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QGIS is a versatile and user-friendly geoprocessing software that is highly valued by its users for its wide range of use cases. Users …
Overview
What is QGIS?
QGIS (formerly Quantum GIS) is a free and open source geographic information system.
Recent Reviews
Pricing
QGIS
Free
On Premise
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Product Demos
QGIS Demo 49: Image Segmentation
YouTube
Demo 16 - Semi-Automated Mapping in QGIS with the Atlas Panel
YouTube
QGIS Demo 22: Raster NoData
YouTube
QGIS Demo 29: Raster Resample
YouTube
Creating a racial dot density map using QGIS
YouTube
Demo 14 – Making Maps in QGIS with the Print Layout (Pt. I)
YouTube
Product Details
- About
- Tech Details
What is QGIS?
QGIS Technical Details
| Deployment Types | On-premise |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Windows, Linux, Mac |
| Mobile Application | No |
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Reviews and Ratings
(38)
Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
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QGIS is a versatile and user-friendly geoprocessing software that is highly valued by its users for its wide range of use cases. Users have highlighted its importance in various stages of geoprocessing work, from data collection to the final output. It has proven to be valuable for displaying textual data on maps and analyzing them both quantitatively and qualitatively. The ability to print and export maps to different formats such as PDF, JPEG, and SVG has been particularly useful for users.
QGIS finds extensive application in the interpretation and analysis of satellite images, making it an essential tool for tasks related to climate change analysis, mangroves analysis, land use, land cover analysis, and watershed analysis. Additionally, it is employed for network planning, route optimization, and the creation of vector data. This versatility extends further into domains such as urban planning, environmental conservation, hydrographic analysis, and transportation planning.
One of the key advantages of QGIS is that it addresses licensing issues by being open-source software that does not require costly licenses. Users appreciate the ease of installation and stability of QGIS compared to other proprietary GIS packages like ArcGIS. Its stability translates into increased efficiency and productivity during usage. Moreover, QGIS offers excellent support for social and economic data visualization, enabling organizations to effectively communicate their mission and views on children and adolescent health through maps.
Planning departments and offices involved in gathering information about specific urban spaces frequently rely on QGIS as a tool for creating plans, organizing information, managing spatial data, and explaining urban areas to the public. With features like spatial analysis, topographic and thematic cartography, and connections with statistical software like R, QGIS serves as a comprehensive tool for researchers to visually present their findings using maps and schemes.
Businesses also benefit from QGIS as it supports spatial analysis of large property datasets, facilitates the development of thematic layers with customized styling options, and aids in building monthly reports for clients. QGIS has even been recommended as a functional and cost-effective alternative to other proprietary GIS packages. Furthermore, it has proven invaluable for tasks such as creating and modifying shapefiles, generating spatial data, and visualizing US election datasets, enabling strategic mapping of voter precincts and targeting volunteers and canvassing efforts.
Over time, QGIS has evolved to become the premiere free GIS software with an improved workflow and a user-friendly interface. Users appreciate the value and accessibility it offers by allowing them to work with open formats and free tools while still utilizing essential GIS skills across organizations. Moreover, QGIS has evolved greatly over time and is now considered the premiere free GIS software with a user-friendly interface and improved workflow. This has made it a popular choice among users who want to keep their work with open formats and free tools while still benefiting from essential GIS skills. The software's customizability through Python scripts and models designer has further enhanced its appeal.
Another key use case of QGIS is research visualization, where it serves as a valuable tool for visually presenting research through maps and schemes. Its comprehensive suite of instruments and seamless integration with statistical software like R make it a preferred choice for researchers in various fields.
In addition, QGIS has proven effective for spatial analysis of large property datasets, allowing users to develop styling for thematic layers and build monthly reports for clients. This functionality, paired with its cost effectiveness, has led to QGIS being recommended as a functional replacement for other proprietary GIS packages.
QGIS also finds utility in strategic mapping of voter precincts for political campaigns and targeting volunteers and canvassing efforts. Its ability to generate visualizations of US election datasets enables a deeper understanding of voting patterns and aids in decision-making processes.
Overall, QGIS's user-friendly interface, extensive functionality, open-source nature, and compatibility with various data formats make it an invaluable tool in geoprocessing work across numerous industries. Users appreciate its versatility, stability, and customizable features that enhance productivity and efficiency.
Fast and Easy Installation: Many users have found the installation process of QGIS to be fast and extremely easy on both Windows and Linux. They appreciate how quickly they were able to get the software up and running without any complications.
Abundance of Documentation and Tutorials: Users greatly appreciate the abundance of documentation and tutorials available on the QGIS website as well as other online sources. This wealth of resources makes it easy for them to learn and use the software effectively. They mention finding step-by-step guides, video tutorials, and forums where they can find answers to their questions.
Free with No Licensing Issues: One major advantage mentioned by users is that QGIS is free to use without any licensing requirements. This saves them time and frustration compared to other GIS tools that require licenses or subscriptions. Users value the accessibility of QGIS as an open-source software option for their mapping needs.
Clunky and unintuitive user interface: Several users have found the user interface of QGIS to be clunky and unintuitive, making it difficult to make maps quickly and efficiently. They have expressed frustration with the convoluted process of editing and adding feature layers, as well as changing colors of added point or line features. Additionally, they feel that the labeling interface is overly complicated and suggested adding a feature for manual label placement.
Lack of extensive courses and support: Some users have mentioned that QGIS lacks a large library of courses specifically made for the program, which makes it harder for beginners to use. They also pointed out the difficulty in finding support for QGIS as there is no single company responsible for providing support. Although consulting companies are available, some users still find it limiting and frustrating that QGIS relies solely on support from other users due to its open-source nature.
Continuous updates and data accuracy issues: There have been complaints about the continuous updates of QGIS being annoying and unnecessary. Users caution that the data used in QGIS can sometimes be inaccurate or incomplete since it is sourced from various contributors worldwide. This can cause issues when working with the software. Furthermore, stability issues such as unexpected program closures have been reported by some users, requiring them to restart the program to execute certain actions effectively.
Users of QGIS commonly recommend the following:
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Try QGIS before purchasing any other software. Many users suggest giving QGIS a try before investing in other GIS software. They believe that QGIS is a reliable tool for all mapping projects and recommend using it for both analysis and geographical analysis.
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Utilize online support and add-ons. Users highly recommend taking advantage of the online support and add-ons available for QGIS. They find these resources helpful in maximizing the functionality of the software.
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Read the documentation and attend user group events. It is suggested that users who are new to QGIS should read the documentation thoroughly and dive into learning the software. Some users also recommend attending QGIS user group events or utilizing the Google+ page for additional resources.
Overall, users find QGIS to be a great tool for mapping service users, buildings, and key landmarks. They appreciate its intuitive interface and consider it a useful basic mapping tool. To fully explore its potential, users recommend taking courses or using tutorials to learn QGIS and exploring other forums dedicated to this software. Additionally, users urge others to consider trying out QGIS as a free product and installing it via the OSGEO4W installer for proper setup and access to other useful open-source GIS software and tools. The online support community is regarded as fantastic, with many users finding it easy to use and navigate. Users also suggest weighing the cost vs benefits of commercial packages against the potential savings of using QGIS. Lastly, some users recommend procuring a 'crash course' book or video course series on QGIS for beginners, finding it valuable for their specific purposes and staff.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-12 of 12)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
May 31, 2022
QGIS - the ideal suite to turn that one "a thousand words" into captivating and inspiring maps!
November 23, 2021
QGIS Review
QGIS is open source and freely available for Windows and Mac iOS Geographic Information System Software. QGIS is highly customizable as per project requirements and different application usage. QGIS has ample tools and plugins that are useful for the analysis of raster and vector data. It also supports GRASS, GDAL, and SAGA tools.
January 05, 2021
An Open-Source Mapping Powerhouse!
Handling ESRI licenses was not an easy task for our organization as we had a large number of users that needed access to GIS capabilities on a very occasional basis. R requires a lot of coding to get a decent-looking map. QGIS hits the spot when it comes to visual interpretation of spatial data.
November 05, 2020
You cannot possibly go wrong with QGIS
We've used MapInfo, but it is expensive and lacks the wide support that QGIS has. It also doesn't slot in that well with the open-source stack that we use to develop our online GIS tools.
We've also evaluated Esri's Arc products. Fantastic tools, but a) exorbitantly expensive, and b) they lock their clients in by preferring the use of proprietary formats, and c) they can't ingest nearly as many data formats as QGIS can (which is critical for us since we work with various different data providers).
We've also evaluated Esri's Arc products. Fantastic tools, but a) exorbitantly expensive, and b) they lock their clients in by preferring the use of proprietary formats, and c) they can't ingest nearly as many data formats as QGIS can (which is critical for us since we work with various different data providers).
November 11, 2019
A free-to-use Spatial Analysis Tool you should give a shot!
Frankly, QGIS is an inferior tool as compared to ArcGIS as ArcGIS is a market leader in spatial data analysis, offers a family of GIS Suite catering to different needs, has a huge repository of training exercises and tutorials, an organized catalog of data if you need further help and a dedicated support team. But, QGIS has a major advantage that is it is free and that's why we chose it.
May 24, 2019
QGIS is our workhorse for political mapping.
We explored ArcGIS a bit and realized that we couldn't afford this approach. We fully realize it's a more complete product offering, but QGIS offered all the needed features for our business requirements. We were able to do online mapping using QGIS exports and Mapbox.com for much cheaper than using ESRI.
September 18, 2018
Free, powerful software for GIS
I learned GIS with ArcGIS and have used ArcGIS longer than QGIS. Both programs have essentially the same functionality. However, QGIS is free, while users need a license for ArcGIS (individual licenses are available for a few hundred dollars). I really like that QGIS is open source, and I like that there is a large community of QGIS users who can offer help. Of course, ArcMap also has a huge user community and has a huge library of online classes. I tend to use QGIS for GIS processing, but I use ArcMap to make maps for publication, as I find its map-making tools to be more intuitive than those of QGIS.
June 14, 2018
QGIS a great solution for nonprofit organizations
ESRI programs like ArcGIS are the gold standard in planning, GIS, and digital data visualization, but QGIS stands up to the ArcGIS package at a lower price point and with excellent training information. ArcGIS has very little other components not found in QGIS, and QGIS has always met the needs I had and I did not need to resort to using ArcGIS.
March 16, 2018
Powerful GIS in development
Both tools are very powerful. The difference is that QGIS is open source. Experts can develop applications that suit the specific needs of certain users. A big advantage of QGIS is undoubtedly the economic cost, because Qgis is a software almost as powerful as ArcGIS. I could say that these tools can be complemented.
January 19, 2018
A Great Option for Users of GIS
First of all QGIS it is a free software in an are that has always been monopolized for big companies like ESRI, in that way QGIS bring the opportunity to know how to work with GIS and how we can manage data from so many formats in only one software. Qgis it is the best alternative for people that it does not have the chance to work with a private software of a big company. This software offers a big range of opportunities to work with spatial and raster data and the extension of GRASS bring us the opportunity to create our own spatial database and work in the way we want. In comparison with other free software QGIS it is the best one.
April 10, 2017
QGIS. A powerful GIS Suite that doesn't come with a toolset so much as a tool warehouse.
Each of the products have their strong points and their weak points, as well as some products being particularly adept at certain analyses or workflows. That being said, QGIS can do nearly everything all of the above products can do, and it does them for free, with continual updates and additions to the library of plugins and analyses.
Furthermore, the foundation that QGIS is built upon when GRASS is leveraged means that over 30 years of GIS research, work, and development support the tools and analyses you're using. The depth and breadth of the toolset under QGIS is astounding.Much like learning Python or LaTex, it is difficult, but the payout at the end is worthwhile.
March 03, 2017
QGIS for provident startups
- ArcGIS, SAGA GIS and ERDAS IMAGINE
QGIS vs. ArcGIS. The main reason is the price of ArcGIS. Most of the functionality is identical in both products, however, interfacing QGIS with external software allows it to dramatically increase processing capabilities.
QGIS vs. ERDAS IMAGINE. It is quite good for satellite imagery processing. However, it is also expensive. 95% of regular imagery processing can be resolved using QGIS, and for the last 5%, you can use a third party service from time to time.
QGIS vs. SAGA GIS. SAGA is free to use too. Also, it contains a lot of predefined geospatial algorithms. But it handles its own unique file format for rasters and the necessity of converting in and out (so annoying to me). However, it can be used as an external plugin for QGIS to use some of SAGA's internal algorithm for processing.
QGIS vs. ERDAS IMAGINE. It is quite good for satellite imagery processing. However, it is also expensive. 95% of regular imagery processing can be resolved using QGIS, and for the last 5%, you can use a third party service from time to time.
QGIS vs. SAGA GIS. SAGA is free to use too. Also, it contains a lot of predefined geospatial algorithms. But it handles its own unique file format for rasters and the necessity of converting in and out (so annoying to me). However, it can be used as an external plugin for QGIS to use some of SAGA's internal algorithm for processing.