CARTO vs. Grade.us

CartoDB is great for generating geographic visualizations of data where the geographies are well-defined. It would be great for analysts to develop visualizations of data with spatial elements. That being said, the software is limited if you want to do any real data munging or analysis, as it can be cumbersome to use and there isn't a great interface for actually saving the results of different manipulations (you can save it as a new file, but it's hard to do version control, etc.). I would recommend preparing the data outside of CartoDB and only using the tool for visualization once the data is well prepared.

Incentivized

Grade.us is a great way to implement a process/system for continuously garnering a steady stream of reviews from your clients.

Incentivized

• It is amazing at allowing control of the visualizations. It takes a little bit to get used to but the combination of full SQL queries and CSS-like styling is very powerful.
• The services are built on a robust stack of open source software. I was able to build a standalone instance of CartoDB relatively easily (after some research and trial and error).
• Server side map rendering is key for handling large data sets. The way the images are returned makes them very easy to catch in an HTTP cache to minimize the hits to the server. The interactivity that CartoDB has built in makes this completely transparent to the end user, they can click on parts of the static images and be presented with popups or change map styles. It's a very clever implementation.

Incentivized

• Automates review requests.
• Makes review monitoring across sites easy.
• Makes reporting on review progress simple.

Incentivized

• I don't like the new Builder UI as it has been tough to explain. Other than that I have no complaints.

Incentivized

• Video support could be a little more granular.
• The nomenclature used in the dashboard is a little unclear to a new user.
• The password assignment system is a bit over-engineered making it harder to use.

Incentivized

They are very prompt when we send an inquiry and very helpful with fixing issues.

Incentivized

CartoDB is more user friendly and quicker to learn than ArcGIS Online and Mapbox

Incentivized

Different scopes in total, but G.us does a far better job in review management and social proof growth.

Incentivized

• CartoDB definitely saves a lot of time when creating visualizations. Previously, I would use different software and have to make edits manually (or just create the visualizations manually to start with). I would say that the software definitely cuts the time required to create certain visualizations by a half or two-thirds.

Incentivized

• Grade.us has allowed us to bring a valuable service to the table for our clients as well as a solid source of recurring revenue. A win win!

Incentivized