Technical tool status survey: Tool migration accelerates, user experience is more important than features

Author: noam segal , encrypted KOL

Compilation: Felix, Panews

The encrypted Kol Noam Segal released a survey report for technical tools (more than 6,500 participants participated in the survey). The survey covers 13 categories, from AI assistants to project management to CRM (customer relationship management). In addition to asking "what tools are used", they also ask people what tools and tools they like most and what tools they feel disappointed. If they can, they will use what they will use.

Among the respondents, 50% of people are engaged in product work, 11% are engineers, 10% are founders, and the rest are engaged in other cross -employed work, including marketing, design and growth.

The scale of the company's company's company is as follows:

• About 45% work in the company of 1 to 100 employees
• About 25% work in a company for 101 to 1,000 employees
• About 20% work in a company for 1,001 to 5,000 employees

If a company with less than 1,000 employees defined as a "non -large enterprise", about 70% of the respondents work in startups or medium -sized companies, which can be said to be a group of early adopors.

10 key points:

• ChatGPT is far ahead. 90% of respondents often use ChatGPT. Only 35% of people use Claude, and 24% of people use Gemini.
• Cursor and other AI native integration development environment (IDE) tools are rapidly rising. 17% of respondents often use Cursor (launched two years ago). 10% of participants use V0 and REPLIT. 5% of people use Bolt.
• As a tool with the third highest overall usage rate, SLACK continues to lead over. 72% of participants often use Slack, second only to ChatGTP and Gmail
• 68% of participants use Jira, but it also ranks first in the list of "I hope to use other tools". LINEAR is the fastest growing Jira substitute, and it has been used by more than 10%.
• Figma Slides and Canva have become important tools in the field of demonstration. They are far ahead of Apple Keynote and are close to PowerPoint.
• Google Docs is still the first choice for collaborative tools, but the development momentum is flourishing. NOTION is regarded as "universal" and is catching up with other well -known tools. 37% of the respondents prefer Notion. NOTION is also the second place after project management, ranking fourth in CRM.
• Figma is still ubiquitous design tools. 97% of designers said they were used as the main design tools. CANVA is still far behind, but is catching up, thanks to the widely welcomed by marketers and founders for general design needs.
• Miro continued to lead Figjam in the virtual whiteboard, just slightly better. But Figjam is progressing.
• NOTION and SLACK are surprises in CRM and customer support. It turns out that even in the face of strong existing enterprises, the flexibility of tools is very important.

Three basic points: binding, delicate design and mixing. The following will be introduced in detail.

ChatGPT is far ahead

What is the most significant change since 2022? The AI ​​tool is as important as a laptop. As high as 90% of respondents often use ChatGPT. This is the most significant change in the recent product team tool stack. There are more respondents using ChatGPT than using Gmail (76%) or SLACK (71%).

Interestingly, more than 50% of the respondents combine AI assistants for specific cases:

• Chatgpt + Claude as a ideological partner
• Chatgpt + Perplexity for in -depth research
• Chatgpt + Gemini for Google WorkSpace Integration

AI tools of specific characters are becoming more and more popular:

• 40% of engineers often use GitHub Copilot
• 21% of engineers use Cursor
• Although tools such as ChatPrd and Grammarly were not mentioned, it became more and more popular.

Cursor and other AI native IDEs **are rising

rapidly**

The second most important change in the tool stack is the emergence of the AI ​​native development environment. Although Cursor and other tools were launched in 2023, 17% of the overall respondents (and 21% of engineers in the sample) were used. Nearly 10% of the respondents have used tools such as V0 and Replit, and 5% of the respondents are using Bolt. 60% of them are product staff, 40% are other roles, including engineers, founders, consultants, marketers, designers and user experience researchers. Most of these tools were launched more than a year ago.

This rapid adoption indicates that developers desire to simplify coding and integrate tools in the coding workflow.

Nearly two -thirds of the respondents used GitHub; however, the most popular "other" tools were GitLab, the main competitor of Github.

VS Code occupies a considerable position among engineers, with a rate of 48%. The success of VS Code reflects its technical capabilities and Microsoft's successful development of the platform into a highly scalable and community -driven tool.

As the third and most commonly used tools, Slack **continues to

lead**

In the previous survey, Slack ranked first. This trend continues here, and 72% of respondents use Slack as their main communication tools (second only to Gmail).

Technically, Microsoft Teams occupy about 33% of the market share, but this is because their corporate bundling strategies are not as practical as people think. As the following is about changing tools, users do not like to use Teams.

Why can Slack stand out? Two assumptions:

• People have not evaluated Teams's user experience. There are rumors that it is very troublesome, slow, and even "unavailable." In terms of user experience, Slack wins.
• According to public data, Microsoft Teams is mainly used by non -technical companies and has been adopted by most large American companies. Instead, SLACK is mainly used by startups to medium -sized companies. Most of the respondents in this survey worked in SLACK's dominant company.

Another interesting discovery: up to 20% of the respondents use WhatsApp during their work, and Telegram has made progress in work exchange. 15% of the "other tools" interviewees use Telegram every day. WhatsApp and Telegraam have never been designed as work communication tools, but a considerable number of people are using them as work exchange tools.

Jira paradox and the rise of Linear

This is an interesting contradiction: Jira led the project management market (53% of the technical team used, the most proportion), but at the same time ranked among the best in the "want to change" list. It is locked in the depth integration of the development work process, the binding with other products, and the corporate priority function set.

The feedback from the interviewees shows that Jira is too complicated and difficult to learn and use. One interviewee said: "Jira is bad, poor performance, and it is difficult to maintain. It is very complicated, the function is chaotic and the user experience is bad." Another participant said: "Jira is too complicated for our needs/ I think it is troublesome and can simplify its function. "

LINEAR: The fastest growing Jira replacement scheme was established in 2019. It has been used by more than 10% of participants (and only 10 times in the last survey). The interviewees praised their modern, intuitive interfaces and simplified workflows. A engineering manager said: "It has just been transferred from the Atlassian kit to Linear, which is more useful in milestones and flexibility. It is easier to filter view and build a personal work area settings." Linear's popularity is equivalent to Asana established in 2008.

At the same time, NOTION has become the second popular project management tool and the fourth most popular document, and it is becoming more and more popular as a CRM tool. The interviewees unanimously praised its flexibility.

Figma Slides and Canva **have become important tools for

demonstration fields**

The way users make presentations are evolving in amazing ways. There are three very different methods, each method shows different narratives of how to perform visual exchanges in 2025.

The first is the old school. Google Slides and PowerPoint continue to dominate the creation of traditional presentation, doing things they have always been good at.

However, design tools are setting off a quiet revolution in the field of presentation. Figma and Canva have become strong competitors, and the adoption rate is comparable. This may surprise those who mainly use these platforms as design tools. What promoted this change? The interviewees unanimously reported that these tools provided things that traditional demonstration software could not provide: creative freedom without complexity.

AI is also involved in the field of demonstration. New tools like Pitch, Gamma, and Beautiful.ai are fundamentally reinterpreting the production of presentation. These tools do not start with blank slides, but use AI to shape your content into a beautiful presentation. Although these tools are still looking for a market foothold, the signals adopted in the early days suggest that the way of making slides in the future will change significantly.

Another trend appears in the data: Miro has always appeared in the "other" category, which shows that people are not only changing the demonstration tools, but also questioning whether they need traditional slides. The boundaries between presentation, whiteboard and collaborative space are becoming blurred, which may be just the beginning.

Google Docs **is still the first choice for collaborative tools,

but** the development momentum of notce

The document field is integrated around the three platforms, and each platform meets different needs:

• Google Docs is still the first choice for real -time collaboration.
• However, NOTION, as a rising star, occupies an advantage in team Wiki, project management and documentation.
• Confluence is still popular in the corporate team (although there are complaints).

Google Sheets has made progress in the field of electronic tables, but Excel shows surprising toughness. At the same time, as many companies are seeking integration of their own tool stacks, tools such as Evernote, QUIP, CODA, and Dropbox Paper are gradually fading out of people's attention.

Figma continues to become a tool for design and user experience

If you are engaged in design, you will definitely use Figma. 90% of participants and 97% of designers use it as the main tool.

The unexpected tool is Canva. Although it did not directly grab professional designers with Figma, it provided other people with democratic design. Product managers, marketers and engineers are using Canva to create fast visual effects without disturbing their design teams.

MIRO is slightly leading Figjam **in the field of virtual

whiteboards**

Miro is still leaders in the field of virtual whiteboards, but it is just a little lead. As just read, Figma is a design tool, so the advantage of Figjam may force Miro to lose its leadership position in the next few years.

Perhaps the method of Figma was observed. Atlassian and Microsoft developed virtual whiteboard products, about 5% of the reply mentioned these products. Murral and Whimsical seem to have no growth.

NOTION and SLACK are surprises supported by CRM

and customers

The two companies led the CRM field, but there was an unexpected entry in the market.

Salesforce's comprehensive corporate features make it a default choice for large organizations, but more and more small companies are dissatisfied with their complexity and cost structure. This creates opportunities to emphasize alternatives of simplicity and specific cases.

Hubspot fills this market gap, especially in small and medium -sized enterprises. The interviewees said that Hubspot was more intuitive and more streamlined than Salesforce. Even without special CRM experts, the team could use it.

But then an accident appeared. 11% of the respondents chose NOTION as their preferred CRM. According to the result, flexibility is the key to its success: "NOTION provides a lot of flexibility for our team, which may be the most difficult to replace."

The customer support tool field shows a similar established leader model. Zendesk maintains its position as a main support platform, accounting for 29%.

But it is interesting that the SLACK market share is 29%. Why?

Suppose the respondents of this survey are preferred to early companies. Slack is necessary, and Zendesk or Intercom is both expensive and complicated.

Slack allows you to create an external sharing channel for each customer or design partner, and co -founders or early employees can communicate directly with their customers. This explanation revealed that Salesforce decided to acquire another variable behind SLACK for nearly $ 30 billion a few years ago.

Three main points: binding, careful design and mixing

1. The bundle function is very powerful, but the role is limited

Some of the most commonly used tools, such as Jira, Microsoft Teams, and Google Slides, are tied to their own corporate stacks, which will lock users for a long time and generate huge conversion costs. Because they are bundled, they eventually "win", but some of these products are the first of "the most unwell" and "most want to change" list. Therefore, some startups with better production and stronger execution (such Figma Slides) is only a matter of time to find a breakthrough and seize the opportunity.

2. The carefully constructed products are subverting existing products

Linear, NOTION, Figma Slides, and Slack are all praised for their user experience, suitable workflow and focusing on perfect feature sets. They are rising rapidly (or victory), and they are the first choice for interviewees to switch.

3. Mix different tools in the same field

When you look at the tool stack pattern more comprehensive, you will find that for core work, users will use several (competitive) tools in the same category according to their needs. For example, most interviewees use multiple AI assistants based on the advantages of each assistant.

**The tools that people value most, and the tools they will give up if

they can**

In the survey, the respondents will be required to choose up to three tools they most values ​​and the least valued, and hope that there is no overlap between the two options. But the results are wrong. Tools like Slack, Jira and even ChatGPT are often mentioned in both lists. It requires a better indicator to capture the value of the tool. At the same time, two key factors are considered:

• The overall frequency of the tool is selected.
• In addition to the most valuable tools, the tools are included in the most popular frequency.

The survey adjusted the ranking based on the general popularity and the most valuable proportion and the most valuable and most valuable proportion, and punished the tools that ranked among the top two lists. Eventually, the "most valuable value" indicator was obtained.

Linear : Exquisite design is victory

Interviewees like LINEAR's user experience, the degree of matching with the workflow, and relatively simple and focused compared to Jira.

Cursor : The future of software development is AI native

Cursor is rising at an amazing speed, with at least five other AI native encoding platforms. More than 20% of engineers are already relying on Cursor. Its choices exceed most other traditional coding tools, such as Jetbrains, Intellij, and even Xcode.

Slack : place where work

Speaking of Slack, it is not all love. Slack is among the best in the "most valuable" list, but also ranks among the "most valuable" list. Users seriously rely on SLACK to communicate, but some people also think it is a productive force killer. Some interviewees describe it as "increasing a large number of cognitive loads" and "noise generator". Nevertheless, in the era when communication is getting faster, Slack is a place to work.

NOTION : Everything is good enough

There are a number of new modern tools. NOTION stands out, representing a new type of tool. It gives priority to the flexibility of collaboration, intuitive design, and completing a series of work. It can complete a series of work from document to project management to collaboration.

Perplexity : Provide answers instead of links

In addition to the popularity of ChatGPT and Claude, the top five Perplexity told showing an important thing: AI tools are no longer just shiny toys, they are changing people's workflows and replacing mature tools (such as Google) , And become an indispensable tool for working days.

" The Tools I Want to Replace the Tools " list

The survey also asked the tools that the interviewees wanted to replace the most, and the tools they wanted to use most.

It seems that Linear, Slack and NOTION is a modern stack for project management, communication and collaboration. Atlassian's Jira and Confluence did not perform well, as is Microsoft Teams.

Other important opinions: user research, analysis, email

1. User research

The survey tool is recognized

Google Forms occupies a dominant position, especially in PM, which may be because of simple and complete function, and it is bundled with Google Workspace.

However, Typeform is the perfect tool for re -conceiving the old format. With richer functional sets, less traditional methods, and more carefully designed design, it ranks third in user research tools.

User Interviews will change the recruitment pattern

User Interviews climbed to the second place by solving one of the biggest problems in the research (finding a suitable conversation). Think about it, if you can't find a suitable participant, what is the use of perfect research plans? Interviewees love User Interviews because it turns the tedious process of finding, arrangement and payment of participants into a management process.

Professional team

A large number of professional tools are changing the way the team understands users:

• UserTesting still occupies the availability field
• Qualtrics is responsible for corporate customer experience research
• DoveTail has an advantage in insight management
• MAZE makes research simple and fast
• Sprig is a product experience platform that is always online
• OptImal Workshop solves the problem of information architecture
• DSCOUT has diary and vertical research

2. Analysis

The data analysis pattern of 2025 tells the story of a David vs. Goliath, or more accurately, it is a story of several Goliath and a group of David.

Google Analytics is still the first of the most controversial, leading the general analysis. But it is interesting that a booming professional tool ecosystem is opening up its own territory.

Powerful player

When the team needs to improve their business intelligence level, more and more to find two main participants:

• Tableau: A platform that simplifies complex data into a striking dashboard.
• Looker: Data scientists' darlings, looker is helping companies to achieve data democratization. "

Favorite of behavior tracking

Amplitude and Mixpanel are still the two largest analysis companies after Google Analytics to help teams track everything from user behavior to functional use.

Open your own market segment

High professional tools are rising:

• Hotjar occupies the dominant position in the qualitative field with its hot map and session record
• Metabase has become the favorite of startups, providing fast and practical instrument boards
• PENDO has a large number of product feedback
• Segment is the first choice for data management
• FullStory and Heap are famous in terms of behavior data collection

30% of the response belonging to the "other" category. The two leading platforms have about 200 replies, which are evenly matched:

Posthog: A open source integrated platform competes with large companies AMPLITUDE, Mixpanel, Fullstory and Heap.

Power BI: Microsoft's response to Salesforce's Tableau and Google's looker. Data analysis, visualization, dashboard ... usually use the default selection of companies with Microsoft stack.

3. Email: Three camps

Email is basically divided into three categories:

• Gmail
• Microsoft Outlook
• Special tool for senior users

Gmail ranks second in the popularity of overall tools and lags behind ChatGPT, but leads ahead of Slack and all other email tools. In addition, throughout the survey, Google WorkSpace's evaluation is significantly higher than Microsoft Suite.

Microsoft still maintains its corporate status, but the gap between satisfaction is expanding. Their tools have appeared many times in the "most unpopular" ranking, as an interviewee said when talking about Outlook, "Compared with Google Suite, everything in Outlook gives people an enterprise and no enterprise and no The feeling of the soul, but the inertia of the company makes us unable to get rid of the tool. "

Senior users tend to use professional tools such as SuperHuman and FRONT, which are still relatively niche, but users report that their productivity has increased significantly, which proves that higher costs are reasonable.

Overall situation

When observing these data as a whole, some important trends are gradually clear. First of all, AI is not just a new normal, it is ubiquitous. The team is not only using AI, they also build the entire workflow around AI. ChatGPT not only stood out, but also dominated. The interviewees said that ChatGPT has a dual effect: they expand their thinking when conceived or brought up, and simplify key workflows such as data analysis or writing.

Another theme that runs through is that when choosing a tool, user experience is more important than features. The team is increasingly willing to sacrifice deep -level functions in exchange for truly easy -to -use tools. Tools like Linear, NOTION, Slack and Figma are appreciated for their exquisite design and flexibility.

This is why the tool migration may be accelerated. People have strong negative emotions for those tools that do not meet the standards of modern stack, and have strong willingness to switch from old tools to those modern alternatives. The role of bundling strategies is limited, and carefully created tools will snatch the market.

Smart teams and individuals will mix and match various tools in the same field to choose the most suitable tools according to each subtle situation or needs.

One thing is clear: people in the science and technology industry always pay attention to better tools.

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