CATMA vs MAXQDA
CATMA
catma.deMAXQDA
maxqda.comSide by side
| Figure | CATMA | MAXQDA |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $41/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 2 | 9 |
| Spec score · Qualitative Data Analysis Software | 9.0 (#1) | 9.0 (#2) |
| Spec score · Text Analytics Software | 9.0 (#2) | 9.0 (#3) |
| Spec score · Text Analysis Software | 8.9 (#2) | 8.9 (#3) |
| Licence | CATMA is open source under the GNU General Public License version 3. | MAXQDA is proprietary commercial software rather than open-source software. |
| Purpose | CATMA supports computer-assisted text markup and analysis, including annotation, analysis, interpretation, and visualization. | MAXQDA is qualitative data analysis software for qualitative and mixed methods research, including literature reviews, content analysis, interviews, questionnaires, and focus groups. |
| Rating on Capterra | 3.0 out of 5 from 2 reviews | 4.8 out of 5 from 25 reviews |
| Rating on G2 | 4.5 out of 5 from 1 review | 4.5 out of 5 from 38 reviews |
| Support | The FAQ asks users who need help to contact the CATMA team, which says it will respond as soon as possible. | Free online support is provided for the current and preceding versions, with context-sensitive help linked from dialog windows. |
| System requirements | CATMA Standalone is tested with Docker assigned at least four CPUs and 6 GB RAM. | MAXQDA 26 on Windows requires Windows 11, at least 4 GB RAM and a two-core 1.6 GHz processor; macOS 11 through macOS 27 is listed with the same minimum RAM and processor. |
| What it does | CATMA is a browser application for text annotation, analysis, interpretation and visualization aimed especially at humanities research. | MAXQDA is qualitative and mixed-methods research software for organizing, coding, analyzing, visualizing and reporting text, multimedia, survey and bibliographic data. |
Plans
MAXQDA
- AI Assist FreeFree
- MAXQDA Tailwind Free TrialFree
- MAXQDA Tailwind Pro$41 a month
- AI Assist Premium (12 months)Priced on request
- AI Assist Premium (6 months)Priced on request
- MAXQDAPriced on request
- MAXQDA Analytics ProPriced on request
- MAXQDA Tailwind EnterprisePriced on request
- MAXQDA TeamCloudPrice not published
In their own words
CATMA
CATMA is a free tool for computer-assisted text markup and analysis, designed for qualitative text studies, especially literary studies. Users can upload corpora, share projects, create tagsets, and apply overlapping annotations. Work can be exploratory or taxonomy-based, qualitative or quantitative, and individual or collaborative. Its Analyze module provides interactive visualizations such as word clouds, distribution graphs, and Double Tree. The web application runs in common browsers on macOS, Windows, or Linux and needs a stable internet connection. CATMA Standalone can run on a local machine or private network, including settings without internet access. Projects can be exported as text, TEI-XML, or CSV; data is also accessible through Git, the GitMA Python package, or the JSON API. The hosted service stores data in Germany and makes automatic backups at least daily. CATMA says its server data is not encrypted at rest, though off-site backups are encrypted, and advises against uploading sensitive data. Standalone defaults to single-user use; some features need additional configuration or are unavailable.
MAXQDA
MAXQDA is desktop software for qualitative and mixed methods research, including literature reviews, content analysis, interviews, questionnaires, and focus groups. Its tools include qualitative and mixed methods analysis, quantitative text analysis with MAXDictio, and statistical analysis with Stats. Analytics Pro can import and connect Excel or SPSS data and includes descriptive statistics, crosstabs, ANOVA, independent-samples t-tests, cluster analysis, Pearson and Spearman correlations, and scale calculations. MAXQDA Transcription can automatically transcribe audio and video in over 50 languages without a MAXQDA license, though analyzing transcripts in MAXQDA requires a valid MAXQDA or Analytics Pro license. TeamCloud provides a protected cloud workspace with 25GB storage for one team lead and up to four team members per license. The desktop product runs on Windows and Mac with the same interface and functions on both. A 14-day free trial is available for either system. The page does not expose prices for MAXQDA licenses or Analytics Pro; AI Assist has Free and Premium options, with limited capacity.