Waze VS GRASS GIS

Waze

Waze is the world's largest community-based traffic and navigation app. Join other drivers in your area who share real-time traffic and road info, saving everyone time and gas money on their daily commute.

GRASS GIS

GRASS GIS is a free Geographic Information System (GIS) software used for geospatial data management and analysis, image processing, graphics/maps production, spatial modeling, and visualization.

Image date //
2024-01-08

Landing page //
2022-09-18

GRASS GIS offers powerful raster, vector, and geospatial processing engines in a single integrated software suite. It includes tools for terrain and ecosystem modeling, hydrology, visualization of raster and vector data, management and analysis of geospatial data, and the processing of satellite and aerial imagery. It comes with a temporal framework for advanced time series processing and a Python API for rapid geospatial programming. GRASS GIS has been optimized for performance and large geospatial data analysis.

5 reasons you'll use Waze over Google Maps

GRASS GIS videos

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GRASS GIS Tutorials - Tutorial 2 - Understanding GRASS GIS Data Structure

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Waze and GRASS GIS)

Waze

GRASS GIS

Maps

71 71%

Maps

29% 29

Web Mapping

82 82%

Web Mapping

18% 18

Mapping And GIS

0 0%

Mapping And GIS

100% 100

Driving Navigation

100 100%

Driving Navigation

0% 0

Questions and Answers

As answered by people managing Waze and GRASS GIS.

How would you describe your primary audience?

GRASS GIS's answer:

GRASS GIS primarily caters to geospatial professionals, researchers, and students in fields like geography, environmental science, urban planning, and geology. It is also used by government agencies and non-profit organizations for spatial data analysis and environmental modeling.

Who are some of the biggest customers of your product?

GRASS GIS's answer:

As an open-source tool, GRASS GIS doesn't have "customers" in the traditional sense. However, it is widely used by various government agencies, academic institutions, and environmental organizations worldwide. Notable users include space agencies, numerous universities and research institutions as well as companies involved in geospatial studies and analysis.

What's the story behind your product?

GRASS GIS's answer:

GRASS GIS was initially developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a tool for land management and environmental planning. It was first released in the early 1980s and has since evolved into a robust, multi-functional GIS platform, largely due to contributions from a global community of developers. GRASS GIS is a founding member project of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo.org).

What makes your product unique?

GRASS GIS's answer:

Open-Source and Free: GRASS GIS is completely open-source, allowing users to freely use, modify, and distribute it.
Advanced Geospatial Capabilities: It offers a wide range of tools for spatial modeling, geostatistics, and data management, making it suitable for advanced geospatial analysis.
Strong Community Support: Being open-source, it has a strong community of developers and users contributing to its continuous improvement.
Integration with Other Open-Source Tools: It can be integrated with other open-source GIS software like QGIS, providing a comprehensive GIS solution.

Why should a person choose your product over its competitors?

GRASS GIS's answer:

Cost-Effectiveness: Being free and open, it is an excellent choice for those with a strong need for quality.
Customizability: Users can customize and extend its functionalities to suit their specific needs.
Comprehensive Geospatial Functions: It offers a wide range of geospatial functions that are comparable, and sometimes superior, to those in proprietary GIS software.
Strong Data Handling: It can handle large datasets efficiently, which is beneficial for complex geospatial analyses.

Which are the primary technologies used for building your product?

GRASS GIS's answer:

GRASS GIS is primarily written in C, Python, and C++. It uses a range of geospatial libraries and technologies, including GDAL for data conversion, PROJ for coordinate transformations, and can interface with SQL databases.

User comments

Share your experience with using Waze and GRASS GIS. For example, how are they different and which one is better?

Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Waze and GRASS GIS

Waze Reviews

7 Alternatives to Google Maps for Navigation

Actually, Google now owns Waze. But it’s still an alternative! The key to Waze is that it’s a crowdsourcing app. Users can report accidents, traffic jams, speed traps, and other hazards. Then, their reports are shared with other drivers in the area.

Source: gisgeography.com

Going Beyond: The Best Alternatives to Google Maps in 2024

This allows you to avoid traffic jams and get to your destination faster. In addition, Waze offers features such as speed camera alerts and gas stations with the lowest prices, making it a handy app for drivers. Due to its considerable popularity, Waze was purchased by Google in 2013. However, it is still a standalone app, not part of Google Maps.

Source: stratoflow.com

Top 15 Google Maps Alternatives (2024 Edition)

Waze is another popular free Google Maps alternative. You will get the best directions to work from Waze, as it relies on crowdsourcing to warn you about traffic, police, and hazards.

Source: blog.route4me.com

9 Google Maps Alternatives to Use in 2022

Waze is a crowd-funded map service for desktop, Android, and iOS devices. The intuitive and highly interactive system also allows you to alert your fellow drivers about the traffic changes, speed cams, congestion, and hazards on the road. Due to its immense popularity, Wave was purchased by Google in 2013 and still exists as a stand-alone application and not a part of Google...

Source: geekflare.com

Google maps is a paid service. What are the alternatives?

Google acquired location and map services called Waze is highly resourceful and easy to use. The company has a resourceful pool of all the relevant information for drivers and people in need of other location-based resources like fuel pumps, travel map, police activity, and traffic patterns. Interestingly, Google has performed a clean merger of Waze into the pre-existing...

Source: www.w2ssolutions.com

GRASS GIS Reviews

The Top 10 Alternatives to ArcGIS

Grass GIS is a spatial database and software suite used for creating and managing maps, editing data, conducting spatial analysis, and sharing information. It is an open source software that runs on all major platforms, making it a convenient option for a variety of different users. There are many plugins and extensions available for Grass GIS, allowing you to customize it...

Source: equatorstudios.com

30 Best GIS Software Applications [Rankings]

GRASS GIS is one of those suites that let you geoprocess until the night falls. It’s a loaded gun with sophisticated tools. It’s so powerful that you can unleash GRASS GIS in QGIS as a separate toolbox. But its clunky interface and stubborn map projection rules hold it back.

Source: gisgeography.com

Top 6 Free and Open-Source GIS Software

The free, open-source, and cross-platform compatible solution is the best GIS software solution that comes with the most enhanced features. GRASS was developed by the US government and is well-known by companies across the globe. The raster-based GIS software provides users advanced features such as an image processing system, vector GIS, graphics production system, spatial...

Source: linuxways.net

3 open source alternatives to ArcGIS Desktop

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.

Source: opensource.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Waze should be more popular than GRASS GIS. It has been mentiond 12 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Waze mentions (12)

Best app, like, ever?
Waze (Free) - Would have said Google Maps but Waze helps me get places AND tells me where speed cameras are. Source: 5 months ago
Is someone using my API key or am I being stupid?
Had the exact same thing happen to me, including waze.com as referring domain and same billables. Source: 10 months ago
Alexandria to Chantilly
I would suggest using waze.com from wherever you currently are over the next few days. At the time you expect you would actually leave Alexandria for Chantilly, use waze.com's "Live Map" feature to see the route. It will show you a remarkably accurate estimate of the best route and the time it will take. It will also show you a couple of alternatives. Source: over 1 year ago
How is the commute from Ashburn to Arlington?
If you want to get pretty accurate actual times for your commute, after next Tuesday (when traffic is getting back to normal levels after the holidays), use waze.com AT THE TIME you would commute to view their "live map" of the trip. It will show you a pretty accurate estimate of the time it would take right then. Source: over 1 year ago
There is a water main break on Belair Rd
We are updating Waze with live closures and detours. Source: over 1 year ago

GRASS GIS mentions (8)

Geospatial Nix – create, use and deploy today

Https://grass.osgeo.org/

    GRASS GIS offers powerful raster, vector, and geospatial processing engines in a single integrated software suite. It includes tools for terrain and ecosystem modeling, hydrology, visualization of raster and vector data, management and analysis of geospatial data, and the processing of satellite and aerial imagery. It comes with a temporal framework for advanced time series...

- Source: Hacker News / 2 months ago

What's missing from C# in Godot 4?
We haven't looked at integrating GRASS yet, as we're more interested in data display, not deep analysis. Just another example of a C/C++ library with front end bindings for Python. Numbers are crunched in C/C++, results returned to Python. Source: 12 months ago
Discussion Thread
Anyone have good advice for where to learn how to use GRASS. Source: 12 months ago
GIS Developer career path
Outside of personal experience, based on second-hand insight: GRASS is an extremely powerful tool, if you're not familiar with it already, and you can use it from the CLI and from Python. If you'd like to step out of Python at some point, I hear Java is used a lot for enterprise GIS, while Julia looks like the language of the future (especially now with JuliaGeo), but that still remains to be seen. Source: over 1 year ago
What other tools do you use to help you do GIS?
Sometimes some modules from GRASS like r.lake at the moment. Source: over 1 year ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Waze and GRASS GIS, you can also consider the following products

Google Maps - Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

QGIS - QGIS is a desktop geographic information system, or GIS.

HERE WeGo - HERE WeGo - Maps - Routes - Directions - All ways from A to B in one

ArcGIS - ArcGIS software is a data analysis, cloud-based mapping platform that allows users to customize maps and see real-time data ranging from logistics support to overall mapping analysis.

MAPS.ME - Fast, detailed and completely offline maps for mobile devices

SAGA GIS - SAGA - System for Automated Geoscientific Analyses - is a Geographic Information System (GIS)...

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