Competitors

Competitors describe Gartner, Inc.'s market in their own filings and calls. These verified passages and visual pages show where their strategies meet, using source documents preserved in Sources.

Forrester Research, Inc. (FORR)

Gartner's most direct competitor — the only other independent syndicated research-and-advisory firm at scale. Forrester names Gartner by name as a principal direct competitor, runs the identical three-segment model (research subscriptions, consulting, events) sold on an annualized “contract value,” and is fighting the same AI-disruption question with a rival AI product (Izola / AI Access). Its shrinking contract value and mid-70s retention are the mirror against which Gartner's growth reads.

Forrester's own 10-K: it books revenue in the same three buckets as Gartner — research (subscriptions), consulting and events — tracks a Gartner-style annualized “contract value” (here – 6% to $292.4m), and names Gartner as its principal direct competitor, now alongside Google and LLM-based free information.

We report our revenue from client contracts in three categories of revenue: (1) research, (2) consulting, and (3) events. We classify revenue from subscriptions to, and licenses of, our research products and services as research revenue. We classify revenue from our consulting projects and standalone advisory services as consulting revenue. We classify revenue from tickets to, and sponsorships of, events as events revenue.

Contract pricing for annual subscription-based products is principally a function of the number of licensed users at the client. Pricing of contracts is a fixed fee for the consulting project or shorter-term advisory service. We periodically review and increase the list prices for our products and services.

We track contract value as a significant business indicator. Contract value is defined as the value attributable to all of our recurring research-related contracts. Contract value is calculated as the annualized value of all contracts in effect at a specific point in time, without regard to how much revenue has already been recognized. Contract value decreased 6% to $292.4 million at December 31, 2025 from $311.9 million at December 31, 2024. […] Our principal direct competitors include other independent providers of research and advisory services, such as Gartner, as wel as marketing agencies, general business consulting firms, and survey-based general market research firms. In addition, our indirect competitors include the internal planning and marketing staffs of our current and prospective clients, as well as other information providers such as electronic and print publishing companies. We also face competition from free sources of information available on the Internet, such as Google and artificial intelligence services (including LLMs).

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Forrester's CFO quantifies the pressure on the syndicated-research model Gartner also runs: a 7% contract-value decline, research revenue down 7% to $77.9m, client retention of 74% and wallet retention slipping to 85% — the softening-retention backdrop against which Gartner's own retention and CV growth can be read.

Christopher Finn, Chief Financial Officer: Q2 saw a 7% client value decline. This mirrors our first quarter performance. We anticipate improved performance in the second half to come from opportunities in the government space, along with demand driven by our groundbreaking research and expanded offerings in our Forrester Decisions product portfoli aimed at broadening the market reach for our products. Therefore, even with the continuing uncertainty in the market, we expect client value to improve to a low single-digit decline for the year. […] research revenue was $77.9 million, down from $83.7 million in 2024. This was a decrease of 7% compared to the second quarter of 2024, with revenue from our subscription research products down 3%. Excluding the impact of FeedbackNow, which we divested last year, research revenue declined by 5% year-over-year. Client retention of 74% was up 1 point from the prior quarter. However, wallet retention was down 1 point to 85%.

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Informa plc (INF)

Informa collides with Gartner on two fronts. Through Informa TechTarget, Omdia, Canalys and Enterprise Strategy Group it sells specialist technology research and analyst coverage to enterprise tech buyers — and names Gartner, Forrester and IDC as the established rivals it competes against. Through Informa Markets/Connect/Festivals it runs the world's largest B2B live-events business, the direct counterpart to Gartner's Conferences franchise. (The FY2024 report is the US-listed Informa TechTarget 10-K; FY2025 is Informa PLC.)

Informa TechTarget's 10-K sizes the technology-and-B2B-marketing arena it competes in at ~$20bn a year and explicitly lists Gartner (with IDC, Forrester and Frost & Sullivan) as the “larger, established” specialist tech-research players it competes against on specificity of analysis and analyst coverage — Informa's stated view of where it collides with Gartner Research.

We sit at the intersection of technology and B2B Marketing, a large and growing market worth an estimated $20 billion annually. As this area has grown in scale, it has become even more competitive, with more companies targeting the marketing and sales budgets of technology companies with a range of products and services similar to ours. These companies can be categorized into (i) media companies, (ii) providers of specialist technology research and intelligence, (iii) demand generation and intent data providers, and (iv) marketing technology and software companies. […] Providers of specialist tech research include several larger, established players such as Gartner, IDC, Forrester, Frost and Sullivan, and others. We compete against these companies based on the specificity of our analysis, content creation capabilities, and analyst coverage against specific technology categories.

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Informa describes its Intelligence & Advisory and Omdia/Canalys/Enterprise Strategy Group research as “expert analyst” advisory to the C-suite that helps clients “determine where to play… and how to compete and win” — the analyst-led decision-support proposition that overlaps Gartner's research franchise, framed in Informa's own words.

Intelligence & Advisory: Expert analyst, data-driven intelligence products and advisory services to product managers, corporate strategists and the C-suite, challenging market strategies and sharpening product roadmaps. These offerings help clients determine where to play, what products and services to offer, and how to compete and win. […] Specialist Technology Research: Through the Omdia brand, the specialist brands Canalys and Wards Intelligence and our Enterprise Strategy Group, we provide research and intelligence services to technology providers based on expert analysis and data-driven intelligence and reports.

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Informa PLC's annual report claims the “leading position in B2B Live Events globally” — 800+ brands across 30+ market categories, targeting 7%+ growth in 2026 — the events-and-exhibitions scale that is the competitive counterweight to Gartner's Conferences/Symposium business.

Over the last 10+ years, Informa has built the leading position in B2B Live Events globally, including more than 800 specialist Brands serving 30+ growth market categories in all major geographic regions. […] In 2026, we are targeting 7%+ underlying revenue growth for the B2B Live Events Division.

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Information Services Group, Inc. (ISG) (III)

A pure-play technology research and advisory firm whose ISG Provider Lens provider evaluations are a direct analog to Gartner's Magic Quadrant, and whose ISG Research subscriptions, benchmarking data and events overlap Gartner's Research and Conferences segments. ISG frames its research against “a traditional analyst firm,” sizes the enterprise-software and AI-services markets, and reports the recurring-research economics investors compare with Gartner's contract value.

ISG reports double-digit growth in its ISG Research business — led by ISG Provider Lens, its provider-evaluation research that is the direct analog to Gartner's Magic Quadrant — and sizes enterprise software spend at more than $1.4 trillion by 2030, the market its research and advisory both feed on.

Our ISG Research business delivered double-digit growth, led by our ISG Provider Lens® provider evaluation research and ISG Events. Client interest in AI-related content continues to rise, evidenced by our five sold-out AI Impact Summit events held across the globe in 2025. In addition, our third annual State of Enterprise AI Adoption study quickly became our most downloaded report ever. […] Software continues to be a significant spend category for enterprises, with global spending expected to double to more than $1.4 trillion by end of 2030, with AI as a catalyst. In 2025, our Software unit achieved double-digit growth, reflecting strong enterprise demand for insights and support in this area.

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ISG positions its research explicitly against “what a traditional analyst firm might cover” — the closest it comes to naming Gartner — backing it with scale (180,000 service contracts tracked, 4,000+ providers evaluated a year) that enterprises tap when they “need to evaluate providers,” the vendor-evaluation use case Gartner's Magic Quadrant serves.

Our research not only incorporates what a traditional analyst firm might cover, but also actual feedback and perspectives from practitioners in the market who are helping some of the largest enterprise clients transform their business. […] ISG tracks over 180,000 unique technology service contracts and measures and writes about more than 4,000 service and software providers each year. This gives us valuable insights into pricing, capabilities and stability. When large enterprises need to evaluate providers, they reach out to ISG Research for a deep understanding of capabilities, pricing, breadth of coverage and past experience.

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Competitors

Forrester Research, Inc. (FORR)

Informa plc (INF)

Information Services Group, Inc. (ISG) (III)

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