Google Maps API vs. QGIS

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Google Maps API
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Google Maps APIs allow developers to integrate Google Maps into a website or retrieve information from Google Maps.N/A
QGIS
Score 9.7 out of 10
N/A
QGIS (formerly Quantum GIS) is a free and open source geographic information system.N/A
Pricing
Google Maps APIQGIS
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
QGIS
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google Maps APIQGIS
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Google Maps APIQGIS
Best Alternatives
Google Maps APIQGIS
Small Businesses
ArcGIS
ArcGIS
Score 8.9 out of 10
ArcGIS
ArcGIS
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
ArcGIS
ArcGIS
Score 8.9 out of 10
ArcGIS
ArcGIS
Score 8.9 out of 10
Enterprises
ArcGIS
ArcGIS
Score 8.9 out of 10
ArcGIS
ArcGIS
Score 8.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Google Maps APIQGIS
Likelihood to Recommend
7.0
(0 ratings)
9.8
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Google Maps APIQGIS
Likelihood to Recommend
If you love travelling [Google Maps API is] a must app for you it will guide you to the places. You can search pub, restaurant and places to stay easily in the locations where you never been before. With the live location sharing you'll never get lost. It is fit for every scenarios it will save your time in finding the exact location.
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Well suited:
  • To build beautiful and dynamic maps quickly.
  • To conduct quantitative and qualitative analyses.
  • To work cross-platform, as both the Windows version and the Linux version are identical in appearance and available resources.
Less appropriate:
  • To use and import files from proprietary software such as ArcGIS and AutoCAD.
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Pros
  • Location accuracy application we used to for displaying current location.
  • Easiest way to guide the map from one location to another.
  • Building the scenerio based application which requires accessibility.
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  • 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.
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Cons
  • It is an easy application and it is difficult to find any problems or observations for it as it is a giant company that is always developing on its own.
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  • QGIS is hard to use for beginners. A better tutorial and clearer online tutorials could improve this.
  • Labeling interface is overly complicated. Allowing users to manually add labels to relevant items could be helpful.
  • QGIS should have more "wizards" that can easily import common data points (median income, population density, etc) and cross tabulate that with other categories easily from uploaded data.
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Usability
Google Maps API is easy to use. Map visibility is good and accurate. Easy to search routes, distance, and travel time based on actual address to address locations or when quoting a zip code to zip code rate. The user interface is friendly and make usage easy and quick to obtain all the information I need to properly quote and plan my driver's routes.
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I wasn't a GIS user at all when I started using QGIS, nor did I have any background working with data in anything other than Excel, and as a result, I struggled quite a lot in the beginning (it's not quite Google Maps). But having said that, I haven't come across anything that I couldn't do with a little help from the online community. I've done complex spatial analyses on large datasets of metropolitan cities, designed custom multi-page pdf reports that automatically cycle through different areas of an area, etc.
And the GIS staff that I've appointed, after their initial resistance, took to the tool like a fish to water, and I haven't heard them complain after starting to use the tool for a week or two.
But if you're new to GIS, be patient and invest some time to learn how to use the tool. It is absolutely worth it.
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Support Rating
It does everything I need it to do and hasn't let me down yet. It has been a lifesaver for my roofing accounts. Most of my clients for the roofing belong to an Amish community with no computers and so forth. So being able to search the maps and look at the rooftops is imperative for those campaigns.
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Even though there is a no dedicated support team for QGIS (or at least we are not aware of it), there is a huge online community and a large number of forums catering to every question you may have regarding any particular functionality of QGIS. So, you have a lot of help available but you will have to sift through it on the web.
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Alternatives Considered
Though Mapbox is cheaper than Google Maps API Google map is more accurate, has a good database, and has more maps in it. It has excellent language support and a better view than Mapbox. One can personalize Google Maps more than we can do in Mapbox. Lastly, Google Map API is more reliable than Mapbox.
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QGIS is open source and freely available for Windows and Mac iOS Geographic Information System Software. QGIS is highly customizable as per project requirements and different application usage. QGIS has ample tools and plugins that are useful for the analysis of raster and vector data. It also supports GRASS, GDAL, and SAGA tools.
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Return on Investment
  • Positive: Helped me maximize rate accuracy when quoting new lanes
  • Negative: Driver will use an alternate route due to my Maps route not being the best truck route
  • Positive: Traffic and incident updates on real time lanes to help the drivers plan their route.
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  • We can ingest data in any format, and convert it to industry-standard spatial files for hosting on our online GIS platform.
  • Many client projects require us to analyze and understand data before we can report on it.
  • Because QGIS is free, and the learning curve is negligible for bright GIS technicians, the ROI is practically infinite because the investment is basically zero.
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ScreenShots