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I have been using the following licensed products to publish my GIS data on web.

  1. web server: windows 2008 R2,
  2. GIS desktop: ArcGIS desktop,
  3. GIS web server: ArcGIS server,
  4. API: ArcGIS API for JS,
  5. Database: Oracle with ArcSDE,
  6. IDE: Eclipse.

But now I want to switch altogether to open source world mainly because of freedom. Fortunately there is plethora information about open source on web but unfortunately are confusing me a lot.

There are so many products like GeoServer, MapServer, OpenLayers, GeoTools, Vaadin, Geomajas, uDig, GRASS etc etc. I am not able to relate these products with the one I am already using.

Can someone please relate the equivalents?

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  • As it stands your Question is far too broad - even asking for the Open Source equivalent of one would be too broad. I recommend that you research each and then come back to ask a more focussed Question around a mandatory requirement that you have for one product tier. – PolyGeo♦ Apr 8 '14 at 4:11
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    Note that Eclipse is open source, its not an ESRI product. So that one is already OK! – BradHards Apr 8 '14 at 4:14
  • I do not know enough to make an answer, but the alternativeto.net search engine returns quite a few results for open source alternatives to ArcGIS (scroll down the page). – ignis Apr 8 '14 at 6:25
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Even though the question is too broad, it is answerable in a general sense.

In the Open Source world, there are many equivalent tools which can be used for a particular function. Which tool or application to use, would depend on you are your experience with it. I'm just giving the most popular tool or equivalent applications.

  1. web server: Any Web Server will do. Most People use Linux Servers with Apache
  2. GIS desktop: Qgis, uDigg and Grass
  3. GIS web server: GeoServer, MapServer etc
  4. API: OpenLayer, Leaflet
  5. Database: PostGresql with PostGIS extension
  6. IDE: Eclipse is already open source, but even a simple Text editor will do.

You should also know that you won't get one to one correspondence between the ESRI and Open Source Equivalents. For example. if you expect that you can publish a Map like you do with ArcGIS Desktop and ArcGIS Server, you will have a hard time. The Open SOurce Web Services are quite different from ArcGIS Server's Map Services

For more detailed information, you should read the following existing Question and Answers:

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