I don't know which web apps exist for my specific job. How do I find out?

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This is a different problem from "which CRM should I pick," which assumes you already know you need a CRM. The harder version is "I don't even know what kind of tool solves this," and generic software review sites, built around comparing named products you search for by name, aren't much help when you don't have a name to start from yet.

Why generic review sites fall short here

Software review and comparison sites are genuinely useful once you know what category you're shopping in, say, "CRM" or "invoicing software." They're built around that assumption: you arrive already knowing the category, and the site helps you compare named options within it. If your actual problem is that you don't know the category exists at all, these sites rarely surface it for you, since their whole structure depends on you already knowing roughly what to search for.

How browsing a catalog works differently

WebCatalog's own app catalog holds more than 65,000 apps, browsable and searchable, and because it's organized around adding apps to your own desktop rather than comparing named products, you can explore by what a tool actually does rather than what it's officially called. For someone who genuinely doesn't know what exists for their specific job, browsing a catalog this size, even casually, surfaces options a targeted search for a specific product name never would, simply because you're not limited to searching for something you already know the name of.

And if the tool you eventually find, or already use, isn't in the catalog at all, that's not a dead end: WebCatalog works with any website with a URL, catalog listing or not, so a lesser-known or internal tool can still become its own desktop app the same way a well-known one would.

How to actually use this to find the right tool

1. Start from the job, not the category. Write down the actual task in your own words ("I need to know when a customer views my quote," not "I need proposal software"), since that framing is closer to how you'd describe the gap to a person than to a search engine.
2. Browse broadly before narrowing down, rather than jumping straight to the first plausible-looking result. The value of a catalog this size is in seeing a range of options, not locking onto the first one.
3. Check each candidate against the actual job, not its marketing description, since most tools are described in their best light; the real test is whether it does the specific thing you wrote down in step one.
4. Add your top pick as its own WebCatalog app once you've settled on one, so testing it is a real part of your daily workflow rather than a tab you forget to revisit. Keeping your CRM inbox and quote tool out of 12 browser tabs explains the setup.
5. If nothing in the catalog genuinely fits, add whatever specific website does the job anyway, even if it's not a well-known product, since the catalog is a discovery aid, not a restriction on what you can actually use.

What I'd actually tell you

Treat a catalog like this as a starting point for ideas, not a verdict on what's "best." A huge list genuinely helps when you're stuck not knowing what category of tool even exists for your problem, but it doesn't replace actually trying a handful of candidates against your real, specific task before committing. The entries themselves are essentially website wrappers, giving a site its own window and icon, not new features layered on top of what that site already does, so judge the underlying tool on its own merits, not on how it looks once it's set up as a desktop app. If you need notifications, see getting alerts from web apps when the browser is closed.

If you're the kind of business owner who's tried several tools and nothing quite fits, that's often a real signal, not a sign you haven't searched hard enough. Sometimes the honest answer is that nothing ready-made does exactly what your business actually needs.

A worked example: a handyman business looking for a quoting tool it didn't know existed

Say a one-person handyman business has been sending quotes as plain text messages, with no way to track whether a customer actually opened one before deciding to book someone else instead. Searching "handyman quoting software" turns up a handful of named products, but the owner doesn't actually know whether the category they want is "quoting software," "proposal software," or something else entirely, and the search results feel like they're all competing for the same narrow slice of what's actually needed. Browsing a catalog by what the tool does, rather than searching by a category name, surfaces a few candidates the owner never would have searched for directly, since the category name itself wasn't obvious going in. Testing two of them against the actual, specific need, "I want to know the moment a customer opens the quote," rather than their general feature lists, narrows it down fast: one logs a timestamp the moment a quote is viewed, the other doesn't mention this at all. The win here wasn't the catalog's size on its own, it was being able to browse by the actual job rather than needing to already know the right search term.

A quick note on not overthinking this step

It's easy to turn "find the right tool" into its own open-ended research project, browsing dozens of candidates without ever actually testing one against real work. Set a rough limit before starting, say, three candidates tested for real over a few days, rather than an unlimited search for the theoretically perfect option. Most of the value in this kind of discovery comes from finding something that's clearly better than what you're doing now (plain text messages, a spreadsheet, nothing at all), not from finding the single best tool among 65,000 possible options. A good-enough tool adopted this week beats a perfect tool still being compared three weeks from now. One start page with all your work tools keeps the shortlist in view while you test.

When should you skip this?

If you already know the exact category of tool you need, a dedicated comparison site for that specific category will usually serve you better than browsing a broad catalog. Browsing a catalog like this is most useful specifically at the "I don't even know what to search for" stage, not once you've already narrowed things down.

How I'd approach this

Browsing WebCatalog's catalog is a genuinely useful first step when you're not sure what exists for a specific job, and it costs nothing to try. Where I get involved is at the end of that search, when someone's tried several existing tools and none of them quite fit their actual workflow, usually because their business does something slightly unusual that generic software was never built around. At that point the answer isn't a 65,001st app to browse, it's building the one piece that actually matches how your business really works, which is exactly the kind of custom software I spend most of my time on. Once the tools are chosen, getting every new hire into the same tools in one click keeps the setup consistent.