A question we get asked quite a bit is how does Global Mapper compare to ArcGIS? To help answer that question we put together this table (with generous help from one of our customers) to help you compare features of both programs and let you decide for your yourself which one clearly provides the better value. You’ll notice some asterisks in the columns and those are explained below the table.
| Global Mapper 14 | ArcGIS (ArcView) 10 | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $399.00 | $1500-$4000** |
| Import: Vector Feature |  Opens Anything |
More Limited |
| Export: Vector feature | |
Limited |
| Create Grid (Fishnet) | |
|
| Scripting | |
|
| Raster Catalogs | |
|
| Find Location By Address | |
|
| Generate hill shade | |
|
| Read Most raster | |
|
| Generate Buffers and Range Rings | |
|
| Spatial Bookmarks | |
|
| Advanced feature selection | |
|
| Export KMZ KML Google earth | |
|
| Image Rectifier | |
|
| Generate Watershed | |
 **(requires additional ext.) |
| Merge DEMs | |
**(requires additional ext.) |
| Generate Contours | |
**(requires additional ext.) |
| Generate View shed | |
**(requires additional ext.) |
| 3D path/Line of Sight Tool | |
**(requires additional ext.) |
| Add Z data to feature Class from Elev file | |
**(requires additional ext.) |
| View Data in 3D | |
**(requires additional ext.) |
| Points to Polyline Tool | |
 *** |
| Line to Polygon Tool | |
*** |
| Polygon or Polyline to point | |
*** |
| Automatically Crop USGS DRGs | |
|
| Garmin maps Support | |
|
| Water Level Display (Elev data) | |
|
| COGO tool | |
|
| Stike and Dip Marker Tool | |
|
| Split Polygon tool | |
|
| SDK | Seperate License |
|
| Multiple Map Windows | |
|
| Create Graphs/reports from Data | |
|
| Find Route | |
|
| Route Editing | |
|
| Table Joins (join Excel, CSV to feature table) | |
|
 |
**$1500 is an entry level ArcView license. The features denoted with a require you to purchase a separate $2500 extension
*** Only available with ArcEditor ($7000+)