Seller

Vendor and Seller are the terms directories use to refer to the companies and products listed on their platforms—the supply side of the marketplace complementing Buyers on the demand side. Seller is less common but appears in some platforms' terminology, most notably TrustRadius's Trusted Seller verification program.

The two terms are largely interchangeable, though "seller" tends to emphasize the commercial transaction between a software company and its buyers, while "vendor" emphasizes the listing relationship between a software company and the directory. G2 uses both interchangeably in its documentation. Capterra primarily uses "vendor." The inconsistency is typical of the directory ecosystem— platforms developed their own terminology independently, and no standard emerged.

For practical purposes, if a directory's documentation says "seller," it means the same thing as "vendor": the company whose product is listed, reviewed, and compared on the platform.