Top Dedoose Alternative Software for Qualitative Research
Dedoose was designed from the ground up—by researchers, for researchers—to meet the needs of today’s social scientists working in academia, marketing, and education—virtually anyone looking for innovative software to facilitate the search for answers to research questions via qualitative or qualitative and quantitative data. These data may be numbers, scale scores, demographics, stories, fieldnotes, vignettes, interview or focus group transcripts, photos, and the list goes on AND they may represent individuals, belief systems, settings, culture, relationships, and this list goes on too—clever research teams looking for rich, reliable, valid, and comprehensive answers to their research questions. While Dedoose is a powerful tool, many researchers seek a Dedoose alternative that better suits their specific workflows, budget, or preferred features.
Top Dedoose Alternatives
Whether you're looking for free, open-source options, or commercial software with a different feature set, there are several excellent alternatives to Dedoose that can streamline your qualitative and mixed-methods data analysis.
Qiqqa
Qiqqa is a free and open-source research and reference manager that serves as a robust Dedoose alternative. It allows you to search for, read, and annotate your PDFs, then review your work, write up, and create bibliographies instantly. Qiqqa is available on Free, Open Source, Windows, Web, Android, and Android Tablet platforms, offering features like PDF annotation, full-text search, citations, cloud sync, automatic tagging, a bibliography generator, and qualitative data analysis.
Taguette
Taguette, a spin on "tag it!", is an open-source qualitative research tool that makes for a great Dedoose alternative. It allows users to import PDFs, Word Docs, Text files, HTML, and more, making data management flexible. Taguette is available on Free, Open Source, Mac, Windows, Linux, Web, and Self-Hosted platforms, focusing primarily on qualitative data analysis.
RQDA
RQDA is an R package for Qualitative Data Analysis, providing a free (as in freedom) qualitative analysis software application under a BSD license. This makes it an excellent open-source Dedoose alternative for those familiar with R. It works seamlessly on Windows, Linux/FreeBSD, and Mac, offering features such as automatic tagging, content analysis, and offline coding for qualitative data analysis.
Annotations for Mac
Annotations for Mac, described as simplifying "Adding and managing notes to texts," is a commercial Dedoose alternative specifically for Mac users. While its features are focused on education and text annotation, it can be a useful tool for researchers whose primary need is to manage and annotate textual data on their Mac devices.
CATMA
CATMA is a practical and intuitive open-source Dedoose alternative available on the web. It's designed for literary scholars, students, and anyone interested in text analysis and literary research. By helping perform content analysis, qualitative data analysis, and text analytics, CATMA offers a robust platform for in-depth textual exploration.
MAXQDA
MAXQDA for Windows and Mac is a professional, commercial software that stands as a leading Dedoose alternative for qualitative and mixed-methods data analysis. Since 1989, it has supported thousands of researchers with powerful tools for qualitative data analysis, content analysis, offline coding, text analytics, and text statistics analysis.
ATLAS.ti
ATLAS.ti is a powerful commercial workbench for the qualitative analysis of large bodies of textual, graphical, audio, and video data. As a comprehensive Dedoose alternative, it offers a variety of sophisticated tools for qualitative data analysis and is available across Mac, Windows, Android, and iPad platforms, catering to diverse research needs.
Wired-Marker
Wired-Marker is a free personal highlighter that you use on Web pages, functioning as a kind of electronic, indelible marker. While not a full-fledged qualitative data analysis suite like Dedoose, it can serve as a useful, lightweight Dedoose alternative for initial web-based text annotation. It's available on Mac, Windows, Linux, Waterfox, Pale Moon, and Firefox, offering features like Firefox Extensions, highlighting, and basic qualitative data analysis.
Quirkos
Quirkos is a commercial software package designed to help people sort, manage, and understand large amounts of text. As a visual and interactive Dedoose alternative, it helps users tag or code relevant sections of text, collate, and offers features like interactive visualization, color coding, export to CSV, export to Word, memos, qualitative data analysis, and word clouds. It runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux.
NVivo
NVivo is a commercial software for qualitative data analysis suitable for various settings, from market research to content analysis and evaluation. As a powerful Dedoose alternative, NVivo offers comprehensive tools for content analysis and qualitative data analysis, primarily on Windows.
Exploring these Dedoose alternatives can help researchers find the perfect tool to fit their unique research questions, data types, and team collaboration needs. Consider your budget, desired platform, and specific analytical requirements to choose the best fit for your next qualitative or mixed-methods project.