Mapbox is the location data platform for developers building custom geospatial features into mobile, web, and on-premise applications.
$0
Per 1000 users
Surfer
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Surfer is a data visualization suite from Golden Software in Colorado for oil and gas companies, or other entities in other industries requiring geological or environmental data.
N/A
Pricing
Mapbox
Surfer
Editions & Modules
Starting Price
$0.00
Per 1000 users
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Mapbox
Surfer
Free Trial
Yes
No
Free/Freemium Version
Yes
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
Designed for businesses of all sizes, Mapbox is free to start building with and offers free tiers for most products. As usage grows, volume pricing is applied automatically, no negotiation necessary.
Pricing is based either on pay-as-you-go usage or negotiated sales contracts that unlock additional discounts for annual commitments.
Paid support plans are also available.
Mapbox is great if you have a BI or Data Visualization problem while working with either large datasets or you want a high level of control on the design of your geospatial data. Also fantastic options for integrating maps onto your website or into your Android or iOS app. Basically, if you need a map in any shape, way, or form and you want a lot of detailed control over it, Mapbox is the way to go.
Surfer has been excellent for us, a small company, to process the electrical resistivity, refraction microtremor, and MASW data collected in the field. There are an increasing number of programs capable of assisting in this geophysical analysis but Surfer is the most advanced. The ability to create both 2D and 3D figures in the program while managing data is a huge help. It also greatly improved report quality and helped clients better understand what the results were for a study.
Excellent documentation and worked examples makes it easy for newbies to get started.
Works well across web or mobile platforms.
Clean looking default map styles make your designs look professional.
Since it is built on top of Leaflet.js, it is easily extensible. So any feature or function that is not available within the Mapbox.js API can be imported from other API's.
The user interface can be tricky at first. It's a little rough around the edges and takes a little time to get the hang of.
Not an ideal application for older employees. There are too many things with the interface that make it not worthwhile to train employees with less computer experience.
Manipulating data within Surfer is difficult because you have to do things in a certain order. Not terrible if you get the hang of it but certainly frustrating at first.
It is a good tool to use. We can perform various customisations; I always end up exploring and finding a new feature that can be used in my work somewhere. And one good thing is that is actually quite reasonable in terms of cost, with the free tier being quite adequate
Mapbox provides many more services, like the Navigation SDK, Vision SDK (currently in beta), and Styles Gallery that allows companies to create a much more design-friendly frontend for a very low cost. Mapbox has also put a lot more resources into their search-related APIs to make them just as quick and accurate as the Google Maps search products. There is also a lot more innovation happening at Mapbox, with new geo/map products released regularly. Innovation and growth at the Google Maps API seems to be happening much slower.
Surfer is very unique with respect to its capabilities. I am not aware of any other mapping software that is at the same time flexible, has a friendly interface, and creates such nice-looking maps.
I don't think this is a fair question for me to answer. Apart from our time we have not invested anything into Mapbox - so from that perspective the ROI is great! Great returns without any investment!
The worst thing about Surfer is the cost. My company can only afford one license at the moment which means only one employee gets to use it regularly. Not so great when someone is sick or you have a huge wave of projects.
The user interface is a little rough but younger employees have been great at catching on quickly and producing great images.
There's nothing else quite like Surfer. It's versatile and not to difficult to use so, though the licenses are expensive, it is an excellent program that has done wonders for our company!
