Is this on its way to pushing out the incumbent proprietary solution and becoming the standard a la Blender? Or is this more LibreOffice -it’s there, but missing so much functionality/polish that an expert will immediately find blockers vs the status quo?
Qem · 6m ago
Probably closer to the first situation. It curb stomped ArcGIS in the geographic information system community. When I started working with GIS at work, expensive ESRI products were default in this market, a la matlab in another field. Most coleages of mine had not heard about QGIS. Now QGIS is ubiquitous. It did to ArcGIS and its countless paid add on modules what scipy/numpy did to matlab.
ingenieroariel · 4m ago
The scipy/numpy to matlab is a good example. In my opinion it is on its way but in many places the timing is more like 2010-2013 where a lot of people knew python was the future but universities still used only Matlab.
larsiusprime · 5m ago
I work in the mass appraisal space, and I use QGIS all the time. The professional alternative is ESRI's ArcGIS.
A lot of shops I know (private and public) will use ArcGIS still, but I'm noticing an increasing number of people (particularly younger researchers/analysts) who are exclusively using QGIS.
QGIS is powerful and full featured, but it is admittedly a bit rusty around the edges, especially when working with very large datasets. If they keep working on fixing some of the sharpest edges I think it will go on to have a good future. Just in the past few years I've noticed significant improvement.
In many ways it feels like Blender -- long ignored and dismissed, but slowly but surely improved over time, and then suddenly became quite a big deal.
ingenieroariel · 6m ago
I think the answer depends on the country: In places where the government uses QGIS it is like Blender. In places where ESRI has a stronghold it is like LibreOffice.
ZunarJ5 · 6m ago
It is becoming more and more Blender. Europe relies on it more than Americans, but most GIS specialists use both this and ESRI.
ageitgey · 28m ago
QGIS is great. It's a slightly janky version of ArcMap, but ArcMap has always been janky anyway, so it doesn't matter for most things. And QGIS is super extensible.
There have been so many random times that QGIS has helped me out over the years. Thanks to everyone who has contributed to it!
mirchiseth · 8m ago
Do you work in GIS field and it is useful? I am trying to see how a GIS tool will help a typical audience here that may be a little interested in maps + data.
vincnetas · 30m ago
When I have to do anything with geo data i think this is a one of the first tools i reach for. Integrates with lots of formats, storages. Have lots of plugins and scripting functionality. And it's free like in speech.
aerzen · 33m ago
My wife uses this a lot. ArcMap used to be de-facto software in her field, but QGis has overtaken that completely. It might not be as polished as ArcMap, it's missing a few guardrails that would prevent you messing up, but it has more features, extensions, better platform support and is free as in beer.
For folks working on QGis: thank you
4ndrewl · 16m ago
I have nothing but good things to say about QGIS.
aduffy · 37m ago
QGIS is the shit. I absolutely love it, great for visualizing GeoJSON, GeoTIFF files, open data feeds, etc. My one gripe is that their macOS installers have been out of date for ages now, the best way I've found is to actually install from Conda Forge directly:
> brew install micromamba
> mamba install qgis
It's really crazy the number of open geospatial data feeds that exist out there from NASA, NOAA, and ESA. If you're interested in checking any of this stuff out, I highly encourage following Mark Litwinchik's blog, this guy is a legend and he does most of his work with open tools like QGIS and DuckDB
A lot of shops I know (private and public) will use ArcGIS still, but I'm noticing an increasing number of people (particularly younger researchers/analysts) who are exclusively using QGIS.
QGIS is powerful and full featured, but it is admittedly a bit rusty around the edges, especially when working with very large datasets. If they keep working on fixing some of the sharpest edges I think it will go on to have a good future. Just in the past few years I've noticed significant improvement.
In many ways it feels like Blender -- long ignored and dismissed, but slowly but surely improved over time, and then suddenly became quite a big deal.
There have been so many random times that QGIS has helped me out over the years. Thanks to everyone who has contributed to it!
For folks working on QGis: thank you
> brew install micromamba
> mamba install qgis
It's really crazy the number of open geospatial data feeds that exist out there from NASA, NOAA, and ESA. If you're interested in checking any of this stuff out, I highly encourage following Mark Litwinchik's blog, this guy is a legend and he does most of his work with open tools like QGIS and DuckDB
https://tech.marksblogg.com/