About This Data & Methodology

This site's rankings come from a dataset built for a school course project on programmatic SEO, published openly rather than presented as a large editorial team's work.

Who Built This

This project is maintained by a single researcher, not an editorial team. There is no in-house product testing lab — no unit on this site has been physically tested by this project. Every spec traces to a manufacturer page, official manual, or named retailer listing, linked from each entity page's Methodology section. Where a spec could not be confirmed, it is marked as an open flag rather than filled in with a plausible-sounding number.

How Scoring Works

Each of the 37 use-case pages runs its own weighted formula against 20 verified entities — capacity, surge rating, inverter type, price per watt-hour, and other factors, weighted differently per use-case because a CPAP night and a well-pump startup need genuinely different specs. See any use-case page's Methodology section for its exact weights, or the runtime calculator to check a specific combination of your own devices.

What Gets a Hard Disqualifier

Some use-cases exclude a unit outright rather than scoring it lower — CPAP, oxygen concentrators, well/sump pumps, and similar require a confirmed pure sine wave inverter, since a modified sine wave or unconfirmed inverter type is a real equipment-safety risk, not a preference. An unconfirmed inverter_type is treated as a fail by default; it is never assumed safe.

Current Dataset Status

• 20 entities verified across 7 brands
• 2 entities fully verified with zero open data gaps; the rest carry specific, named open flags
• 37 use-case scoring formulas
• 10 head-to-head comparisons, limited to pairs that scored within a close range of each other — not every possible pairing
• 14 supporting guides

What We Deliberately Don't Do

No star ratings without an actual testing methodology behind them. No "X units tested" claims for units that were not physically tested. No AggregateRating structured data on pages that don't have real review data behind it. Where a competitor site's number could not be independently verified in this project's own research, it is not reused as fact.

Corrections

Every entity page lists its exact source URL and verification date. If a spec has changed since that date, the open_flags system on this site is designed to surface exactly that kind of gap rather than hide it — check the source link directly for the current figure.

Affiliate Disclosure

Some entity pages include a "View Price" link to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, this site earns from qualifying purchases made through those links, at no extra cost to you. This relationship has no influence on scoring, ranking, or which units are marked with open data flags — the scoring formulas and verification status are set before any commercial link is added, and a unit's inclusion or ranking has never been adjusted based on affiliate availability.