ArcGIS Alternatives
ArcGIS is described as 'offers unique capabilities and flexible licensing for applying location-based analytics to your business practices. Gain greater insights using contextual tools to visualize and analyze your data. Collaborate and share via maps, apps, dashboards and reports' and is an app in the Travel & Location category. There are more than 25 alternatives to ArcGIS for a variety of platforms, including Windows, Online / Web-based, Linux, Mac and Android. The best alternative is QGIS, which is both free and Open Source. Other great apps like ArcGIS are R (programming language) (Free, Open Source), GRASS GIS (Free, Open Source), OpenLayers (Free, Open Source) and PostGIS (Free, Open Source).
- QGIS, formerly Quantum GIS, is a user friendly open source Geographic Information System (GIS) licensed under the GNU General Public License that runs on Linux, Unix, Mac OSX, and Windows and supports numerous vector, raster, and database formats and functionalities.
- Free • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Android
- BSD
QGIS vs ArcGIS opinions
QGIS can read geodatabases. The software is frequently updated and print composer is very good alternative to ArcGIS for map layouts.The GUI is pretty simple and intuitive and it runs decent on windows (at least as fast as ArcMap), but on GNU/Linux it flies. And since the license is GPL you can use it for different purposes (from educational to research or commercial) without worrying for a sue.caiocco QGIS runs on multiple platforms, has a strong community and is becoming more and more mature. You can do almost everything using QGIS and it integrates very well with GRASS and SAGA for additional power.yes. because for linux this is the only option available.u can do everything in qgis what u can do in ArcGIS but also in QGIS u have full acces to the source code and all is freeClosest in terms of UI, and gets a lot of extra power from integration with other packages like Grass and orfeo.Free with same functionality. - R is a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics.
- Free • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- BSD
R (programming language) vs ArcGIS opinions
chtfn Even though this programming language is not specific to spatial data, the vast collection of R packages available for importing, processing, analysing, converting and visualising spatial makes it an excellent alternative that can create fully reproducible processes. Searching "R Spatial" online will bring up a wealth of books, tutorials and resources. - GRASS GIS (Geographic Resources Analysis Support System) is an open source, free software (FOSS) Geographical Information System (GIS) with raster, topological, vector, image processing, and visualization functionality.
- OpenLayers is a high-performance, feature-packed library for all your mapping needs. FEATURES Tiled Layers Pull tiles from OSM, Bing, MapBox, Stamen, MapQuest, and any other XYZ source you can find. OGC mapping services and untiled layers also supported.
- PostGIS adds support for geographic objects to the PostgreSQL object-relational database.
PostGIS vs ArcGIS opinions
While PostGIS can collect GIS data, its primary functionality is that of a database and doesn't provide most of the feature set that ArcGIS has. - What3words encodes geographic coordinates into 3 dictionary words (for example, the Statue of Liberty is located at planet.inches.most).
- MapServer is an Open Source platform for publishing spatial data and interactive mapping applications to the web.No screenshots yet
- GIS Cloud is an online collaborative mapping platform for your entire field and office workflow. Collect and visualize your data without all the heavy lifting of coding on a very user-friendly and affordable platform.
- Paid • Proprietary
- Online
- Software as a Service (SaaS)
- gvSIG is a Geographic Information System (GIS), that is, a desktop application designed for capturing, storing, handling, analyzing and deploying any kind of referenced geographic information in order to solve complex management and planning problems.
- MapWindow is a fully free and open source geographic information system project. It includes an open source programming component, MapWinGIS ActiveX, and an extensible desktop application that supports plug-ins written in .NET (C# and VB.NET).