QGIS is a free, open-source, cross platform geographical information system

Posted by rcarmo 9/12/2025

QGIS is a free, open-source, cross platform geographical information system(github.com)

573 points | 127 commentspage 2

vincnetas 9/12/2025|

When I have to do anything with geo data i think this is a one of the first tools i reach for. Integrates with lots of formats, storages. Have lots of plugins and scripting functionality. And it's free like in speech.

Stratus3D 9/13/2025||

I recently participated in a hackathon, and our project was centered around PostGIS. We wanted to work with our queries in a more interactive way without having to fiddle with frontend stuff, so I did a very cursory search and found QGIS. It allowed us to iterate faster and instantly became an invaluable tool. The ability to run SQL queries and see and compare queries results visually saved us days of work.

otter-in-a-suit 9/12/2025||

I adore QGIS. I just built a map (and corresponding GeoPDF file for offline use) for two local wildlife management areas last weekend (and subsequently used them while on them).

kabes 9/12/2025||

Qgis is great on the desktop. On the browser side I find openlayers to be a well thought out gis framework.

A lot of things are evolving though in the gis world. You can now, even in the browser, render huge datasets with geoparquet, geoarrow, wasm and webgl.

NoboruWataya 9/12/2025||

It sounds weird but QGIS is one of those projects that I don't use but I love that it exists and wish I had reason to use it more. A bit like Blender.

ikidd 9/13/2025||

I use QGIS to make NDVI maps for my farm from the Sentinel satellite data. Combined with yield maps from harvest, I can come up with soil sampling sites and create a variable rate fertilizing plan. I then plug that into AgOpenGPS for the fertilizer spreader.

Stallman approved.

kwk1 9/13/2025||

As a FreeCAD project admin, it's always been interesting to keep an eye on QGIS development, not just with regards to the GIS domain, but more generally how niche applications like this can swim against the current of proprietary incumbent behemoths.

jtsaw 9/13/2025||

there's also some open source ways to share spatial data as a website from QGIS like LizMap [1], MapStore [2], and Mundi [3]

[1] https://www.lizmap.com/en/

[2] https://docs.mapstore.geosolutionsgroup.com/en/latest/

[3] https://mundi.ai/

atonse 9/12/2025||

One of the coolest things to do in QGIS is to add a layer from Postgres (PostGIS) directly and just plot an entire table as a layer, live.

It’s made for some really streamlined analysis.

UrineSqueegee 9/13/2025|

my guy, i have been using it for years and didnt know it could do that, you are a life saver

aduffy 9/12/2025|

QGIS is the shit. I absolutely love it, great for visualizing GeoJSON, GeoTIFF files, open data feeds, etc. My one gripe is that their macOS installers have been out of date for ages now, the best way I've found is to actually install from Conda Forge directly:

> brew install micromamba

> mamba install qgis

It's really crazy the number of open geospatial data feeds that exist out there from NASA, NOAA, and ESA. If you're interested in checking any of this stuff out, I highly encourage following Mark Litwinchik's blog, this guy is a legend and he does most of his work with open tools like QGIS and DuckDB

https://tech.marksblogg.com/

aanet 9/12/2025||

Thanks...

Do you absolutely need `mamba` / `conda`??

Can you use `uv` instead to install QGIS? Any experiences to share?

Thanks!!

vincnetas 9/12/2025||

brew install --cask qgis

perrygeo 9/12/2025||

Unfortunately the homebrew cask is still Intel-only so it requires Rosetta, whereas the conda/mamba version has an osx-arm64 build. There are other workarounds discussed here: https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/46299 and here https://geo.malagis.com/native-qgis-on-apple-silicon-solutio...

steve-atx-7600 9/13/2025||

Strongly recommend apple silicon Mac (if using a Mac) and the Mac ports path. I have an m4 MacBook Pro and the Rosetta powered binary was almost unusable. Mac ports wasn’t too hard for me to figure out though the install (mostly compiling) took several hours. I have had no issues with coexistence of Mac ports and homebrew. Don’t attempt this is you are using beta builds of tahoe - Mac ports isn’t released for Tahoe yet.

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