Open Source QDA

Selection of Open Source tools for Qualitative Data Analysis.

Motivation

Despite not being a regular user of Qualitative Data Analysis methods and tools, I have developped a keen interest in finding Open Source alternative to existing proprietary tools.

This repository, open to contributions, is an attempt at gathering information on the topic.

Tools

This list is an overview of what tools are currently available. "Latest release" is true at the time of writing (check when this README was last edited). "Currently active" means there has been commits to the repository in the last 6 months.

• Taguette by Remi Rampin, Vicky Rampin, Sarah DeMott and contributors. Latest release: version 1.5.2 (2025年12月09日).
• QualCoder by Colin Curtain and contributors. Latest release: version 3.8.2 (2026年02月26日).
• Based on the R ecosystem:
  • qcoder (source code), part of the ROpenSci packages. Currently active.
  • ShinyQDA (source code), currently active.
  • requal (source code), currently active.
• CATMA by Evelyn Gius, Mareike Schumacher, Dominik Gerstorfer, Malte Meister and former team members. Latest release: version 7.2.0 (2025年03月11日).
• BORIS (for "Behavioral Observation Research Interactive Software") is focused on coding of audio-visual recordings. Although the language used in the interface is focused on coding animal behaviours, it can be used for any audio-visual coding. Latest release: version 9.8.7 (2026年03月11日).

Defunct

This list keeps track of defunct project (abandonned, discontinued or disfunctional for whatever reason). Keeping track of them is also important as, being Open Source, the projects might be revived by keen developers.

• Weft QDA (Web Archive link), last updated on 2006年04月26日.
• CAT (Web Archive link), officially decommissioned on 2020年09月13日.
• RQDA (Web Archive link), abandoned by original developer, with last code commit on 2020年11月26日, and project status clarified on 2021年11月18日. Others (last updated on 2022年06月18日, Web Archive link) tried to keep it alive until the RGtk2 package it depends on was removed from CRAN.

Links

This section links to other useful resources on the topic of Open Source QDA:

• AlternativeTo.net can be used to look for Open Source alternatives to proprietary software. For example, see Open Source alternatives to NVivo
• CAQDAS webinar 016: Open Tools for Qualitative Analysis – great overview of the FLOSS CAQDAS landscape, by Vicky Rampin, focusing on Qualcoder, Taguette and qcoder. (2021年06月09日)