The 100 Best Software Companies of 2018, According to G2 Crowd

Are you using the best software tools? Business software review startup G2 Crowd just published its annual list of the best software companies of the year to help give a snapshot of today's top companies based on user reviews.

Chicago-based G2 Crowd's rankings, based on reviews collected from January 7, 2017 to January 7, 2018, feature plenty of familiar faces, including a few Chicago companies.

Topping the list was Slack, the San Francisco-based workplace communication platform that has raised nearly $800 million in venture capital. Rounding out the top five were Shopify, Google, MailChimp and Salesforce.

The top-ranking Chicago company was Basecamp, the project management and workplace collaboration platform that launched in 1999. It ranked No. 12 on G2 Crowd's list. Chicago-based marketing platform ActiveCampaign ranked No. 35, and local social media management tool Sprout Social came in at No. 39.

“We built G2 Crowd to empower users with the ability to transparently help one another find the software solutions that best fit their needs," Tim Handorf, co-founder and CEO of G2 Crowd, said in a statement. "This list recognizes the voice of those users and they are telling us that these companies have designed great products that are meeting the needs of their customers.”

G2 Crowd, known as the “Yelp for business software,” launched in 2013 and has amassed more than 250,000 reviews and more than $45 million in venture funding. Its investors include Accel and LinkedIn.

Below are the top 40 companies. You can read the full list here. (Bolded companies are Chicago-based.)