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Dec 15, 202548 mins

InfoWorld celebrates the year’s best products

From AI-powered coding assistants to real-time analytics engines, the software stack is undergoing its biggest shakeup in decades. Generative AI (genAI) and agentic AI tools are redefining how code is written, tested, and deployed — even as experts debate the true productivity gains they facilitate. Data management is converging around unified lakehouse architectures, the Apache Iceberg table format, and streaming technologies such as Apache Kafka, bridging the gap between raw data and actionable insight. On virtually every front, from application programming interface (API) development to cloud security, new platforms promise automated intelligence and tighter governance, signaling a new era in which innovation and control must evolve in tandem.

Examples of this innovative era are prominent among the 99 finalists and 35 winners of InfoWorld’s 2025 Technology of the Year Awards.

The InfoWorld Technology of the Year Awards recognize the best and most innovative products in AI, APIs, applications, business intelligence (BI), cloud, data management, devops, and software development. Read on to meet our finalists and winners.

Award categories

AI

• AI and machine learning: Applications
• AI and machine learning: Governance
• AI and machine learning: Infrastructure
• AI and machine learning: MLOps
• AI and machine learning: Models
• AI and machine learning: Platforms
• AI and machine learning: Security
• AI and machine learning: Tools

APIs

• API development
• API management
• API security

Applications

• Application management
• Application networking
• Application security

Business intelligence

• Business intelligence and analytics

Cloud

• Cloud backup and disaster recovery
• Cloud compliance and governance
• Cloud cost management
• Cloud security

Data management

• Data management: Databases
• Data management: Governance
• Data management: Integration
• Data management: Pipelines
• Data management: Security
• Data management: Streaming

Devops

• Devops: Analytics
• Devops: Automation
• Devops: CI/CD
• Devops: Code quality
• Devops: Observability
• Devops: Productivity

Software development

• Software development: Platforms
• Software development: Security
• Software development: Testing
• Software development: Tools

AI and machine learning: Applications

Winner

• Mirror, Whatfix

Finalists

• Solve(X), GoExceed
• HP AI Companion, *HP *
• Fascia PROMIS, *PROLIM *
• Mirror, Whatfix

From the winner

Mirror is a genAI simulation training platform that empowers teams with hands-on experience in safe, immersive, and hyper-realistic environments. Designed for companies that need to scale training across tools, workflows, and customer-facing interactions, Mirror combines interactive application simulations with AI-driven conversational role play to deliver a complete training experience. Employees can practice real-life scenarios, navigate systems, respond to simulated conversations, and make decisions, all without the risk of live system exposure. Mirror addresses key limitations of traditional simulation training that slow down learning and reduce its real-world impact.

From the judges

“Really interesting use case and tech/AI implementation. What makes Mirror truly innovative is its ability to replicate any web application without the need for costly, fragile sandbox environments.”

AI and machine learning: Governance

Winner

• AI Policy Suite, *Pacific AI *

Finalists

• AI Policy Suite, *Pacific AI *
• CTGT Platform, CTGT

From the winner

Pacific AI’s AI Policy Suite is a free, comprehensive, and continuously updated framework designed to simplify AI compliance. It translates complex legal and regulatory requirements — spanning 150+ domestic and international AI-related laws, regulations, and standards, including the EU AI Act, as well as frameworks such as NIST and ISO — into clear, actionable policies. Organizations gain access to a single, centralized policy suite that deduplicates overlapping rules, streamlines governance, and lowers compliance overhead. The suite now includes an AI Incident Reporting Policy to help companies align with more than 100 U.S. laws and industry standards and manage operational and regulatory risk.

From the judges

“Pacific AI’s AI Policy Suite is highly relevant and should have a big impact on small businesses to help them navigate legal challenges.”

AI and machine learning: Infrastructure

Winner

• Cloudera AI Inference, *Cloudera *

Finalists

• Compute Orchestration, *Clarifai *
• Cloudera AI Inference, *Cloudera *
• Inworld Runtime, *Inworld AI *
• AIStor, MinIO

From the winner

Cloudera AI Inference service, accelerated by NVIDIA, is one of the industry’s first AI inference services to provide embedded NVIDIA NIM [NVIDIA Inference Microservices] microservice capabilities. With the latest update, Cloudera brings its ability to streamline the deployment and management of large-scale AI models to the data center, behind an organization’s firewall, for maximum security. Features like auto-scaling, canary rollouts, and real-time performance tracking ensure resilient, efficient operations. By uniting performance acceleration, security, and governance in a single solution, Cloudera AI Inference enables enterprises to deploy trusted AI solutions quickly and confidently.

From the judges

“Cloudera’s AI Inference service is technically strong, built on NVIDIA GPU acceleration and deployment options that offer great service along with flexibility. What particularly stands out is governance and security, which is critical for enterprise adoption. Overall, it combines solid engineering with practical business impact.”

AI and machine learning: MLOps

Winner

• JFrog ML, *JFrog *

Finalists

• JFrog ML, JFrog
• Runloop Platform, Runloop

From the winner

JFrog ML is an enterprise-grade MLOps solution integrated into the JFrog Software Supply Chain Platform, designed to streamline the development, deployment, and security of machine learning [ML] models alongside traditional software components. It equips data scientists, ML engineers, and AI developers with an end-to-end system to build, train, secure, deploy, manage, and monitor both classic ML models and genAI/LLM [large language model] workflows — all within a single trusted interface.

With seamless integration across AWS, GCP, and hybrid clouds as well as an out-of-the-box feature store that supports LLMOps [large language model operations], prompt management, batch and real-time deployment, JFrog ML shortens time to production while ensuring compliance and reducing tool chain complexity.

From the judges

“JFrog ML is a strong technical product as it offers a complete platform for managing the ML life cycle with amazing features like model registry, feature store, deployment, and security built in. Overall, this product is technically complete, enterprise-ready, and well positioned to drive adoption at scale.”

AI and machine learning: Models

Winner

• Medical LLMs, *John Snow Labs *

Finalists

• Medical LLMs, John Snow Labs
• voyage-context-3, Voyage AI by MongoDB

From the winner

John Snow Labs has developed a suite of Medical LLMs purpose-built for clinical, biomedical, and life sciences applications. John Snow Labs’ models are designed to deliver best-in-class performance across a wide range of medical tasks — from clinical reasoning and diagnostics to medical research comprehension and genetic analysis. The software has been validated by peer-reviewed papers to deliver state-of-the-art accuracy on a variety of medical language understanding tasks and is designed to meet the security and compliance needs unique to the healthcare industry. The LLMs’ modular architecture and plug-and-play design allow seamless integration across healthcare systems, providers, payers, and pharmaceutical environments.

From the judges

“John Snow Labs Medical LLMs are advanced domain-specific models with large context windows, multimodal capabilities and benchmark results that show strong performance. They address privacy and compliance requirements, which is critical. The technology seems robust, and the focus on domain specialization is highly innovative.”

AI and machine learning: Platforms

Winner

• Eureka AI Platform, *SymphonyAI *

Finalists

• Airia Platform, Airia
• Cognite Atlas AI, *Cognite *
• Generate Enterprise, *Iterate.ai *
• Eureka AI Platform, SymphonyAI

From the winner

Eureka AI is SymphonyAI’s vertical-first enterprise AI platform, purpose-built for Retail, Financial Services, Industrial, and Enterprise IT. Rather than offering a generic toolkit, Eureka AI comes pretrained with industry-specific models, knowledge graphs, and workflows — drawn from decades of domain expertise — so customers realize measurable ROI from day 1.

The platform powers specialized applications such as CINDE for retail analytics, Sensa AI for financial crime prevention, IRIS Foundry for manufacturing optimization, and APEX for IT operations automation. These applications share a common, secure core, enabling innovations developed in one vertical to rapidly benefit others.

From the judges

“The Eureka AI Platform brings AI to many companies, because it is tailored to different vertical industries. This is a highly practical approach to AI in the enterprise that will deliver significant value by saving implementation time.”

AI and machine learning: Security

Winner

• Vibe Coding Security, *Backslash Security *

Finalists

• Vibe Coding Security, Backslash Security
• AI Gatekeeper, Operant AI
• Pangea AI Detection and Response, Pangea

From the winner

Vibe coding and AI-assisted software development are being adopted at breakneck speeds, creating significant these risks in the software supply chain and IT environments of many organizations. Backslash provides a comprehensive solution for new risks, addressing three key areas: visibility into the use of AI and vibe coding tools by developers; governance and security of the stack used for vibe coding; and the security of the code created using AI, ensuring prompts given for code generation include the right instructions to avoid creating vulnerabilities and exposures.

Backslash combines its App Graph technology, which maps all connections and dependencies within the application, with purpose-built IDE [integrated development environment] extensions, MCP [Model Context Protocol] server, and gateway to provide comprehensive coverage for the AI coding infrastructure and AI code-generation process.

From the judges

“Vibe Coding Security is differentiated and uniquely placed. Ensuring the focus remains on vulnerability identification and mitigation from the start of development is a great enabler, drastically reducing the pain on the software development life cycle using vibe coding.”

AI and machine learning: Tools

Winner

• Bloomfire Platform, *Bloomfire *

Finalists

• neuralSPOT, *Ambiq Micro *
• Bloomfire Platform, Bloomfire

From the winner

Bloomfire is an AI-powered knowledge platform that turns scattered files, chats, and tacit know-how into a governed “truth layer” your teams can trust. Ask AI delivers plain-language answers with clickable citations, so people can verify the source in a second. Our self-healing knowledge base continuously detects redun- dant, outdated, or trivial content and auto-routes refresh or archival, keeping your RAG [retrieval-augmented generation] inputs clean and your answers current. For IT and data leaders, Bloomfire operationalizes trustworthy retrieval, governance, and measurement [with] role-based permissions, audit trails, SOC 2 Type II security, usage analytics to expose gaps, and automated prompts that enlist subject matter experts to close them.

From the judges

“Bloomfire takes a fresh approach to knowledge management and search, combining the power of AI and extensive integrations to inject relevant, up-to-date information, including citations, into enterprise workflows.”

API development

Winner

• Postman API Platform, *Postman *

Finalist

• Postman API Platform, Postman

From the winner

Postman is a collaborative end-to-end platform for build ing and managing APIs. Its foundation is the collection — a structured container of API requests, test scripts, and documentation that developers can version, chain, and automate. Collections run within workspaces, which enable real-time collaboration across teams and external partners.

Postman’s Agent Mode, an AI assistant embedded in the platform, enables developers to describe what they want in natural language, and then Agent Mode turns that into tests, documentation, monitors, and more. By supporting both developers and autonomous agents, Postman delivers unmatched visibility, governance, and scale.

From the judges

“Postman API platform is a well-designed, very comprehensive solution for API development, testing, operationalization, and governance, with end-to-end functionality that is unrivaled.”

API management

Winner

• Kong Konnect, *Kong *

Finalists

• Kong Konnect, *Kong *
• Swagger, SmartBear

From the winner

Kong Konnect is a unified platform that enables organizations to securely build, run, discover, and govern APIs, AI workflows, and event streams. It uses a global control plane with distributed runtimes, such as Kong API Gateway, that can be deployed in any environment.

Users define policies, services, and governance rules in the Konnect platform, which can then be applied globally or selectively across all connected runtimes. Kong Konnect has specialized runtimes for different use cases such as the API Gateway for proxying traditional APIs such as REST and SOAP. With Konnect, customers see [shorter] time-to- market, stronger security, and reduced costs through platform consolidation.

From the judges

“Kong Konnect goes beyond traditional API management to include AI/event scenarios. A single control plane to control APIs, microservices, events, and AI is very valuable.”

API security

Winner

• Harness Cloud Web Application and API Protection, Harness

Finalist

• Harness Cloud Web Application and API Protection, Harness

From the winner

With Harness’s Cloud Web Application and API Protection (WAAP), enterprises get end-to-end API security without slowing development. It eliminates blind spots, stops advanced attacks in real time, and plugs directly into CI/CD [continuous integration and continuous delivery] so security becomes part of delivery.

Cloud WAAP continuously discovers and maps every API (including shadow and third-party); analyzes live traffic and data sensitivity to assess risk; and actively protects against fraud, attacks, abuse, and DDoS [distributed denial of services] threats. One platform unifies discovery, testing, and runtime defense, giving teams a real-time searchable view of their API estate and the controls to act.

From the judges

“Harness Cloud Web Application and API Protection is an innovative solution that offers a unified strategy to secure apps and APIs, dramatically reducing the effort/complexity of tasks including context-aware, behavior-based detection. Very relevant for all types of enterprises.”

Application management

Winner

• Omni, *Sidero Labs *

Finalists

• Komodor Platform, *Komodor *
• Omnissa App Volumes, *Omnissa *
• Omni, Sidero Labs

From the winner

Omni is a Kubernetes operations platform that brings SaaS [software as a service] simplicity to devops and infrastructure teams managing clusters across bare metal, cloud, and edge environments. Built on the hardened, immutable Talos Linux OS, Omni eliminates SSH [Secure Shell], configuration drift, and manual toil by delivering a centralized, declarative control plane that operates anywhere Kubernetes can run. Teams can create, scale, upgrade, and secure clusters with one click while maintaining full control over infrastructure and identity. Omni blends the reliability of a cloud-native Kubernetes stack with the flexibility of “bring your own infrastructure,” creating a radically simplified and portable alternative to legacy managed Kubernetes platforms.

From the judges

“Omni is transforming Kubernetes operations by combining infrastructure-agnostic management with a secure, declarative approach. Designed for modern devops teams, Omni has built-in security and reduces operational burden and manual toil. Proven impact in production and a standout alternative to legacy tools.”

Application networking

Winner

• noBGP, *noBGP *

Finalists

• noBGP, *noBGP *
• Ambient Mesh, *Solo.io *
• Tailscale, Tailscale

From the winner

noBGP is a cloud networking platform that eliminates one of the internet’s biggest sources of complexity and risk: the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). Built for cloud-native, hybrid, and AI environments, noBGP replaces BGP with private routing that is automated, secure, and simple to deploy. With a noBGP router, enterprises can instantly connect cloud resources across AWS, Azure, GCP, Oracle, and on-prem environments, without public IPs, VPNs [virtual private networks], or manual routing tables.

This means faster deployment, reduced attack surfaces, and dramatically simplified operations. Traffic is encrypted end- to-end and zero trust is enforced by default. Devops teams get seamless cloud connectivity, while security teams gain a hardened infrastructure that removes entire categories of network threats.

From the judges

“An innovative solution to replace legacy services and protocols for hybrid and multi-cloud environments, especially for organizations looking to implement zero-trust architectures.”

Application security

Winner

Application Security Posture Management Platform, Legit Security

Finalists

• Apiiro Agentic Application Security Platform, Apiiro
• Application Security Posture Management Platform, Legit Security
• Oso Cloud, Oso Security

From the winner

The Legit Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) platform offers comprehensive visibility and risk management across the software development life cycle. This includes coverage of everything from source code repositories to runtime environments and cloud infrastructure. The platform integrates with a wide range of tools, including AST solutions, cloud security platforms, version control systems, artifact registries, identity providers, and API security tools.

AI is applied throughout the platform. Code-to-cloud correlation is supported through AI-driven analysis. Legit sits alongside coding assistants to keep code secure while developers write it and gives teams visibility into where AI is generating code.

From the judges

“It is good to see a product that is not just flagging risks but also zeroes in on what to fix first and how to fix it fast. This feature separates the solution from its competition.”

Business intelligence and analytics

Winner

• Plotly Dash Enterprise, *Plotly *

Finalists

• FICO Platform, FICO
• Plotly Dash Enterprise, *Plotly *
• Spotter, ThoughtSpot

From the winner

Dash Enterprise (DE) is an enterprise platform for creating customizable, interactive data applications in Python. Domain experts surface insights and take action through AI-powered development that transforms Python workflows into production apps instantly.

Python-native development builds on existing data science stacks while delivering true customization that creates exactly what stakeholders need, not generic dashboards. Enterprise controls provide built-in security, compliance, and governance, while self-service capabilities eliminate IT bottlenecks. Interactive design enables stakeholders to explore data rather than consume static reports. The transformation shifts teams from analytics support to strategic enablement.

From the judges

“Plotly Dash Enterprise stands out by turning Python workflows into secure, governed, interactive read/write data apps while retaining dev control. The platform is also able to provide contextual intelligence with domain-aware suggestions (across finance, healthcare, and telecom sectors).”

Cloud backup and disaster recovery

Winner

• United Private Cloud, UnitedLayer** **

Finalists

• Cayosoft Guardian Forest Recovery, Cayosoft
• CloudCasa, *CloudCasa by Catalogic Software *
• United Private Cloud, UnitedLayer

From the winner

United Private Cloud delivers cloud backup and disaster recovery through a layered, intelligent architecture. It integrates business continuity with high-availability architecture, performance, intelligence, hybrid colocation, and compliance for mission-critical workloads.

Workloads and data are continuously protected via four DR [disaster recovery] strategies. Real-time replication ensures that data is always protected in Tier 3+ data centers across 30+ private cloud regions and 175+ edge sites on five continents. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest.

UnitedLayer’s approach ensures rapid recovery, regulatory adherence, and seamless scaling — backed by repeated industry recognition and trusted by global enterprises for business continuity.

From the judges

“United Private Cloud guarantees zero downtime and minimal data loss through 99.999% high availability and real-time replication. This translates to measurable business value. A proactive, autonomous approach redefines disaster recovery by enabling predictive failure detection and instant restoration at scale.”

Cloud compliance & governance

Winner

• Secureframe, *Secureframe *

Finalists

• Kion Platform, *Kion *
• Secureframe, Secureframe

From the winner

Secureframe is a comprehensive, AI-powered platform that helps organizations meet security and compliance requirements more efficiently and effectively. With out-of-the-box support for 40+ frameworks, Secureframe helps organizations streamline audits, reduce manual effort, and improve visibility into their security posture.

The Secureframe platform identifies gaps, collects evidence, generates tailored policies, completes risk assessments and access reviews, and monitors compliance progress in real time. Built-in automation handles control testing, validates evidence, recommends remediations, and accelerates questionnaire responses with the help of our proprietary Comply AI engine. Customers report a 26% average reduction in annual compliance costs and complete audits up to 90% faster.

From the judges

“Secureframe applies contextual AI and 300+ integrations to automate evidence validation, remediation, and monitoring across hybrid environments, turning compliance into an intelligent, end-to-end technology solution. Breakthrough capabilities like AI Evidence Validation, Workspaces, and Custom Integrations redefine compliance automation, outpacing competitors with foundational shifts rather than incremental features.”

Cloud cost management

Winner

• Tangoe One Cloud, *Tangoe *

Finalists

• Stacklet Jun0, *Stacklet *
• Tangoe One Cloud, *Tangoe *
• UnityOne AI, UnityOne AI

From the winner

Tangoe One Cloud is an enterprise-grade FinOps [financial operations] platform that unifies expense and asset management across public and private IaaS [infrastructure as a service], SaaS, and UCaaS [unified communications as a service] environments. Designed to align IT, finance, and procurement, Tangoe One Cloud centralizes governance, chargebacks, anomaly detection, and multi-cloud transparency into one scalable platform.

Tangoe’s “Cloud Optimizer” applies machine learning, predictive models, and historical usage data to identify savings opportunities and recommend the most cost-effective cloud infrastructure options. Automated workflows drive cost allocation, charge-backs, and remediation actions, eliminating manual reporting cycles. The platform also delivers real-time anomaly alerts and AI workload governance through a new AI Cost Visibility Dashboard.

From the judges

“This AI-driven, multi-cloud architecture is a highly scalable and technically robust FinOps solution. Tangoe One Cloud’s capabilities set it apart from competitors by enabling real-time governance of AI/ML spending, automated chargebacks, and actionable insights across diverse enterprise infrastructures.”

Cloud security

Winner

• Cortex Cloud, *Palo Alto Networks *

Finalists

• Aviatrix Cloud Native Security Fabric, Aviatrix
• Cortex Cloud, *Palo Alto Networks *
• Ivanti Neurons Platform, Ivanti

From the winner

Cortex Cloud rearchitected Palo Alto Networks’ cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP) on the AI-driven Cortex SecOps platform to deliver a unified user experience with persona-driven dashboards and workflows.

Cortex Cloud identifies and prioritizes issues across the application development pipeline. The platform improves multi-cloud risk management with AI-powered prioritization, guided fixes, and automated remediation. Cortex Cloud natively integrates the unified Cortex XDR agent, enriched with additional cloud data sources, to prevent threats with advanced analytics. Cortex Cloud natively integrates cloud data, context, and workflows within Cortex XSIAM to significantly reduce the mean time to respond (MTTR) to modern threats with a single, unified secops solution.

From the judges

“Cortex Cloud is one of the strongest offerings in cloud security, because it unifies cloud detection and response with CNAPP capabilities on a single AI-driven platform, giving teams real-time, context-rich protection across code, runtime, and cloud environments. By eliminating silos, reducing MTTR, and continuously learning from incidents, Cortex Cloud sets a new standard for enterprise-to-cloud protection.”

Data management: Databases

Winner

• Qdrant, *Qdrant *

Finalists

• Couchbase Capella, *Couchbase *
• EDB PostgresAI, *EnterpriseDB *
• Percona Everest, *Percona *
• Qdrant, Qdrant

From the winner

Qdrant is an open-source, dedicated vector search engine built for an era where over 90% of enterprise data is unstructured. It enables developers to build and support production-grade AI retrieval and vector search across any scale, modality, or deployment. Purpose-built in Rust for unmatched speed, memory safety, and scale, Qdrant delivers up to 40x faster retrieval and >4x higher throughput.

Qdrant is more than vector search: It gives AI agents grounded retrieval “memory” to plan, use tools, and act in real time. With Cloud Inference, hybrid search, and flexible reranking, teams build agentic workflows that stay relevant, responsive, and cost-efficient.

From the judges

“Qdrant is a powerful, technically advanced product that stands out in the highly competitive vector database space. Its deep support for agentic AI, multimodal search, and enterprise-scale deployments make it a foundational tool for the AI era.”

Data management: Governance

Winner

• Actian Data Intelligence Platform, Actian

Finalists

• Actian Data Intelligence Platform, *Actian *
• Pentaho Platform, Pentaho
• Transcend, Transcend

From the winner

The Actian Data Intelligence Platform centralizes all enterprise meta-data into a single source of truth, enabling effective discovery and utilization of data assets while ensuring regulatory compliance (GDPR, CCPA) and security controls. The cloud-native platform provides a searchable catalog of all data assets with automated metadata collection to ensure proper data documentation and context. Actian’s “governance by design” approach embeds governance into the DNA of every data interaction.

The platform’s innovative knowledge graph delivers deeper, more relevant search results by understanding complex relationships between concepts and entities, enabling faster data discovery, reduced regulatory compliance risk, and confident AI implementation.

From the judges

“The Actian Data Intelligence Platform addresses some of the most critical and persistent challenges in data governance with a highly modern, forward-looking approach. Actian’s platform is well architected and addresses real organizational pain points, including inconsistent data, a lack of trust in analytics, and growing compliance burdens.”

Data management: Integration

Winner

• SnapLogic Agentic Integration Platform, SnapLogic

Finalists

• Rocket DataEdge, Rocket Software
• SnapLogic Agentic Integration Platform, SnapLogic
• Merge, Merge

From the winner

SnapLogic is an all-in-one platform to create, integrate, and orchestrate data products, apps, APIs, and AI agents. Using a low-code, “click-not-code” interface and built-in genAI, SnapLogic empowers both IT and business users to automate workflows, transform data, and create intelligent agents that streamline operations — no matter where the data resides.

With natural-language prompts, anyone across the enterprise — from HR to Finance to Legal — can build IT-approved automations that eliminate repetitive tasks and deliver real business value. For example, legal teams can create IDP [intelligent document processing] agents to redline contracts, while finance teams can automate fraud detection workflows.

From the judges

“By embedding AI-powered agent creation directly into its integration fabric, SnapLogic transforms how enterprises operationalize genAI. With tools like Prompt Composer and Agent Visualizer, it delivers secure, enterprise-grade innovation well beyond traditional data movement platforms.”

Data management: Pipelines

Winner

• Prophecy, *Prophecy *

Finalists

• Airbyte Open Source, Airbyte Cloud, Airbyte Enterprise, Airbyte Enterprise Flex, Airbyte
• DataPelago Accelerator for Spark, *DataPelago *
• Prophecy, Prophecy

From the winner

Prophecy uses AI agents, a visual canvas, and automatic code generation to help analysts and business experts of all skill levels access the data they need, whenever they need it. An LLM AI assistant for data pipeline creation is powered by a knowledge graph of data sets, schemas, models, and pipelines. The Visual Canvas enables anyone who needs data to build and refine pipelines, using drag-and-drop components for extraction, transformation, enrichment, aggregation, and loading.

Prophecy identifies errors and suggests how to fix them. Visual pipelines are automatically compiled into production-ready code with full Git versioning, documentation, CI/CD support, and lineage tracking.

From the judges

“Prophecy delivers a rare combination of technical depth, user-centric design, and enterprise-grade controls. Its intelligent use of AI assistants, visual editing, and code compilation makes it uniquely powerful, particularly in large organizations seeking secure, self-service analytics at scale. It transforms how data engineering is done.”

Data management: Security

Winner

• QuProtect, QuSecure

Finalists

• Bedrock Platform, *Bedrock Data *
• QuProtect, QuSecure
• Sentra Data Security Platform, Sentra

From the winner

QuSecure’s QuProtect platform is a comprehensive suite of post-quantum cryptographic solutions designed to safeguard data across various platforms and applications. It includes quantum-resistant algorithms, cryptographic agility, key management systems, and secure communication protocols. QuProtect enables visibility into cryptography in use — a new level of insight.

QuProtect provides centralized control of quantum-resilient cryptography, which is ideal for managing and updating cryptographic protocols across the network. Post-quantum algorithms can be implemented and updated centrally, ensuring uniform security policies. QuProtect empowers security leaders with comprehensive visibility, adaptive cryptographic controls, and orchestrated protection to safeguard data against both traditional and emerging threats.

From the judges

“This is one of the most innovative products I have ever seen that offers quantum-resilient protection. It offers security without changing existing systems, which is a great feature to have. I can see this driving a lot of innovation in the cost-effective, post-quantum security of applications for enterprises.”

Data management: Streaming

Winner

Confluent Cloud, *Confluent *

Finalists

• Confluent Cloud, *Confluent *
• Hydrolix, Hydrolix
• Lenses, Lenses.io

From the winner

Confluent Cloud offers a fully managed cloud-native data streaming platform, built and operated by the creators of Apache Kafka. This platform empowers teams to easily connect, process, and govern real-time data without the operational burden associated with open source solutions. The result is [shorter] time to insight, lower infrastructure costs, and the ability to build data-driven applications at scale.

On top of trusted features like Confluent Cloud for Apache Flink and Stream Governance, Confluent has introduced capabilities over the past year to unify streaming and batch data processing on a single serverless platform. Confluent Cloud features battle-tested security, compliance, and 99.99% uptime.

From the judges

“Confluent Cloud extends Kafka and Flink into a managed serverless platform that unifies streaming and batch, simplifying real-time data use for AI and analytics. Its innovations — Tableflow, Flink Native Inference, and Flink Search — move streaming closer to enterprise AI workflows, while strong uptime and governance features deliver reliability at scale.”

Devops: Analytics

Winner

• Azul Intelligence Cloud, Azul

Finalist

• Azul Intelligence Cloud, Azul

From the winner

Azul Intelligence Cloud provides actionable intelligence from production Java runtime data that dramatically boosts devops productivity. It supports any OpenJDK-based JVM (Java Virtual Machine) from any vendor or distribution. It consists of three services: Azul Code Inventory, the only solution that precisely catalogs what code runs in production across all Java workloads to accurately identify unused and dead code for removal; Azul JVM Inventory, which uses actionable intelligence available only at run time to continuously catalog running JVMs to help ensure ongoing Oracle license compliance; and Azul Vulnerability Detection, which uses Java class-level production runtime data to detect known security vulnerabilities.

From the judges

“Azul Intelligence Cloud delivers strong impact for Java-heavy organizations. Its class-level runtime approach is more precise than traditional SCA [software composition analysis] tools and yields measurable productivity gains. Overall, a differentiated and timely solution with high relevance for devops productivity.”

Devops: Automation

Winner

• Chef, Progress

Finalists

• Ciroos AI SRE Teammate, *Ciroos *
• Nutanix Database Service, *Nutanix *
• Chef, Progress

From the winner

Progress Chef addresses the full spectrum of devops and devsecops, using a single “as code” framework to configure, deploy, and manage virtually any asset on any cloud to any edge, including support for any infrastructure or application, including cloud-native assets like Kubernetes and public cloud services.

Using this framework, the Chef portfolio can help organizations streamline their continuous compliance posture and secure infrastructure support on-premises or in the cloud. Our Policy as Code approach brings configuration management, application delivery, security policy enforcement, and compliance into a single step, eliminating the security silo and moving everyone into a shared pipeline and framework.

From the judges

“Chef has earned its place at the forefront of the devops and devsecops fields. It brings innovative automation, robust security features, and scalability that address the challenges faced by modern organizations, especially in hybrid and multi-cloud environments.”

Devops: CI/CD

Winner

• Buildkite Platform, Buildkite

Finalists

• Buildkite Platform, *Buildkite *
• CircleCI, *CircleCI *
• CloudBees Unify, *CloudBees *
• Harness CI/CD, Harness

From the winner

As the volume, speed, and unpredictability of code creation accelerate with LLM-assisted development, traditional CI/CD pipelines can no longer keep up. Buildkite’s Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server enables real-time, adaptive automation, reducing build times by allowing models to optimize execution order and parallelism while supporting real-time adaptation, failure recovery, dynamic resource allocation, and context-driven decision-making.

Unlike other MCP implementations that wrap APIs or provide prebuild insights, Buildkite’s MCP Server operates inside the pipeline context, turning scripted workflows into dynamic, self-optimizing systems. It acts as a conversational protocol between LLMs and the Buildkite platform, using more than a decade of operational context.

From the judges

“Buildkite brings cutting-edge technology to CI/CD, drives significant business benefits for organizations, and demonstrates true innovation in the space. It’s a powerful tool that not only addresses current challenges but is well positioned to define the next wave of software delivery as AI becomes an increasingly integral part of development workflows.”

Devops: Code quality

Winner

• SonarQube, Sonar

Finalists

• Graphite, *Graphite *
• Moderne, *Moderne *
• SmartBear AI, *SmartBear *
• SonarQube, Sonar

From the winner

SonarQube is an automated code review platform that helps developers deliver high-quality, secure code. It integrates into the CI/CD pipeline on devops platforms for automated, continuous code inspections. Deployable on-prem or in the cloud, it scans repositories for bugs, vulnerabilities, and code quality issues. Seamless integration into IDEs, via SonarQube for IDE, ensures quality and security at the start of development.

SonarQube’s quality gate alerts in real time when there’s something to fix or review in changed or added code, offering real-time guidance. The AI CodeFix feature takes this a step further, leveraging LLMs to automatically generate AI-driven code fixes for discovered issues.

From the judges

“SonarQube’s developer-first approach integrates seamlessly into CI/CD and IDEs, ensuring issues are caught early — before they become costly. The AI CodeFix feature goes beyond detection, offering intelligent one-click fixes. With industry-wide adoption and proven ROI, SonarQube not only supports but elevates modern software development in the age of AI-assisted coding.”

Devops: Observability

Winner

• Observo AI, Observo AI

Finalists

• DataBahn, *DataBahn *
• Grafana Cloud, *Grafana Labs *
• Honeycomb.io, *Honeycomb *
• Observo AI, Observo AI

From the winner

Observo AI is an AI-powered data pipeline that transforms how enterprises manage security and observability. It analyzes telemetry data from security and devops tools, using machine learning and agentic AI to flag anomalies; detect privacy risks; perform data transformations; and strip irrelevant data from cloud flow, firewall, operating system, CDN [content delivery network], and application logs.

What sets Observo AI apart is its flexible, non-scripted automation. Instead of asking users to manually write and maintain thousands of inflexible rules, Observo’s ML models automatically detect schemas, summarize normal events, and enrich data with contextual intelligence.

From the judges

“Observo AI addresses one of the hardest problems in security by moving beyond brittle rule-based pipelines to adaptive machine learning and agentic automation. It redefines how telemetry pipelines are built and managed, putting it ahead of competitors that are still bound by static rules.”

Devops: Productivity

Winner

• Flow, Appfire

Finalists

• Flow, Appfire
• Cortex Internal Developer Portal, *Cortex *
• Harness Internal Developer Portal, Harness

From the winner

Appfire Flow is redefining how modern engineering organizations elevate code quality and team performance. As a core component of Appfire’s Software Engineering Intelligence (SEI) platform, Flow helps teams move beyond intuition and manual analysis by delivering real-time insights across the development life cycle. By unifying Git and ticket data from tools like GitHub, GitLab, and Jira, Flow gives teams a clear, objective understanding of where bottlenecks occur, how code review processes are functioning, and how collaboration impacts the quality and veloci- ty of software delivery.

By translating complex engineering data into clear, research-backed insights, Flow makes software delivery understandable and actionable for everyone, from engineers to product leaders to executives.

From the judges

“Flow bridges the gap between engineering work and business outcomes. Its combination of developer empathy, innovation, and actionable insights makes it stand out from legacy tools and rigid DORA [DevOps Research and Assessment]–only dashboards.”

Software development: Platforms

Winner

• Azul Platform Prime, Azul

Finalists

• Azul Platform Prime, *Azul *
• Uno Platform, *Uno Platform *
• 1NCE OS, 1NCE

From the winner

Azul Platform Prime is a high-performance Java platform that provides superior speed, startup and warmup, and consistency vs. other OpenJDK distributions to increase responsiveness, reduce cloud compute costs by 20%+, and boost operational efficiency — all without recompiling or changing application code.

With Platform Prime, companies can reduce cloud waste and improve application performance. It works across the most popular Java long-term releases: Java 8, 11, 17, and 21+. It is ideal for demanding, business-critical applications, including those used for massive data sets in distributed data processing.

From the judges

“Runtime-level improvements without application changes are compelling and reduce adoption friction. The cost-savings angle is strong: fewer servers, higher CPU thresholds, and better autoscaling leads directly to opex reduction in cloud spend.”

Software development: Security

Winner

• Chainguard Containers, Chainguard

Finalists

• Chainguard Containers, Chainguard
• SonarQube Advanced Security, Sonar

From the winner

Chainguard Containers is a curated catalog of over 1,500 minimal, vulnerability-free container images that have a reduced attack surface, broad customization capabilities, and improved supply chain integrity for containerized applications. By providing trusted open source software (OSS), built from source and updated continuously, Chainguard helps organizations eliminate threats in their software supply chains.

Chainguard Containers reduces the cost of engineering toil that comes with patching software and strengthens an organization’s security posture by ensuring [that the organization always has] the latest version of the software in production.

From the judges

“Chainguard Containers represents a step-change in how organizations consume open source software by moving from reactive vulnerability scanning to proactively delivering zero-CVE [common vulnerabilities and exposures] images built and maintained continuously. This product is a redefinition of supply chain security, setting a new benchmark for the industry.”

Software development: Testing

Winner

• CloudBees Smart Tests, CloudBees

Finalists

• CloudBees Smart Tests, CloudBees
• Sauce Labs Platform for Test, Sauce Labs
• Harness AI Test Automation, Harness

From the winner

CloudBees Smart Tests is an AI-powered intelligent testing solution built to support enterprise dev-test workloads. It reduces cycle times, improves triage accuracy, and enhances visibility into test behavior across teams.

CloudBees Smart Tests enables faster dev-test iteration with an analytics engine that flags flaky, long-running, and reliable tests, giving both engineers and leaders a shared view of test performance. Predictive Test Selection (PTS) finds failures 40% to 90% faster by running only the most relevant tests. It also offers accelerated test failure resolution through smart classification, pattern detection, and unified session insights, plus automated alerts that keep code owners informed and engaged.

From the judges

“CloudBees Smart Tests reimagines enterprise testing by applying ML to prioritize only the tests that matter, eliminating waste and accelerating feedback loops. Its innovation lies in combining predictive selection with easy integration, turning testing from a bottleneck into a driver of speed, quality, and confidence.”

Software development: Tools

Winner

• Tabnine, Tabnine

Finalists

• Progress Telerik & Progress Kendo UI, Progress Software
• Tabnine, Tabnine
• Warp Agentic Development Environment, Warp

From the winner

Tabnine is the only AI coding assistant purpose-built for enterprise teams with complex codebases, mixed tech stacks, and strict security and compliance requirements. Whether deployed as SaaS, VPC [virtual private cloud], on-prem, or fully air-gapped, Tabnine provides full control over the environment — no outbound connections, no telemetry, no silent updates.

With deep integrations across Git and other SCMs [source code managers], IDEs, and tools like Jira and Confluence, Tabnine understands the entire organizational context, helping teams write, test, document, review, and maintain code faster and more consistently while following teams’ internal standards and compliance rules.

From the judges

“Tabnine is technically strong, enterprise-focused, and full of meaningful differentiators. Its commitment to secure, offline, and customized AI coding assistance gives it an edge in regulated industries. The product clearly aligns with market needs and shows a credible track record of impact.”

About our judges

Ashutosh Datar is a seasoned technology leader specializing in distributed systems, scalable API infrastructure, and intelligent storage. With more than 20 years of experience at companies such as Pure Storage, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Nimble Storage, he has led the design of next-generation systems that power large-scale storage and data platforms. At Pure Storage, Datar plays a key role in advancing the Fusion platform — an intelligent, policy-driven infrastructure that unifies storage management across heterogeneous systems.

Anshul Gandhi is an AI and product leader with a track record of building 0→1 systems and scaling 1→N AI platforms across enterprise, consumer, and go-to-market domains. His work bridges cutting-edge research and real-world applications, translating AI innovation into products that deliver exceptional user experiences and measurable business impact. He has led AI strategy and platform initiatives across sectors including healthcare, SaaS, manufacturing, and cybersecurity and holds multiple patents in applied AI.

Sahil Gandhi is a senior data scientist at Amazon and a product-minded AI leader with over a decade of experience in analytics, experimentation, and applied machine learning. He specializes in building and scaling AI-powered data products, including AI agents, RAG-based systems, and enterprise analytics platforms that drive smarter decisions and measurable business growth. He also serves as an Advisory Council Member at Products That Count, contributing to industry leadership and best practices.

Stan Gibson is an award-winning editor, writer, and speaker with 41 years’ experience covering information technology. Formerly executive editor of eWEEK and PC Week and senior editor at Computerworld, he is currently an adjunct analyst at IDC. As principal of Stan Gibson Communications, he writes for many websites, including CIO.com, and is a popular host for online events.

Arun Krishnakumar is a seasoned leader in e-commerce product strategy; digital transformation; and emerging technologies such as AI, machine learning, and blockchain. An author, startup mentor, and master class instructor, Krishnakumar has built and scaled cloud-based web and mobile platforms that serve millions of users. His experience spans customer acquisition and retention, conversion optimization, and sustainable growth, delivering impactful products for multibillion-dollar international brands.

Gaurav Mittal is a software engineer and seasoned IT manager adept at guiding teams in developing and deploying cutting-edge technology solutions. He specializes in implementing innovative automation solutions that unlock substantial cost savings and enhance operational efficiency.

Shipra Mittal is an accomplished I