Common CAQDAS

• AnSWR
  AnSWR is a freeware CAQDAS.
• ATLAS.ti
  ATLAS.ti helps you to annotate textual, visual and audio data. It facilitates the categorization process of these types of data and enables you to organize the evolving categories in a (causal) network. You can code data in ATLAS.ti and export them for further analyses to other programs, particularly SPSS, for which it has a syntax generating interface.
• Ethnograph
  Ethnograph, the grande dame of computer-assisted qualitative analysis has not been updated since 1998 and, thus, has become outdated. It supports hierarchical coding, text annotations, and advanced data search strategies.
•  HyperQual
  CAQDAS for the Apple Mac OS up to version 9.x.
•   HyperRESEARCH 
  HyperRESEARCH assists in the coding of textual and multimedia data. Initially developed on the Mac-OS platform and now native to OS X, its Windows™ interface reminds of Apple™. Unlike many other CAQDAS, HyperRESEARCH allows for the coding of sequences from audio and video files.
•  Kwalitan
  Kwalitan, designed to assist in the development of grounded theories, enables hierarchical coding and the navigation of data with Boolean searches.
• MAXqda
  MAXqda is the successor of winMAX, a software similar to NVivo and ATLAS.ti.
• N6
  N6 is the newest version of NUD*IST. It is designed to both code textual data and to efficiently search and navigate your research material.
• NVivo
  NVivo, a derivative, but not necessarily a replacement for NUD*IST, helps you to annotate and organize qualitative data. While it has less coding capabilities than its sister N6, its organizing functions are more elaborate, allowing you to link data in a variety of ways.
• Qualrus
  Qualrus is the most general program in this category. It allows for a number of coding strategies, has sophisticated search possibilities, and can handle a variety of data types, and code audio and video data effectively. Qualrus is the only CAQDAS, which features an algorhythm that suggests codes. Its facilities for data structuring are a little less developed than their counterparts in ATLAS.ti and NVivo.
• QDA Miner
  Recent (2004) new CAQDAS that allows for some word mapping and other statistical analysis; integrated into the Simstat Suite. (Review from the "LINGUIST" listserv)
•    TAMS
  Text Analysis Markup Sysyem for the Mac OS and Linux/UNIX.
•  Weft QDA
  New (October 2004) freeware CAQDAS. Initial tests of the preview release revealed frequent crashes on a Windows 2000 machine.
• See also our section on hybrid programs, which contain CAQDAS functions.

Quasi-CAQDAS

Programs that we have termed Quasi-CAQDAS are not written for social scientific analyses of textual data, but nevertheless emulate some CAQDAS functions, most notably data search and organization. Typically, these programs are considerably cheaper shareware or even freeware. In those CAQDAS tasks they do perform, they tend to be more versatile than genuine CAQDAS. Thus, even if you have access to CAQDAS, you might want to have a look at these applications.

• Info Rapid Cardfile
  Cardfile allows you to hierarchically organize most major types of files (doc, txt, rtf, html, pdf, jpg, bmp, mp3, ogg, wav, avi, mpg) and perform complex boolean searches over all textual data (including pdf).
•  Idea Notes
  Idea Notes is a freeware program that allows you to make organizable notes in a number of textual, audio and video formats.
• Advanced File Organizer
  Basic organizer, which allows for search, organization and annotation of all file formats. Straightforward interface.
• The Linguist's Shoebox

Similar programs of very limited use for any data analyses

• atlast File Notes
  Effective file management for texts and still images, but no effective search options and a rather cluttered interface with cryptic icons.
• Idea!
  Database organizer with limited search options.
• Find It Pro
  Dated file saerching program with very limited search options.

Defunct CAQDAS

•  Qualitative Media Analyzer