Free, powerful software for GIS
September 18, 2018
Free, powerful software for GIS
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with QGIS
Within my department, we do a lot of GIS. About half of my coworkers use ArcGIS and half use QGIS. QGIS addresses the problems associated with licensing. It is open source software, so no licensing is required. It is also much easier to install than ArcGIS and (in my experience) crashes less often than ArcGIS. Less crashing and faster install times result in more efficiency and productivity.
- QGIS is free and very easy to install, and no license is required. Not having to deal with licensing issues has saved me considerable time and frustration.
- The QGIS help community is very active, and it is easy to find answers. Although QGIS does not offer support in the way that ArcMap does, I was always able to google my question and find either a tutorial or website that solved my problem.
- QGIS seems to crash less often than ArcMap. It is super annoying to have a program crash when you are in the middle of a project, but I have not had any issues with QGIS. Also, QGIS is updated frequently.
- Making maps in QGIS is a bit clunky. I also find it to be extremely unintuitive. For basic GIS, it is great, but I would much rather make maps (for publication purposes) in ArcGIS.
- Editing and adding feature layers is not very intuitive. Changing colors of added point or line features is a rather convoluted process.
- ArcGIS has a huge selection of online courses, and if you have the appropriate license, you can access most for free. I found these to be very helpful when dealing with map projections and other issues. However, QGIS does not have a large library of courses specifically made for that program.
- 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.
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.