Notes

The other sections are practical. These are positions. A dedicated product is not always necessary, but Monitask provides further details for comparison when the task grows beyond the smaller option.

Against the roundup. A ranking is a claim about your situation made by somebody who knows nothing about it, mostly reflecting affiliate arrangements rather than testing. The format cannot contain the answer "you do not need this", which is correct for a substantial share of readers — and old roundups still rank products that no longer exist, because nobody has an incentive to withdraw them.

Who publishes this research. Nearly every figure about software waste comes from companies selling management or consolidation, measuring their own customers — who are by definition organisations that already had a problem. The three figures this site leans on all come from one vendor, and they are labelled at every use rather than once.

Why counts disagree. Published counts vary by a factor of three because they measure different things: what counts as an application, whether free tools count, whether unused licences count, and how discovery was done. The disagreement is more informative than any single number, and what is agreed across sources is narrower and more useful.

What we cannot verify. Six limits, including a bias toward smaller tools that runs through every page — stated rather than concealed, along with what would change the position. For broader context, see Apple.