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TL;DR
- Software teams recording adoption choices: start with Thoughtworks Build Your Own Radar, Zalando's tech-radar or the AOE generator, all open source.
- R&D teams deciding what to fund need a radar placed by evidence: ITONICS and FIBRES for collaborative scouting, GetFocus for patent-measured improvement rate and maturity.
- Ask what moves a dot: a team vote, or a measured axis with an explicit threshold.
- Test the method on the past before you trust its placements.
Software teams building an adoption radar should start with Thoughtworks Build Your Own Radar, Zalando's tech-radar or the AOE generator, all open source. R&D teams choosing which technologies to fund need a radar fed by evidence: ITONICS and FIBRES for collaborative scouting and foresight, GetFocus for radars placed by patent-measured improvement rate and maturity.
"Technology radar" names two different things. Software engineering teams use it to record which languages, tools and platforms they adopt, trial, assess or hold. R&D and innovation teams use it to map emerging technologies and decide which to fund. This list is split by audience. We build GetFocus, one of the R&D radars below; every other tool is described from its own pages.
What is a technology radar?
Thoughtworks popularised the format. Its Technology Radar is a "twice-yearly snapshot" of tools, techniques, platforms, languages and frameworks, written by a Technology Advisory Board of about 18 senior technologists (Thoughtworks Radar FAQ). Items sit in four rings by adoption advice: Adopt, Trial, Assess, and a fourth ring the FAQ now calls Caution (Hold in the Build Your Own Radar tool).
R&D radars keep the circular layout and change what the position means. Rings or axes encode maturity, impact or time horizon, and the placement should rest on evidence about the technology itself.
Which technology radar tools suit software engineering teams?
1. Thoughtworks Build Your Own Radar (BYOR)
Best for: a quick, shareable adoption radar from a spreadsheet.
You list your items in a Google Sheet, CSV or JSON file with five columns (name, ring, quadrant, isNew, description), paste the link, and click "Build my radar". The online version fixes the rings to Adopt, Trial, Assess and Hold and the quadrants to Techniques, Platforms, Tools, and Languages & Frameworks; custom names need a local install. The visualisation service is open source under AGPL, and you can host a private copy (Thoughtworks BYOR).
Price: free to use; open source.
2. Zalando tech-radar
Best for: engineering teams who want a lightweight radar on their own static site.
A d3.js visualisation, MIT-licensed, built to "help our engineering teams align on technology choices". Entries carry a label, quadrant, ring and a movement marker (moved in, moved out, new). It deploys as a static page; you update it by editing the configuration and redeploying (Zalando tech-radar on GitHub).
Price: free; open source.
3. AOE Technology Radar generator
Best for: a radar with history, search and written rationale per item.
A Next.js static site generator. Each item is a Markdown file with front matter (title, ring, quadrant, tags) inside a release folder named by date, so the radar keeps a history of each item across releases. Version 4 adds fuzzy search and tag filters (AOE on GitHub). INFO's public radar at techradar.info.nl is built on it (INFO Technology Radar).
Price: free; open source.
4. Backstage Tech Radar plugin
Best for: organisations already running Backstage as a developer portal.
A frontend plugin that shows a tech radar inside Backstage, inspired by Zalando's, with an optional backend plugin that loads radar data from a URL (Backstage community plugins).
Price: free; open source (Apache 2.0).
5. Miro Technology Radar template
Best for: a workshop where the team places items together on a whiteboard.
Henrik Ståhl's template uses sticky notes on four rings (Adopt, Trial, Assess, Hold) (Miro template). It is a canvas: the positions come from the discussion in the room. Innovation teams also use it for early scoping.
Price: template in Miro's library; Miro plan pricing applies.
Which technology radar tools suit R&D and innovation teams?
6. ITONICS
Best for: large innovation teams running a shared scouting and evaluation process.
ITONICS's radar is shared across teams and can be embedded in board decks and intranets. Its scouting engine, Prism, takes your fields, products and search intent and "runs the scan continuously", delivering new technologies as structured candidates. Technologies are rated on TRL and manufacturing readiness (MRL) and can be filtered by TRL, impact or internal expertise. The radar page does not name its data sources or mention patent data (ITONICS technology radar).
Price: on request (Core, Pro and Enterprise plans; free guided trial) (ITONICS pricing).
7. FIBRES
Best for: strategy and foresight teams building trend radars from many signal sources.
FIBRES is a foresight platform for scanning signals and turning them into trend radars, scenarios and topic summaries. Signals come from its FIBRESEED monitoring service, your own feeds and partner providers; it describes itself as "not a trend data provider". AI suggests topics and clusters findings, and teams share one database (FIBRES). Its site does not mention patent data.
Price: published on its site; depends on features and data sources; 30-day trial after a demo (FIBRES).
8. GetFocus
Best for: R&D leaders deciding which competing technology to fund, phase out or watch.
With GetFocus we build a radar per technology domain with maturity (TRL) on one axis and measured improvement rate on the other, and four decision quadrants; subscriber radars recompute monthly as new filings arrive (GetFocus tools comparison). The improvement rate (TIR) is computed from the patent citation network: how quickly inventions build on earlier ones, and how much later inventions build on them (GetFocus method). Our AI agents scout the competing routes and read the patents behind each; you sign off the route list (product).
Two of our radars are public:
- Low-carbon ethylene: 14 routes; seven clear the set's median improvement rate of 20% a year. Electrochemical CO₂/CO measures about 44% a year at TRL 6 (Fund); the steam-cracking benchmark 13% a year at TRL 9 (Phase out). Updated September 2026 (ethylene radar).
- EV batteries: six routes; three clear the median. Sodium-ion, lithium-sulfur and LFP/LMFP land in Fund; all-solid-state, NMC/NCA and lithium-metal in Phase out (sodium-ion radar).
GetFocus works from patent data. It is not a prior-art, freedom-to-operate or portfolio-valuation tool, and we did not build it for software adoption radars (GetFocus tools comparison). TIR is a directional signal with no guarantee of commercial success (Monitoring docs).
Price: annual subscription per domain (up to 50 technologies, five seats); free 48-hour Decision Brief with a first-pass radar (product).
Technology radar tools compared
| Tool | Audience | What places an item | Data behind it | Update rhythm | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thoughtworks BYOR | Software | Your team's ring choice | Your sheet/CSV/JSON | When you edit the file | Free, AGPL |
| Zalando tech-radar | Software | Your team's ring choice | Config in code | Redeploy | Free, MIT |
| AOE generator | Software | Your team's ring choice | Markdown per item, dated releases | Per release | Free, open source |
| Backstage plugin | Software | Your team's ring choice | Data loaded from a URL | When the source changes | Free, Apache 2.0 |
| Miro template | Software / workshops | Discussion in the room | None | Manual | Miro plan |
| ITONICS | R&D / innovation | Team evaluation (TRL, MRL, impact) | Prism scouting scan (sources not named) | Continuous scan | On request |
| FIBRES | Strategy / foresight | Team assessment of trends | News, feeds, partner data | Continuous | Published |
| GetFocus | R&D leadership | Measured TRL × improvement rate | Global patent families, citation network | Monthly | Per domain; free brief |
How should an R&D team decide where a technology sits on its radar?
Start with what moves a dot. On an adoption radar, a team decision moves it, which suits a record of engineering choices. On an R&D radar used to allocate budget, a dot moved by opinion carries the same expert bias the radar was meant to check (see expert bias in R&D decisions).
Three checks help:
- Is there a measured axis? Readiness (TRL) shows where a route is today. A second axis should show how fast it is improving. Our TRL guide explains why readiness alone misleads.
- Is the threshold explicit? Our GetFocus radars split routes at the median improvement rate of the set, so the reader can see why a route lands in Fund or Phase out (ethylene radar).
- Has the method been tested on the past? Filing volume is the obvious momentum signal, and in seven replayed cases it pointed at the losing technology while the improvement rate pointed at the winner. In 2001 hard drives had 3,316 patent families against 580 for solid-state storage, which was improving at 50% a year against 29% (GetFocus proof; HDD vs SSD).
How often should a technology radar be updated?
Thoughtworks publishes twice a year (FAQ), which suits a software adoption radar. An R&D radar tracking a fast field needs a shorter cycle. GetFocus Monitoring can rerun a domain weekly, monthly or quarterly, refreshing the patent datasets and the TRL × TIR dashboard on each run (Monitoring).
FAQ
What is the best free technology radar tool?
For software teams, Thoughtworks Build Your Own Radar (AGPL), Zalando's tech-radar (MIT) and the AOE generator are free and open source. Each needs you to supply the ring for every item.
What is the difference between a tech radar and a technology radar for R&D?
A software tech radar records adoption advice (adopt, trial, assess, hold) for tools a team uses. An R&D technology radar maps emerging technologies against maturity and momentum to decide which to fund.
Can a technology radar use patent data?
Yes. GetFocus places each technology by its readiness level and its improvement rate, measured from the patent citation network across global patent families.
How do I keep a technology radar up to date?
Software radars update when the team edits the source file or releases a new version. Our GetFocus radars recompute monthly as new patent families are published.
Does GetFocus build software engineering tech radars?
No. We built GetFocus for R&D leaders choosing between competing technical routes. For software adoption radars, use Thoughtworks BYOR, Zalando, AOE or the Backstage plugin.
