Chris H. answered • 10/02/19
GIS analyst with experience in remote sensing and GIS analysis.
This is a subjective answer, and largely depends on user preference and cost. ESRI's ArcGIS for Desktop and Pro are the most popular commercial software, but licensing can be expensive. They have the benefit of a robust technical staff and produce the premier commercial GIS software. QGIS on the other hand is open source, free, and very flexible. Many GIS analysts use QGIS due to the low cost and number of flexible packages. There is a robust user base and online help as well. QGIS also includes SAGA, GRASS and GDAL open source packages, but I find the interface to be more user friendly in Arc, mainly since that is what I am most familiar with.
