3 open source alternatives to ArcGIS Desktop

1

ArcGIS

If you've ever worked with geographic data on the desktop, chances are that you used Esri's ArcGIS application in at least part of your work. ArcGIS is an incredibly powerful tool, but unfortunately, it's a proprietary product that is designed for Windows. Linux and Mac users are out of luck unless they want to run ArcGIS in a virtualized environment, and even then, they're still using a closed source product that can be very expensive to license. While their flagship product is closed source, I would be remiss not to note that Esri has made numerous contributions to the open source community.

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2

GRASS GIS

Let's begin with GRASS. GRASS, which stands for Geographic Resources Analysis Support System). It has a very long history, dating back to original development which began in 1982 under the US government. In the time since, GRASS has been adopted by the academic community, where its development continues today.

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3

QGIS

For many people, discovering QGIS is the end of their search for an ArcGIS alternative. It has a clean interface, it's easy to use, and it just works. QGIS supports a wide variety of raster and vector formats, and if you're a Linux user, there's a good chance that it's already packaged for your distribution's default repositories. In addition to Linux, downloads and instructions for macOS, Windows, BSD, and Android can be found on the project's website.

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4

uDig

But its strength comes in its framework design, being built around the same Eclipse IDE that many developers are familiar with already. In this way, uDig makes it easy to develop your own GIS application which meets the specific needs of your users. The project's gallery hosts many examples, from smart grid to forestry to logistics.

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