Mapbox vs. Strater vs. Surfer

For services that require maps and basic geo-functionality in production, Mapbox is one of the greatest choices out there. They're free, provide much more refined/modern productions compared to Google maps, and have very good support on different platforms. For services that require higher-computation products, like matrix routing, optimization, etc..., the prices can get quite high very quickly, and you should consider moving those services to an on-premise server at that point.

Incentivized

Surfer has been excellent for us, a small company, to process the electrical resistivity, refraction microtremor, and MASW data collected in the field. There are an increasing number of programs capable of assisting in this geophysical analysis but Surfer is the most advanced. The ability to create both 2D and 3D figures in the program while managing data is a huge help. It also greatly improved report quality and helped clients better understand what the results were for a study.

Incentivized

• Documentation is clean, easy to read, and very well organized which makes it easy to get going or learn something new
• The online user interface makes it quick and easy to edit maps, upload new datasets, view analytics, or get API keys
• Great integrations with Tableau and easy to develop for Android, iOS, or Web

Incentivized

• The interface is simple and easy/quick to learn, so that not much experience is needed to start generating maps.
• The map layouts are easy to manipulate, change colors, scale, labels, contour interval, etc...
• Simple but functional mathematical and logical functions allow for the calculation and manipulation of grids.

Incentivized

• The product is not always that easy to use, aimed at professionals understanding colors and palettes etc.
• Being a full cloud product it can be complicated working with the interface when your connectivity is not great.
• Tutorials and samples could be more visual and could cover more ideas on how to use Mapbox.

Incentivized

• The user interface can be tricky at first. It's a little rough around the edges and takes a little time to get the hang of.
• Not an ideal application for older employees. There are too many things with the interface that make it not worthwhile to train employees with less computer experience.
• Manipulating data within Surfer is difficult because you have to do things in a certain order. Not terrible if you get the hang of it but certainly frustrating at first.

Incentivized

It is a good tool to use. We can perform various customisations; I always end up exploring and finding a new feature that can be used in my work somewhere. And one good thing is that is actually quite reasonable in terms of cost, with the free tier being quite adequate

Incentivized

One feature that made me go in favor of Mapbox was its stellar documentation. Google Maps and Bing Maps are the other alternatives I considered, but the learning curve with both of them is steeper than it is with Mapbox. Also, Mapbox Studio gives newbies a very simple, clean and easy to use environment to make and store maps online

Incentivized

Surfer is very unique with respect to its capabilities. I am not aware of any other mapping software that is at the same time flexible, has a friendly interface, and creates such nice-looking maps.

Incentivized

• Mapbox is the only service that has all the products we need to release our product to the market. Without Mapbox, we would've spent far more time integrating multiple different map/geo services like Mapbox and HERE maps together.
• Mapbox was sometimes expensive in the testing period, and we would've definitely moved some of the services on-premise to save money if we had the time.
• Mapbox has functionality for traffic-aware routing in many countries, as well as matrix-structured routing data, which is what enables our service to function. Having all of this integrated within an API allows us to easily scale our service to multiple different cities/countries in a matter of days.

Incentivized

• The worst thing about Surfer is the cost. My company can only afford one license at the moment which means only one employee gets to use it regularly. Not so great when someone is sick or you have a huge wave of projects.
• The user interface is a little rough but younger employees have been great at catching on quickly and producing great images.
• There's nothing else quite like Surfer. It's versatile and not to difficult to use so, though the licenses are expensive, it is an excellent program that has done wonders for our company!

Incentivized