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QGIS

QGIS

Overview

What is QGIS?

QGIS (formerly Quantum GIS) is a free and open source geographic information system.

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

QGIS is a versatile and user-friendly geoprocessing software that is highly valued by its users for its wide range of use cases. Users …
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QGIS Review

8 out of 10
November 23, 2021
Incentivized
QGIS is open-source software that can create, edit, store, analyze, visualize geospatial data. In our organization, we used QGIS for the …
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Pricing

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QGIS

Free

On Premise

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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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
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Product Details

What is QGIS?

QGIS Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise
Operating SystemsWindows, Linux, Mac
Mobile ApplicationNo
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Comparisons

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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!

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:

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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)
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Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • We can ingest data in any format, and convert it to industry-standard spatial files for hosting on our online GIS platform.
  • Many client projects require us to analyze and understand data before we can report on it.
  • Because QGIS is free, and the learning curve is negligible for bright GIS technicians, the ROI is practically infinite because the investment is basically zero.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Open source and free software meant we could produce billable work right away without any financial investment.
  • Online tutorials were available, and it only took us about a week to be competent enough to produce billable work.
  • QGIS opened a new line of business to us that would not be available otherwise. We did not have enough potential work to consider using the competitors.
Maike Holthuijzen | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Because QGIS is free, it saves our organization money.
  • QGIS is easy to install on Windows/Linux/Mac platforms. Our department uses Linux servers, but many of the employees use PCs or Macs. Since QGIS works on all these systems, we can open QGIS projects on any of these systems and continue our work.
  • The one negative point I have about QGIS is its cartography tools. I frequently have to make maps that are suitable for publication. I spent an inordinate amount of time attempting to make a few maps in QGIS, but I ended up making them in ArcGIS because it was much faster that way. Thus, the use of QGIS sometimes results in a loss of work efficiency due to troubleshooting.
Ember Urbach, LMSW | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • QGIS gives us more impactful data on children and maternal health issues, which in turn has helped us establish more programs, relationships, and funding opportunities because of the excellent data presentations we can give.
  • QGIS has allowed our staff to improve their data analysis skills, improving our workforce across the board, with or without the direct use of geographic data.
  • QGIS has required a lot of staff time to learn, but the ROI on time spent vs the reports we produced afterward has been well worth it.
Isabel Huamani | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • You have to invest time in the training of the staff, both for the beginners, as for the users of other GIS software
  • Improved our response times, which is a benefit for the company
  • It does not require investing a large sum of money, being a free software
  • This program tends to be a bit unstable. With large amount of data tends to be slow.
Cesar A Siso L | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • QGIS it is a very useful software to work with spatial data in the way the software helps us to make the plans for maintenance of the urban spaces of the city, we can build this by adding data to the shapefiles and later, selecting which area needs to be prioritized and in what order we have to send the workers to their jobs, and the data bring us the opportunity to do a better use of our personal and budget.
  • The software is very useful making models of any kind of situation that happens in a city, in our case with the Tranus extension we can see which are the roads with more traffic and can choose which one has to have a regular or continuous maintenance or which one has to be used only two or three times per month, making it more effective for the uses of our resources.
  • In the planning area QGIS can be so useful because it allows to select which areas of the city has the major budget allocation and why that happens, with this data we can define which areas that need more money to keep in the best possible condition and which ones do not need so much attention from the government, because the actual condition of them it is really good.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • QGIS has allowed me to retain access to my years of data, work, and analyses that were completed under commercial tools that I no longer have a license to use. I now own my data, and the tools to refine it further, with no cost to myself.
  • QGIS has a large and enthusiastic community world-wide, which enables many opportunities for great collaborative GIS work.
  • QGIS is easily obtained, easily deployed, and works on nearly any OS that would be found in a production environment.
  • Learning QGIS when coming from nearly 12 years of primarily ArcGIS use has been difficult, but not impossible. The transition was worthwhile.
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