How to read the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant if you're a communicator
The Gartner Magic Quadrant for Intranet Packaged Solutions came out in October 2025. We're covering it now, intentionally. The Forrester Wave landed earlier this month, and reading them side by side is more useful than reading either one in isolation.
One thing stands out before you even get to the vendor list: seven of the sixteen evaluated vendors placed in the Leaders quadrant. Nearly half the field. That alone tells you something about where this market is right now.
What is the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Intranet Packaged Solutions?
Gartner calls this category "Intranet Packaged Solutions," or IPS. The evaluation covered 16 vendors across two dimensions: Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision. Those become the axes on the quadrant chart, sorting vendors into Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries, and Niche Players.
The report is written for what Gartner calls "enterprise application leaders" — IT decision-makers and their colleagues in HR, communications, and digital workplace roles. Communicators are part of that audience, but the framing is enterprise procurement, not IC practice. The weighting reflects that.
That doesn't make it useless. It makes it worth reading with the right lens.
Who are the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant Leaders?
The seven Leaders in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant are Simpplr, LumApps, Unily, Workvivo by Zoom, Staffbase, Firstup, and Interact.
That's a large Leaders category. Seven out of sixteen evaluated vendors is nearly half the field. The fact that so many vendors made it tells you something about this market — most of the established players have been building consistently, and the gaps between them have narrowed.
A Leader designation means Gartner's analysts assessed the vendor as strong on both current execution and future vision. It's meaningful. It doesn't mean the platform is the right fit for your organization, your team size, or how your employees actually work.
The honest line buried in Gartner's market overview
There's a passage in the market overview that vendors won't be quoting in their announcements.
Gartner writes that intranets "typically do not play an everyday role in work routines."
That's the report's own assessment and not a criticism of any specific vendor - but an honest description of where intranets sit in employees' daily lives. Employees choose to use intranets; they're not usually required to. That discretionary usage is the core challenge this entire market is trying to solve.
Before you buy anything, it's worth sitting with that sentence. If your organization is evaluating an intranet or considering a switch, the most important question isn't which vendor placed highest on the quadrant. It's: what would make your employees actually open it?
How to use the report
If you have access to the full document, skip the quadrant image and go straight to the vendor strengths and cautions section. That's where the useful detail lives.
Each vendor gets a few paragraphs - strengths, then cautions. The cautions in particular are worth reading carefully, because they're the closest thing to unfiltered analyst opinion in the report. Gartner notes, for example, that several Leaders have AI features that aren't yet mature, and that at least one Leader doesn't offer native work management at all.
That context matters when you're evaluating based on a demo. Demos show you what works. The cautions section shows you what doesn't yet.
If you don't have a subscription, many vendors offer the report as a download through their website. Several of those links are at the bottom of this post.
One question worth adding to vendor conversations
The quadrant's horizontal axis measures Completeness of Vision — where Gartner thinks a vendor is headed. That's partly based on roadmap commitments, which are promises.
When you're in a vendor conversation, ask what percentage of their current customers are actively using the AI features they're showing you. Then ask how they measure active use versus license activation.
It's a different question than "do you have AI?" — and the answers tend to be more revealing.
If you want a fuller list of questions to bring into those conversations, we published a guide for that.
Gartner Magic Quadrant vs. Forrester Wave for intranets
If you read our Forrester Wave coveragerecently, the vendor lists don't perfectly align. Forrester's Q2 2026 Wave named four Leaders: Simpplr, Workvivo, Unily, and LumApps. Gartner's Leaders quadrant has those same four, plus Staffbase, Firstup, and Interact.
Different methodology, different timing, and not an identical vendor set. But the overlap is worth noting. If you're shortlisting vendors, the four that show up as Leaders in both reports are a reasonable place to start the conversation.
The 16 vendors evaluated in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant
Here's the complete list from the 2025 report, organized by quadrant. Where vendors published a public announcement, we've linked to it. For those that didn't, we've linked to their website.
Leaders
Challengers
Visionaries
Niche Players
If any vendors have published announcements we haven't linked to, send them our way and we'll update the list. ICology obtained a copy of this report from Staffbase.
Frequently asked questions
Who are the Leaders in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Intranet Packaged Solutions?
Gartner named seven Leaders: Simpplr, LumApps, Unily, Workvivo by Zoom, Staffbase, Firstup, and Interact.
How many vendors did Gartner evaluate?
Sixteen, sorted into four quadrants: Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries, and Niche Players.
What's the difference between the Gartner Magic Quadrant and the Forrester Wave for intranets?
Different methodologies, different timing, slightly different vendor sets. Gartner's 2025 Leaders include all four of Forrester's Q2 2026 Wave Leaders (Simpplr, Workvivo, Unily, LumApps), plus Staffbase, Firstup, and Interact.
When was the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Intranet Packaged Solutions released?
October 2025.
Is the Gartner Magic Quadrant free?
Not from Gartner directly — a copy requires a subscription. Several vendors named in the report make it available as a free download. The links are in the vendor list above.