CoStar refers to CoStar Group, a publicly traded company that operates the largest commercial real estate (CRE) information and marketing platform in North America. It's not a website creation tool or design service—it's a subscription-based research platform that brokers, investors, landlords, and appraisers use to access property listings, comparable sales data, tenant information, and market analytics. The flagship CoStar Suite product aggregates millions of commercial property records across office, retail, industrial, multifamily, and land sectors. People sometimes search "costar website" thinking it's a site builder for agencies or entertainment portfolios ("co-star" as in collaboration), but that's a different concept entirely. CoStar Group owns several consumer-facing brands—LoopNet for commercial listings, Apartments.com for rentals, Homes.com for residential—but the core CoStar platform itself is B2B software requiring annual subscriptions that typically run $2,000–$10,000+ CAD depending on modules and market coverage. From a web design perspective, if you're building a real estate brokerage or investment firm site, you might integrate CoStar data via their API or embed LoopNet widgets to display live commercial listings. This requires developer access and adherence to their brand guidelines. The platform itself doesn't host your website—it's purely a data source and research tool. For Ottawa-area commercial brokerages we've worked with, CoStar integration usually means pulling property feeds into a custom WordPress or headless CMS setup, then styling the listings to match the brand. The data license restricts redistribution, so you can't scrape and republish freely. If you're a CRE professional looking to showcase your portfolio, you'd typically build your own site and selectively feature CoStar-sourced analytics or case studies, always crediting the platform. CoStar's own public-facing pages are functional but not designed as templates for third-party use—they prioritize data density over aesthetic flexibility.