Lightcast vs Polinode
Lightcast
lightcast.ioPolinode
polinode.comSide by side
| Figure | Lightcast | Polinode |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $40/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 6 |
| Spec score · HR Analytics Software | 8.5 (#2) | 8.5 (#3) |
| API authentication | Many APIs use OAuth 2.0 client-credentials authentication with bearer tokens that expire after 3,600 seconds. | New API credentials use bearer tokens over HTTPS; older HTTP Basic credentials remain supported but are deprecated. |
| Company profile | LinkedIn lists Lightcast as privately held, founded in 2000, headquartered in Moscow, Idaho, with 501–1,000 employees. | LinkedIn lists Polinode as a privately held information-services company founded in 2014, headquartered in Sydney, with 2–10 employees. |
| Integrations | Lightcast is a Workday Certified Integration and Innovation Partner that sends market-based skills, normalized titles and occupations into Workday job profiles. | Passive data integrations access metadata from tools including Office 365, Microsoft Teams, Google Workspace, and Slack. |
| Rating on G2 | 4.6 out of 5 from 30 reviews | 5.0 out of 5 from 2 reviews |
| Rating on Gartner Peer Insights | 4.2 out of 5 from 0 reviews | No rating; 0 reviews shown |
| Support | Lightcast says its economists, data scientists, and dedicated account managers provide customer service and help customers use the data. | Free accounts have community support, Lite and Professional plans have email support, and Consultant and Enterprise plans include an account manager and 24/7 support with an SLA. |
| TrustRadius pricing record | TrustRadius lists no Lightcast pricing plans and states that no free version or trial is available. | TrustRadius lists Lite at $40 per user per month, Professional at $80 per user per month and Enterprise as custom, with free version and trial available. |
| What it does | Lightcast provides labor-market intelligence, software, data delivery and consulting for education, enterprise and public-sector organizations. | Polinode is a web application for collecting, visualizing and analyzing connected networks and organizational relationships. |
Plans
Lightcast
- Public-Good Skills APIFree
- ConsultingPriced on request
- Data DeliveryPriced on request
- SoftwarePriced on request
Polinode
- FreeFree
- FreeFree
- Lite$40 a month
- Professional$80 a month
- ConsultantPriced on request
- EnterprisePriced on request
In their own words
Lightcast
Lightcast provides labor-market data, software, and delivery services for enterprise, education, and government teams. Its database combines more than 2.5 billion job postings and career profiles with government labor-market information. Products include Analyst, Career Coach, Developer, GoRecruit, Recruit, SmartReq, Talent Analyst, Talent Transform, and Widget Builder, among others. APIs let customers decide when, where, and how Lightcast data appears in a website or application. Data shares can be delivered through Amazon S3, Databricks, Google BigQuery, Google Cloud Storage, Microsoft Azure Blob Storage, SFTP, Snowflake, Snowflake Marketplace, and Databricks Marketplace. API taxonomies list more than 34,000 standardized skills, 75,000 standardized titles, and 1,800 specialized occupations. Rhetorik adds more than 800 million enriched professional profiles, 280 million company records, and 18,000 technology-product insights; its data refreshes every one to two days, with a fully assembled view published monthly. Lightcast lists consulting, software subscriptions, and custom data delivery. Analyst supports OIDC and SAML single sign-on. Pricing is on request, with web and API access.
Polinode
Polinode is a browser-based tool for organizational network analysis and visualization. It can work with network data imported from Excel, GEXF, or JSON, gathered through relationship surveys, or accessed through passive data queries. Surveys can collect relationship information along with demographic, engagement, culture, and open-text responses. Its visualizations support networks of up to 50,000 nodes and 250,000 edges, with more than 30 metrics. An AI network chat can answer questions about network data, calculate metrics, interpret results, and find shortest paths. Passive integrations cover metadata from Office 365, Microsoft Teams, Google Workspace, and Slack. Polinode says these integrations do not read or store message content, refresh every 24 hours, and require an organization account. Free accounts have no private networks; Lite allows five and costs $40 a month, while Professional allows 50 and costs $80 a month. Polinode says it is SOC 2 certified and encrypts stored data with AES-256 and transmitted data with SSL/TLS.