Methodology
Where our data comes from, how often we check it, and what we deliberately do not publish.
Cool New Apps is a specification directory. We currently list 124 products across five categories. For each one we record what it does, what it costs, what it runs on, and what it connects to — then link you to the vendor.
We do not score products, rank them against each other, or name winners. That is a deliberate constraint, not an omission. Scoring requires either testing every product under identical conditions, which we do not do, or substituting our judgement for yours, which we would rather not.
Everything on a tool page comes from one of three places:
We do not reproduce marketing claims as facts. If a vendor says a product is the fastest or the best, that is their claim to make on their own site, and you will not find it restated as though we had verified it.
We have not tested most of these products in a controlled way. We have not benchmarked performance, measured uptime, or run comparative trials. Where a listing describes what a product does, that description comes from documentation rather than from our own use.
This matters most in categories where the difference between products only shows up in use — hosting performance, for example, or output quality in generative tools. For those, our listings will tell you what a product claims to offer and what it charges, and you should treat hands-on trials and independent benchmarks as the better source.
Pricing drifts constantly, and stale prices are the most likely way this site could mislead someone. Each tool page shows the date its specifications were last checked against the vendor’s own pages, so you can judge how much to trust a figure.
Our re-verification cycle is quarterly for the full directory, and monthly for the products we link to most. Where a page carries no verification date, its specifications have not yet been through a verification pass — the entry price shown comes from when the product was added, and you should confirm it with the vendor.
Always confirm the current price on the vendor’s own page before you buy. Ours is a record of what was published on a date, not a live feed.
We list products we judge to be relevant to the categories we cover and substantial enough to be worth comparing. Listing is not an endorsement, and it is not for sale: no vendor has paid to appear in this directory or to be positioned within it.
Some listings carry affiliate links, and we earn a commission if you sign up through them. That relationship never determines whether a product is listed or how it is described. See the affiliate disclosure for the full statement and the list of programs we currently participate in.
If something here is wrong — a price that has changed, a feature that no longer exists, a company attributed incorrectly — please tell us and we will correct it. Accuracy complaints from vendors about their own products are especially welcome, since they are the authority on their own pricing.