Salesforce Is Named Best Software Company for 2025 – Beating Google and Microsoft
By Henry Martin
February 20, 2025
Salesforce has been named the number-one software company in the world.
The cloud giant won the top spot in the G2 list of Best Software Companies for 2025, beating Google in second place and HubSpot in third.
Top 10 Software Companies
Tech titan Microsoft was trailing behind in eighth place, according to the Best Software Companies/Global Software Companies survey, which G2 says was “based on honest reviews and ratings” from their users this year.
G2 said: “Out of 93,410 total vendors in this category, and 10,949 that were eligible for the 2025 Best Software Awards, here are the 100 best software vendors. When looking at this year’s winners, 66 remained on the list from last year, while 34 are new entrants – representing a 34% change on this list since the 2024 Best Software Awards.”
The top 10 ranked companies in the category are:
Salesforce
Google
HubSpot
Autodesk
Smartsheet
Monday.com
Asana
Microsoft
Zoom
Dropbox
Salesforce Sales Cloud also took the number one spot in the rankings for Best Software Products 2025.
The G2 annual Best Software Awards ranks the world’s best software companies and products based on “authentic, timely reviews from real users and publicly available market presence data”.
The awards are determined by generating dozens of lists based on G2’s verified user reviews and publicly available market presence data. The company uses satisfaction and market presence scores to rank products and vendors across different categories.
But while the headlines are good for Salesforce, there are also some finer details that are worth examining.
The Future: What Really Matters?
The data for 2025 ranks the top 100 companies worldwide, but it also outlines other G2 awards each of the contenders has won.
Salesforce’s accolades include:
Best Small Business Products 2025
Best Highest Satisfaction Products 2025
Best Software Products 2025
Best Enterprise Products 2025
Best Mid-Market Products 2025
While Google only won the silver medal in the overall rankings, it did earn six G2 Awards, compared to Salesforce’s five. They were:
Best Software Products 2025
Best Mid-Market Products 2025
Best Small Business Products 2025
Best IT Management Software Products 2025
Best Collaboration & Productivity Software Products 2025
… and, perhaps most interestingly, Best AI Software Products2025
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has been very outspoken about other tech companies’ AI products in recent months.
He previously said he was “blown away” by the capabilities of Google’s AI product Gemini, calling it “truly groundbreaking” work.
Marc has been somewhat less enthusiastic about rival Microsoft’s AI suite, comparing the company’s Copilot product to “Clippy 2.0”.
So, while Salesforce may well be celebrating its gold medal in the worldwide rankings, those of a more pessimistic nature at the company might be disappointed that they did not win the “Best AI” category.
There can be little room for interpretation in Marc Benioff’s comments about just how important he sees Salesforce’s AI product, Agentforce, for the company’s future.
Last year, he told the 20VC with Harry Stebbings podcast: “Everything needs to become about Agentforce at Salesforce – this is the only thing that really matters today.”
Salesforce will no doubt be pleased with winning the top spot in the global software company rankings, perhaps especially with rival tech giant Microsoft trailing behind in just eighth place.
But with artificial intelligence completely dominating the conversation around the future of the sector, it may be the case that what senior executives at Salesforce really want is more accolades for Agentforce.
