feature-comparison

name	feature-comparison
description	Compare competing products or alternatives at the capability and workflow level using current evidence, comparable scope, user relevance, and explicit uncertainty rather than checklist theater.

Feature Comparison

Use when a product decision depends on understanding how alternatives solve the same customer problem.

Procedure

1. Define the target customer, job to be done, market segment, geography, and decision the comparison must inform.
2. Select relevant competitors and substitutes, including non-software or do-nothing alternatives when customers realistically use them.
3. Define comparable capability dimensions around user outcomes and workflows before collecting product claims.
4. Gather current evidence from first-party product documentation, hands-on use, demos, pricing, reviews, or other credible sources and record dates.
5. Distinguish advertised availability, observed behavior, plan-gated capability, beta status, and inferred absence.
6. Compare depth, usability, integration, constraints, and workflow consequences rather than marking every named feature as equal.
7. Identify meaningful gaps, parity, and differentiated approaches with confidence proportional to evidence.
8. End with implications for product strategy or discovery, not a recommendation to copy the longest checklist.

Decision rules

• Compare customer outcomes and workflow depth, not feature-name count.
• Competitor pages are evidence about claims, not independent proof of quality.
• Absence is hard to prove; label uncertain gaps honestly.
• Competitive parity is not automatically a product requirement.

Quality gate

The comparison is ready when alternatives are evaluated on relevant and comparable dimensions, evidence is current and traceable, claimed and observed capability are separated, uncertainty is explicit, and the result clarifies strategic choices rather than encouraging blind imitation.