How we compare
The six-surface test, the editor criteria, the AI and pricing check, the data-residency audit. All scored on a transparent 100-point rubric, from the vendors' public documentation — and with our conflict of interest stated up front.
First, the disclosure
This site is published by the team behind YourPAZ. We build YourPAZ, and we compare it here with alternatives — which is why YourPAZ ranking first should earn your scepticism, not your trust.
So the method is designed around that conflict of interest. Every score on this site is an editorial judgment ("our score"), but every factual claim — prices, hosting regions, AI providers, feature availability — comes from sources you can check without believing a word we say: the vendors' public pricing pages, documentation, trust centers and sub-processor lists, plus our own first-hand product knowledge for YourPAZ itself. For each criterion below, we spell out how to verify it yourself.
The six-surface test
An all-in-one workspace earns the label by handling six things well:
- Tasks — first-class task objects with priority, due date, subtasks, dependencies, recurring patterns. Not "a database with task-shaped fields".
- Notes — rich-text editor with markdown, slash-commands, bidirectional links, embeds.
- Meetings — first-class meeting objects with attendees, agenda, decisions, action items.
- Ideas — low-friction inbox for capture, with searchability and related-idea surfacing.
- Decisions — searchable log of meaningful decisions, linked to projects and meetings.
- Contacts / CRM — at least a lightweight CRM with linked tasks and meetings.
Each surface gets a 0-10 editorial score, based on the vendor's own feature pages and documentation. A tool that fails on any surface (e.g., "tasks are a database hack") cannot place in our top 3 regardless of strengths elsewhere.
Check it yourself: open the vendor's feature or docs page for each surface. If "meetings" only exists as a page template and "CRM" only as a database template, that tells you everything this criterion measures.
The editor criteria
The block-based editor is the heartbeat of an all-in-one workspace. We compare what the vendors document and what you can try on a free plan:
- The underlying engine, where the vendor discloses it (many modern editors are built on open-source foundations like ProseMirror or TipTap).
- Slash-command coverage, as documented.
- Markdown shortcut support.
- Embed coverage (PDFs, images, videos, code blocks, tables).
- Bidirectional links, and whether they update on rename.
Check it yourself: every editor in this ranking can be tried on a free tier in under ten minutes.
The AI and pricing check
Three questions, all answerable from public pages: Is AI included in the base price, or a paid add-on? Which AI providers does the vendor's own documentation or sub-processor list name? Is there an EU-hosted or local/offline route? We also note seat minimums and which tier a feature actually sits in — the pricing-page fine print where all-in-one economics tend to fall apart.
Check it yourself: the vendors' pricing pages and trust/privacy centers are the only sources this criterion uses.
The data-residency audit
Vendor jurisdiction, hosting region, sub-processor list, AI provider routing, DPA availability, self-host option. EU buyers especially should care about this.
Check it yourself: all of it is readable from the vendors' public privacy policies, DPAs and trust pages — no lab required. For YourPAZ: EU hosting (Hetzner, Germany), Mistral + Ollama as AI providers, and Docker self-hosting are documented at yourpaz.com.
Scoring weights
| Criterion | Weight |
|---|---|
| Six-surface coverage | 30% |
| Editor quality | 20% |
| AI inclusion + quality | 20% |
| Value for money | 15% |
| Data residency posture | 10% |
| Mobile parity | 5% |
What we don't do
We don't run lab benchmarks, reviewer panels or user studies, and we don't claim to. There are no measured latency numbers, test cohorts or blind scoring rounds behind this ranking — where you see a score, it is the editorial judgment of the YourPAZ team, informed by the public sources above and by our own experience building in this category. If you spot a factual error on any page, email us and we will correct it.