QGIS is great. It's a slightly janky version of ArcMap, but ArcMap has always been janky anyway, so it doesn't matter for most things. And QGIS is super extensible.
There have been so many random times that QGIS has helped me out over the years. Thanks to everyone who has contributed to it!
>It's quite possibly the smoothest and best running GIS software available today
lol, the bar is not high. It can be both the smoothest and extremely janky at times. Let's be honest with ourselves here. (and I do agree, it's among the best running... but also janky).
Do you work in GIS field and it is useful? I am trying to see how a GIS tool will help a typical audience here that may be a little interested in maps + data.
I taught myself QGIS for spatial analysis of map data-- coming at it from a coding perspective. It has great Python integration. It's also surprisingly useful as a spreadsheet alternative for certain tasks because it supports a SQL-like interface into CSV data, so you can join CSVs with spatial data or with each other, create views and virtual fields, and so on. Overall, very impressed with the depth, breadth, and ease of use considering how powerful it is.
Check out Atlas.co - kind of like airtable but for spatial data and spatial tools
QGIS is janky? It's quite possibly the smoothest and best running GIS software available today. Most built-in tools run way faster than AG Pro, and once the move to QT6 with 4.0 is complete this october, we'll finally get native builds on M-series Mac as well.
I couldn't even know where to start listing the upsides compared to ESRI offering, fron PostGIS integration all the way to the simplicity of plugins.