GIS software on the market

Introduction

This unit gives an overview of the most widely used GIS software packages in Swiss academia and private companies. The GIS software is categorised according to the GIS Report (Bill et al.) into Professional, Desktop, CAD and Internet GIS with an additional section of open source and freeware GIS. For every category, you will find a table giving an overview for each category, including product name, manufacturer, marketshare in D.A.CH. and the supported data type and operating systems. For the most common products, detailed technical information is available including a short description of the product, it is common field of use, the kind of data the program is designed to process, compatible databases and more. This information comes not only from product specifications found on the producer's website or info brochure, but also from GITTA network researchers’ experience with the listed products. This should make this information more reliable and independent. The idea is to help you to find the product, that is suited for your needs and also to show you what other products there are on the market. Browse the table or use CTRL+F to find a certain product and investigate which software product you can choose for a certain application. Investigate the different software categories and try to find out, what their differences are and why there are so many products fulfilling the different user needs.