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ArcGIS does geography better than anyone else, but not always the fastest or easiest
January 13, 2020

ArcGIS does geography better than anyone else, but not always the fastest or easiest

Thomas Young | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with ArcGIS

ArcGIS is used by our organization to accomplish many geographic modeling tasks. The tasks include geocoding, building interactive web maps, creating analytical models to answer business questions, and for other advanced geographic analyses. The software is used across the organization by IT professionals as well as professional analysts with the technical know-how to address geographic questions.
  • ArcGIS is world-class with geographic analyses.
  • ArcGIS works well with web applications.
  • ArcGIS takes forever to open, and it seems to be getting slower with every new release.
  • The creators of the ArcGIS software make it more difficult to create add-ins for the product than what could be done with an open-source solution.
  • ArcGIS has had a positive ROI in that it has made possible many new products.
  • ArcGIS has been a negative ROI for analysts not willing to put in the time or effort to make use of the software's most advanced capabilities.
These alternatives to ArcGIS have one thing in common - they are all generally more user-friendly, and they all lack the capability of ArcGIS. ArcGIS can do most anything geographically-related, while these other products do one or two things very well. For instance, ArcGIS's web interface is often used but is in no way the most aesthetically pleasing.
ArcGIS' web support is quite good. They also have a broad user base that is active in answering community members' questions. For more sophisticated questions, ArcGIS technical support is good at answering questions, although answers usually are not instantaneously available. I'd also say that ArcGIS is working hard at making its technical support more reachable, at least it appears that way.

Do you think ArcGIS delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with ArcGIS's feature set?

Yes

Did ArcGIS live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of ArcGIS go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy ArcGIS again?

Yes

Mapbox, CARTO (formerly CartoDB), Salesforce Maps (formerly MapAnything), Alteryx Platform, Qlik Core
ArcGIS is well-suited for firms that need the most advanced geographic modeling capabilities. ArcGIS is capable of accomplishing most anything, and if the method is not programmed into the point-and-click interface, ArcGIS allows for custom programming extensions from professionals that know languages such as Python. The software is not for beginning geographers.