2011. About 150 of them. The slide became legendary. It grew every year. The 2025 version has 15,384 logos on it and it's completely unreadable, which is sort of the point. He spent eight years as VP of Platform Ecosystem at HubSpot, left last summer, and now writes chiefmartec — still one of the sharpest reads on how the software market actually works.
His latest piece connects the G2 awards to a bigger pattern. Zylo's 2026 SaaS Management Index shows the average organization running 305 applications and spending $55.7 million a year on SaaS — up 8%. But the total number of apps barely changed. What changed is which apps. Organizations are bringing in eight new tools a month and churning out roughly the same number. The stack looks the same size. It's made of different stuff.
His line: "The stack is a river, not a lake." Same water level, completely different water.
Brinker makes a distinction that matters: not everything in the stack is equally fluid. Some tools flow through. But some products become platforms — they accumulate data, integrations, workflows, the institutional knowledge of how a company operates. HubSpot, Salesforce, Databricks hold the center while the tools around them churn. His argument is that the platforms that win will be the ones that open up to the ecosystem rather than trying to out-feature everyone.
It's a sharp analysis from the buyer side — who's buying, what stays, what flows.
We kept thinking about it from the vendor side. We're in this river too. And we ended up somewhere a bit silly, but stay with us.
OK So If the Stack Is a River, Then What Are We?
If the stack is a river and the tools flow through it, then the tools are... fish? And if you're a software vendor, you're one of those fish. According to G2, there are 175,000+ of us swimming in there.
And we actually want to get caught. Buyers are on the bank, looking into the water, trying to find the right tool to pull into their stack. We want them to reach in, see us, and pick us. That's a strange fish. But that's what a vendor is.
The water is murky, and the fish are laying eggs — four of the top seven fastest-growing products on this year's G2 list are AI-native (Retell AI, Synthflow, Perplexity, SuperAGI), with n8n riding the same wave. Most of those eggs won't survive, but the ones that hatch grow fast. In the marketing and sales slices, Brinker found 57% turnover on the best-of lists.
Where the Water Clears Up
Directories and review sites — G2, Capterra, Gartner Peer Insights, TrustRadius, SourceForge — are the spots in the river where the water clears up. Where products have profiles, reviews accumulate, and buyers can actually see what's swimming. Try finding a specific B2B tool through a Google search sometime. These are the clear patches.
And they're consolidating. "Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp are now part of G2" — that's from the awards press release, present tense, done. We've been tracking this acquisition since it was announced. The biggest clear patch just absorbed three others. G2's CMO Alex London calls this the "answer economy" — AI-first software discovery. They're hiring a VP of Growth & Buyer Experience whose job description includes making G2 the top citation source in LLMs. The clear patches are becoming where AI looks too.
The Fish That Jump (and Splash Back In)
The Best Software Awards are the fish that jump out of the water from a clear patch. Spectacular — everyone on the bank sees them mid-air. It's the best thing that can happen to a fish in the river: visible, in a clear spot, and for a moment above the surface entirely.
But 47% of the fish that jumped last year didn't jump this year. Different fish are jumping now. That's the harsh reality of being a fish.
Fish Don't Usually Have Marketing Strategies
But here we are.
The current sweeps you through the clear patches too. Your G2 profile needs fresh reviews or other fish outshine you. Quarterly Grid placements reset. Badges have eligibility windows. You can be visible one quarter and gone with the river the next.
Jumping is spectacular but temporary. A smarter strategy is to be visible in as many clear patches as possible — reviews on G2, a profile on Capterra, presence on Gartner Peer Insights, TrustRadius, SourceForge. Each one a spot where a buyer might peer into the water.
This is where the metaphor breaks, honestly — fish can have marketing strategies (apparently), but they can't be in many places at once. A vendor can.
What the 47% Actually Tells You
Brinker is right — the stack is a river. From the bank, the interesting question is about platforms and context and what holds the center stable.
From inside the water, it's simpler.
No amount of directory presence makes you a good fish, by the way. Your product does that. A strong product is what keeps you in someone's stack after they've caught you. A bad product with great reviews is just a fish that gets thrown back.
But a good fish in murky water doesn't get caught either.
P.S. For those few who clicked with the headline — yes, this is what you thought: How Much Is the Fish? Drop me a line and let's hug: ceo@blastra.io
Be visible in more clear patches
Blastra is a SaaS Listings Management Platform. We handle your presence across G2, Capterra, SourceForge, TrustRadius, and dozens of other directories — so you can focus on building a product worth catching.
Related Reading
- 25 Software Badges That Should Matter More Than a Reddit Thread — We decoded 25 badges across 6 platforms. AI cites Reddit but ignores badges. Here's what each one actually requires.
- All Software Awards and Badges — The full directory of badges from G2, Capterra, SourceForge, TrustRadius, PeerSpot, and Gartner Peer Insights.
- G2 Badges Guide — How to earn G2 badges in 2026, including the new Best Agentic AI and Best ERP award categories.
G2's 2026 Best Software Awards were announced on February 18, 2026. Source: G2 press release. Brinker's analysis: Context Is Gravity in an Expanding Software Universe.