MAXQDA vs OpenAlex
MAXQDA
maxqda.comOpenAlex
openalex.orgSide by side
| Figure | MAXQDA | OpenAlex |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $41/mo | $1/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 9 | 9 |
| Spec score · Academic Research Databases | 8.9 (#1) | 8.9 (#2) |
| Founded | 1989 | OpenAlex's transparency page says Impactstory incorporated in North Carolina in 2012. |
| Integrations | Documented integrations include EndNote, Mendeley, Citavi, Zotero, SurveyMonkey, SPSS, Excel, YouTube and REFI-QDA exchange files. | Website exports support CSV, RIS for EndNote or Zotero, and TXT, while VOSviewer connects directly through the API. |
| Support | Free online support is provided for the current and preceding versions, with context-sensitive help linked from dialog windows. | Member includes community support, Member+ includes ticket-based help for critical API bugs, and Partner includes full ticket-based support for API and data issues. |
| What it does | MAXQDA is qualitative and mixed-methods research software for organizing, coding, analyzing, visualizing and reporting text, multimedia, survey and bibliographic data. | OpenAlex is an open index and knowledge graph covering scholarly works, authors, sources, institutions, topics and related entities. |
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
OpenAlex
- Pay as you go$1 a month
- Member$5,000 a year
- Member+$10,000 a year
- Partner$20,000 a year
- FreeFree
- Pay as you go$1, paid once
- Member$5,000 a year
- Member+$10,000 a year
- Partner$20,000 a year
In their own words
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.
OpenAlex
OpenAlex is a free and open catalog of scholarly research, with a REST API for querying connected records such as works, authors, sources, institutions, and topics. API users can search, filter, sort, group, page through results, select fields, and retrieve individual entities. The complete database snapshot can be downloaded from Amazon S3 without an AWS account, and the data is released under the CC0 public-domain license. An official command-line tool supports bulk downloads with parallel transfers, checkpoints, rate limiting, retries, and resume. Full-text access provides PDFs and machine-readable TEI XML; each file download costs $0.01. Website exports include CSV, RIS, and TXT, while VOSviewer connects through the API. OpenAlex also offers Unpaywall's legacy-format open-access API, including a browser extension and integrations with SFX, EBSCO Discovery Service, and 360 Link. Its coverage includes journal articles, conference papers, books, chapters, datasets, dissertations, and preprints. OpenAlex is operated by a US 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and its code is open source.