QGIS vs LocationIQ

Google Maps

ArcGIS

Google Earth Pro

Scribble Maps

Mapbox

Surfer

Compare QGIS and LocationIQ based on features, pricing, verified reviews, integrations & more on GetApp. Find out which software is best for your business in 2026.

ArcGIS by Esri is an integrated suite of geographic information system (GIS) software, providing a compliant platform for spatial analysis, data management, and mapping, with ArcGIS Online offering a web-based solution accessible anywhere, anytime for the creation & sharing of 3D map visualizations

Surfer is a 2D and 3D mapping and modelling tool, which helps display data while maintaining accuracy and precision. Users can communicate information related to geology, environmental, hydrology, construction and more.

Scribble Maps is a web mapping visualization software, which helps hobbyists, students, government, and the military, annotate maps, filter and analyze data, plot territories, optimize routes, and more.

QGIS is a Geographic Information System (GIS) application, licensed under the GNU and supports various vector, raster, and database formats and and projections without converting to an internal or common format.

Activity Dashboard

Color Codes/Icons

Data Capture and Transfer

Data Collection

Data Import/Export

Data Mapping

Data Visualization

Geocoding

Geographic Maps

Geolocation

Interoperability

Labeling

Map Creation

Reporting & Statistics

Reporting/Analytics

Spatial Analysis

Third-Party Integrations

QGIS

Android

Linux

Windows

iPad

iPhone

GIS Analyst

I love the efficiency of it and that you can download it anywhere in the world via the QGIS Project page. The QGIS Community are kind and ethical and are ready to help users.

CAD Technician/Construction Supervisor

Having the ability to integrate many different file types is a great feature that makes this software awesome.

Student

Easy to use, for free, the people that runs the software are awesome, you can choose to pay to help the development, the best.

Head Assistant - International Student and Scholar Services

One of my favorite aspects of QGis is clearly that it is an open software that has several benefits. It is very well updated and well taken care of.

Geographer

Greater efficiency and improved geographic information recordkeeping lead to cost savings.

The support community is also great making it easy to get solutions to any issues you may have.

Junior Product Owner

I like that this software is open source, yet has a lot of powerful features, most of which I have not gotten around to exploring.

QGIS is a must have for anyone doing spatial analysis or GIS related work. Its free and comes with a lot of capabilities similar to other products like ARC-GIS.

Environmental Engineer

A few months ago I started a course to become professional and 4 months ago I got a new job opportunity thanks to my knowledge and skill with the tool.

Especialista 

A positive experience is easy to use and the elements are available to the user.

GIS Analyst and Cartographer 

The GUI is great and adding data to your data frame is much more easier (click a button and then select which data type you want to add within a single window e.g. Raster,  Vector etc.).

Budget friendly option for Geospatial professionals plus easy to use tools for other professionals in the field of Environment or planning for their mapping work.

Easily connectable to other applications even including hardware GPS devices through plugins and has an easy integration with Excel Databases and supports most Excel Database formats.

Founder/ Managing Director

This is a full-featured, intuitive GIS software with many devoted users who develop add ons for some many situations. The software is updated regularly.

It is not a very intuitive tool and some of its features are hard to complete.

Founder - CEO

I did not find anything that is not easy to use, maybe I have not yet encountered such a problem.

It presents some translation errors in its other pre-defined languages, but it does not get in the way of using it.

Economist

It is not the easiest platform for geodata analysis in the market, however this is mostly due the high number of features that QGis has.

QGIS screenshot: QGIS project

Freelancers

Large Enterprises

Mid Size Business

Non Profit

Small Business

Mapbox is the location platform preferred by developers for adding geospatial features to mobile and web applications. Mapbox provides global map data, real-time traffic, address search, routing, and navigation directions. Performant and scalable, Mapbox is trusted by leaders across industries.

Google Maps is a web-based service that enables users to find local businesses, view maps, get driving directions, and more

Google Earth Pro is a free desktop tool for PC, Mac, and Linux devices. It provides advanced mapping features plus access to historical images. Users can import and export GIS data.

LocationIQ is a location data provider that offers a variety of geocoding, routing, and mapping APIs. The solution helps change location data to street addresses and vice versa.

3D Imaging

Census Data Integration

Internet Mapping

Map Sharing

LocationIQ

Web-based

Super easy to implement (10 minutes for devs to change APIs and push up to servers), increadibly affordable (we are saving 90% compared to Google maps), beautiful maps.

Website Development

Im very impressed with the performance and accuracy of this product and that they allow me to test on a free account. This really is the best service i have ever had.

It is very easy to setup and works very well. I am impressed at how Reliable LocationIQ has been for us at EnVsion.

Developer

Great service with easy integration as is a default nominatim service. Great service and low cost solution as backup for nominatim server.

Agency Partner

It’s extremely reliable, more so than we’ve used in the past. Great free and inexpensive options.

Owner

Forward geocoding is very quick, and generally the results are of great quality.

Easy to use and great instructions to integrate in our solution.

Apis were super easy to access integrate and understand , quick to get set up and make use of what we needed and reliable low latency service.

CEO & Founder

Easy to set up and integrate, fast, reliable, great support.

Software Engineer

LocationIQ is, in my opinion, the best free service for internal geocoding for most companies.

Senior System Administrator

The product is very easy to use and integrates perfectly with my private Traccar server for reverse geocoding. The data is accurate and I haven't encountered any downtimes.

Website operator

LocationIQ is the perfect solution to search locations for Open Streetmap. I use it in conjunction with the Wordpress plugin mapsmarker Pro.

Easy implementation, quick customer support and an affordable service.

Founder

If a location isn't found, it sometimes returns a generic match rather than indicating no results.

Senior Analyst

Also sometimes usage reports can be confusing - especially when minutely limit sees to be reached, and device is configured to send reports twice a minute.

Easy to use, low cost, very goood customer service.

Software developer

I found no fault with the product but could have done more to throttle my calls.

QA Engineer

Initially there was some confusion on their pricing model to purchase more devices but we were able to work it out with the company to get something that worked for us.

QGIS vs LocationIQ Comparison (2026)

QGIS

LocationIQ

Overview

Video & Screenshots

Pricing

User reviews

Key features

Integrations

Alternatives