The Best Open Source ArcGIS AlternativesTop GIS Software & Map Services like ArcGIS

The best open source alternative to ArcGIS is QGIS. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 50 alternatives to ArcGIS and 15 is open source so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting open source alternatives to ArcGIS are R (programming language), GRASS GIS, Placemark and SAGA GIS.

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Alternatives list

  1. QGIS icon
     123 likes

    A fully featured, user friendly, open source Geographic Information System (GIS) with similar power to ArcGIS and MapInfo.

    58 QGIS alternatives

    Cost / License

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Android
    • BSD
     
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    10
  2. R is a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics. It is a GNU project which is similar to the S language and environment which was developed at Bell Laboratories (formerly AT&T, now Lucent Technologies) by John Chambers and colleagues. R can be consider.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • BSD
     
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    1
  3. GRASS GIS icon
     26 likes

    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.

    37 GRASS GIS alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  4. Placemark icon
     4 likes

    The Placemark application. This is a web application that lets you import, create, export, visualize, and publish geospatial data. It supports many geospatial data formats, and many editing operations, both algorithmic, like buffering, and drawing-based.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Platforms

    • Self-Hosted
    • Docker
    • Online
     
  5. SAGA GIS icon
     5 likes

    SAGA - System for Automated Geoscientific Analyses - is a Geographic Information System (GIS) software with immense capabilities for geodata processing and analysis. SAGA is programmed in the object oriented C++ language and supports the implementation of new functions with a...

    31 SAGA GIS alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  6. Mapserver icon
     4 likes

    MapServer is an Open Source platform for publishing spatial data and interactive mapping applications to the web. Originally developed in the mid-1990’s at the University of Minnesota, MapServer is released under an MIT-style license, and runs on all major platforms (Windows...

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  7. PostGIS icon
     23 likes

    PostGIS adds support for geographic objects to the PostgreSQL object-relational database. In effect, PostGIS "spatially enables" the PostgreSQL server, allowing it to be used as a backend spatial database for geographic information systems (GIS), much like ESRIs SDE...

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • BSD
     
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    1
  8. OpenJUMP is an open source Geographic Information System (GIS) written in the Java programming language. It is developed and maintained by a group of volunteers from around the globe.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  9. Abc-Map icon
     1 like

    Abc-Map is a tool for processing geographic information that is easy to understand and use.

    Cost / License

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Online
     
  10. uDig icon
     5 likes

    uDig is a GIS software program produced by a community led by Canadian-based consulting company Refractions Research. It is based on the Eclipse platform and features full layered open source GIS. It is written in Java and released under GNU Lesser General Public License.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Windows
     
  11. MapWindow GIS icon
     6 likes

    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).

    20 MapWindow GIS alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Windows
     
12 of 15 ArcGIS alternatives