It can help to find an online community on reddit or something for whatever you’re looking to buy. Like /r/castiron for cast iron cookware, for example.

Those are not free from bought testimonies, though, so take what you read with a grain of salt.

It’s not a review website in that sense, but I sometimes find slant.co quite useful.

The usual questions are best for this, best for that…

gotta admit I use amazon for research, but try to buy elsewhere (even though it takes longer)

I have always liked https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/ I had more faith in them before the NYTimes bought them, but honestly they have consistantly steered me in the right direction.