Many forestry companies rely on GIS software. Commercial GIS software solutions like ESRI ArcGIS are well known, but there are open source (OSS) options available as well. Smaller companies and startups may want to try open source before making a large investment in a commercial GIS solution. Established companies may be looking for a way to cut expenses by integrating open source software where it makes sense. In this post I’d like to share a little about my experience with open source GIS solutions, and provide some open source alternatives to well known commercial solutions.
Cost is a consideration between commercial and OSS. Cost will vary by organization, but its likely that the Total Cost of Ownership for commercial software, including initial purchase price, ongoing maintenance, and training, is in the tens of thousands for small companies and hundreds of thousands, or more, for larger organizations.
Reliability is a concern often talked about with open source software. I have used open source GIS software for over a decade now, and while I have seen the occasional “glitch” or “crash”, I have also experienced similar problems with commercial software. I don’t think OSS is any less reliable, though, and I can put up with a little bit more inconvenience for a low cost option. OSS tends to have shorter update cycles, so odds are that bugs and patches will be addressed much sooner than with a commercial solution.
Other concerns commonly mentioned are performance, and lack of robust features with OSS. Commercial software may have the upper hand on new GIS trends, but it seems that OSS usually catches up quickly. As for the GIS tools I use most often (standard analyst tools and a few advanced tools) I believe they are both similar. Many of the vector and raster analyst tools use the same software libraries under the hood anyway, such as GDAL. Some users may find commercial software more appealing due to a better GUI and more enterprise compatibility. In the areas of Machine Learning and AI, the commercial versions tend to be more robust, in my opinion.
Small companies and startups with few GIS users may consider OSS as a first choice. Large and established companies will likely already have a large investment in commercial solutions, but OSS can still be incorporated into the overall solution.
Open Source Software By Project Type
The open source GIS solutions mentioned below are maintained by various projects within the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (https://www.osgeo.org/).
The table below relates the commercial and open source software that are commonly used in GIS workflows, including desktop and web mapping applications. I have worked on projects using QGIS, PostGIS, and GeoServer. Some of these were on a local setup, others were hosted on the web. On the commercial side, I regularly use ArcGIS Pro, ESRI Geodatabase, and ArcGIS Online. I prefer the one that works best with a particular task, and I find myself switching between the two.
| Application | OS Software | Commercial Software |
| Desktop GIS | QGIS | ArcGIS Desktop/Pro |
| Maintain Spatial Data | PostGIS | ESRI Geodatabase |
| Serve Spatial Data | GeoServer | ArcGIS Server |
| Publish Spatial Data | GeoNode | ArcGIS Online |
| Mobile Data Collector | QField | ESRI Collector App |
Categories: Geospatial Technology Adoption Technology Investments
