Why an entrepreneur picks free QGIS over paid ArcGIS

QGIS vs ArcGIS: the entrepreneur taking on bureaucracy with free software

A business owner preparing an EIIP (Landscape Impact and Integration Study) for the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Catalan regional government, admits he has discovered QGIS, the open-source geographic information system, and has no intention of spending a single euro on expensive licences. His argument is devastating: why pay thousands of euros for software if the administration can reject the project anyway? The question blows the lid off how Spanish small business owners handle environmental paperwork with free tools while large consultancies bill for outrageously priced licences.

Some argue that ArcGIS Pro, the corporate standard, is superior and that going for the free option is what a poor company would do. The man in question replies with the logic of the self-employed: the cost is not justified for occasional use. With four basic functions of the program —elevations, level profiles and little else— you can get through a procedure that, from the outside, seems designed so that only those with the budget to pay for the bureaucracy bubble get approved.

The irony is that, while administrations demand increasingly technical reports, open technology has made the barrier to entry trivial. And as if that were not enough, even the chatbots of the day are replacing lawyers for drafting submissions, with the only catch being that someone still has to sign.

Conclusion: free software not only levels the playing field; it exposes the fact that the cost of processing is not in the tool. The striking figure: just four antiestéticatures are enough to move a mountain of paperwork.