CATMA vs Transana

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.

Transana is qualitative analysis software for video, audio, image, text, PDF, and survey data on Windows and macOS. It provides automated transcription and manual transcription tools with keyboard shortcuts. Users can categorize and code material, then examine coded data through text and graphical reports, searches, and word clouds. Transana Professional handles up to four simultaneous video files and five transcripts, and supports imports including plain text, Word or RTF documents, online survey data, and still images. Professional can use ChatGPT or Claude with non-confidential data, or embedded Ollama models with confidential data. Speechmatics and Deepgram receive audio for automated transcription only after a user approves sharing each time; Faster Whisper processes audio locally. Basic and Professional store data on the user's computer and do not share user files or database information with Transana.com. Multiuser supports simultaneous work on shared data over an internet connection. The free demo has tight limits and is not intended for real analysis. The fully functional Professional trial costs $25, paid once and expires one month after purchase. Professional costs $395, paid once.