There is no “best” QDA software, because your individual preferences, practices, and habits are the key to state-of-the-art results. However, there is no better software than MAXQDA – it maximizes your level of personal customization, so you can optimize your work.

Methods continue to develop, and so do we. From mixed methods to geo-referencing and visual tools, MAXQDA has continued to be on the forefront of methodological developments. This means our users always have the tools necessary to keep up with the changes.

MAXQDA is the mixed methods expert! It is possible to import and export quantitative data matrices to and from statistics software packages like SPSS. You can turn your codes into variables, use crosstabs, automatically or manually assign variables to your data, and export any part of your project to a spreadsheet.

Take a deeper look at the mixed methods possibilities in MAXQDA.

High Usability

Your analysis is our highest priority and we have spent the last 22 years developing a QDA software that allows you to conduct your research as easily and efficiently as possible.

MAXQDA is often praised for being intuitive with a low learning curve. You can get started in a matter of minutes! Take advantage of the clear layout structure and intuitive access to your data with four separate work spaces and many shortcuts and quick buttons.

Team-Friendly

MAXQDA is great for the lone researcher, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be a team player. From the very beginning, MAXQDA has offered unsurpassed teamwork functionality, keeping you and your team moving ahead as one unit. Work together at the same project or simply exchange documents, including their codes.

Help and Manuals

MAXQDA has a fully integrated help function that can tell you more about each feature as you are using it. If you want to learn how to work with MAXQDA, you don’t need to look far. We offer various types of media to help you get started:

• In-depth video tutorials
• A step-by-step online tutorial
• MAXQDA manuals
• Free introductory webinars
• Information and dates on workshops

Since its introduction in 1989, MAXQDA has been the No. 1 QDA software for countless users around the globe. Research institutions, companies and individuals on all five continents choose MAXQDA as their trusted software for qualitative text analysis.

Connect with other users in the moderated MAXQDA user forum or browse our literature section to find out what other MAXQDA users have published.

See what other users say about MAXQDA and find out who uses MAXQDA.

We are here for you and we take your questions, problems and requests for assistance seriously. We offer free updates, free e-mail support, and our user forum to answer your questions and solve your problems. If you need help getting started or need more informationen about a special feature of MAXQDA, check out our online tutorials or watch our in-depth video tutorials. We want you to be able to get started right away.

On top of that, you can read or download the free MAXQDA manuals or browse our books and literature section, which gives you an idea of how MAXQDA is being used by qualitative researchers all over the world.

Whatever your situation, you’ll find a suitable and affordable licensing option. Whether in a network environment, at home, at work, or on the go, you don’t ever have to be without MAXQDA. You can even install the software on a flash drive, making you completely independent of a permanent work station. Students can purchase the fully-functional software for an extremely reduced price.

Let us help you decide which license is right for you.

Qualitative data analysis has many faces: hermeneutic text studies, Grounded Theory and various mixed methods procedures. MAXQDA, with its wide range of tools, has much to offer for any of these approaches to ensure your research is a success.

MAXQDA is a true Unicode software. This not only means that data in all languages can be analyzed, but also that codes, variable names, and search strings can be entered in any Unicode-compatible language. The user interface itself is also available in many different languages – thanks to our large support community around the world who have translated MAXQDA into their respective language.

Visualize Your Data

MAXQDA offers many convenient state-of-the-art features like the tab view, which allows you to open more than one document at the same time. Toolbars for groups of features can be switched on and off independently and can be placed freely on your screen. The well-arranged display of coding stripes, memos etc. can also be placed on either side of your document. When working with your data in MAXQDA, you will be amazed at the possibilities of illustrating your codes and documents. All colors used in your analysis are user-defined and appear in MAXQDA’s visual tools, such as the Codeline or the Document Portraits.

Unique and Innovative Visual Tools

Take advantage of the possibility to illustrate your results in MAXQDA. The visual tools are innovative and unique features that provide you with new insights into your qualitative data.

Compare and contrast different documents in terms of their codes in the Code Matrix Browser, use the Codeline to get a visual impression of your focus group to see speakers and their themes in sequences, or use the Code Relation Browser to see a visual representation of the co-occurrences of codes. This complete set of visual features is fully integrated in our QDA software and you can produce stunning illustrations with just a few clicks. Learn more about the MAXQDA visual tools.

Organize Your Data

MAXQDA is unique in the way it manages your data. In most cases, one research project consists of only one file. MAXQDA allows you to work with many different types of data, such as audio and video files, images, texts and geo data. It is possible to import documents and images in various formats like RTF, DOC/DOCX, TXT, or PDF. Stop converting your data and start your analysis right away.

You can work with PDF files in their original format. They will look exactly like they do in a PDF reader like Adobe Acrobat. MAXQDA has a powerful and fast PDF engine, whether you’re working with a 2 or 2,000-page PDF document – searching and coding in MAXQDA only takes a fraction of a second. Viewing and navigating through long documents is easy with continuous or page view, the comfortable navigation toolbar, and PDF bookmarks.

Find out more about how easy it is to work with PDFs in MAXQDA.

No other QDA software makes it easier to create graphic models. Lay out your ideas and hypotheses in conceptual maps that are interactively linked to your data project. Model templates like the Case Model or Code Model automatically set up complex graphical representations with a single click.

MAXMaps is part of all MAXQDA licenses. Its primary task is to give a graphic representation of the different elements of a MAXQDA project. These “objects” can be inserted into the MAXMaps drawing pad and connections can be made in order to visualize a complex network graph. MAXMaps also allows the design of graphs or networks that are completely independent of MAXQDA’s data. All elements of MAXQDA (codes, memos, coded segments, and documents) may be imported into a map. Additionally MAXMaps permits the insertion of so-called “free elements” (text, images, and graphics).

The MAXDictio add-on is a content analysis tool inside MAXQDA which connects your qualitative data with the world of word-based content analysis. Use the hierarchical dictionaries to automatically and reliably code hundreds of texts in seconds.
MAXDictio is proof that we listen to our customers who repeatedly asked for a tool that would allow them to create an index of the words used in a text, as an additional explorative aid for the evaluation of their texts.

MAXQDA meets Google Earth™. There are plenty of reasons why many qualitative researchers will be happy to finally have a tool that allows them to analyze data with a whole new level of professionalism. MAXQDA allows researchers to smoothly connect geographical references (e.g. in Google Earth™) with their project data.

Explore the new possibilities geo-linking offers for your data analysis.