FeltvsQQGIS
QGIS: If you need real geoprocessing and analysis and can handle sharing separately
Felt
Collaborative browser mapping with a free non-commercial tier and annual-only paid contracts
As of 1 September 2026, Felt is free to use. A web map editor built for people who are not GIS analysts, with real-time collaboration and an offline field app. Softwr lists it under Maps. Felt is available on Web, iOS, Android.
Overview
What Felt does
Felt is a browser-based mapping tool designed around collaboration. Several people edit the same map at once, drawing, commenting and uploading data, in the way a shared document works rather than in the way a GIS project works. It reads the usual formats, Shapefile, GeoJSON, GeoTIFF, CSV and KML, styles them without a symbology dialogue, and publishes an interactive map that colleagues open in a browser without software. There is a field app with offline support, so a survey team can collect and check data against the same map. The licensing shape is unusual enough to decide purchases. Personal is free forever for non-commercial mapping. Professional carries 10 full-access seats with unlimited viewers, 25 GB of data processing per month and 100,000 map views per month. Enterprise adds live connections to Postgres, Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks and S3, the REST API and JavaScript SDK, AI features, single sign-on, regional hosting and VPC deployment. Felt publishes none of the prices, deliberately, and sells annual contracts with no month-to-month option on the paid tiers. Verified United States nonprofits get 30 per cent off and students and classrooms are free. A consultancy that wants a mapping tool for a three month engagement cannot buy one here. Buyers are environmental consultancies, utilities field teams, nonprofits, planning departments and any group where the map audience is much larger than the map authors. The trade-off is analytical depth: Felt is for making and sharing maps, not for geoprocessing, topology or model building.
What people use it for
- An environmental consultancy that needs a client to view and comment on survey results without installing GIS software
- A utility field crew collecting asset condition offline and syncing to the same map the office is looking at
- A planning department sharing a proposal map with the public where the viewer count is unpredictable and viewer seats would be uncosted
- A team of analysts who each hold data in different formats and want one map assembled in an afternoon rather than a week
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Felt.
- Felt publishes no prices for Professional or Enterprise, so buyers cannot compare against ArcGIS Online or QGIS with hosting without entering a sales process
- Paid tiers are annual contract only with no monthly option, which excludes consultancies that need a tool for a single short engagement and forces them to the free non-commercial tier they are not licensed to use for client work
- The API, JavaScript SDK and live warehouse connections are enterprise-only, so a mid-sized team that wants programmatic access has to buy the top tier rather than pay for one capability
- Analytical depth is limited: there is no meaningful geoprocessing, topology checking or model building, so Felt sits beside a real GIS rather than replacing one
- The Professional tier caps data processing at 25 GB a month and map views at 100,000 a month, which are easy to exceed with raster imagery or a public-facing map, and the overage terms are not published either
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Felt
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- FeltvsEsri ArcGIS
Esri ArcGIS: If you need an enterprise GIS with authoritative data management rather than a collaborative map editor
- FeltvsCARTO
CARTO: If your maps are driven from a cloud data warehouse and analysis matters more than collaborative editing
Pricing
What Felt costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Personal
Free
- Free forever for non-commercial mapping
- Map creation, upload and sharing
- Not licensed for commercial use
- Students and verified classrooms free
Professional
On request
- 10 full-access seats with unlimited viewers
- 25 GB of data processing per month
- 100,000 map views per month
- Field app with offline support
- Annual contract only, no monthly billing
- 7 day free trial
Enterprise
On request
- Live cloud sources including Postgres, Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks and S3
- REST API and JavaScript SDK
- AI features
- SSO and SAML
- Regional hosting and VPC deployment
- Dedicated customer success
Capabilities
Features
Real-time collaboration
Multiple editors on one map at the same time with comments and cursors
Drag and drop data
Shapefile, GeoJSON, GeoTIFF, CSV and KML uploaded without preprocessing
Unlimited viewers
Viewer access is not seat-limited, so map audiences do not drive cost
Field app with offline support
Data collected and checked on a device without connectivity
Dashboards
Map-linked charts and summaries for non-technical audiences
Live cloud sources
Postgres, Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks and S3 connected on the enterprise tier
API and SDK
REST API and JavaScript SDK for embedding, on the enterprise tier only
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
What does Felt cost?
Felt does not publish prices for Professional or Enterprise. Personal is free but licensed for non-commercial use only.
Can I pay monthly?
No. Paid plans are annual contracts. There is a 7 day trial of Professional.
Do viewers cost anything?
No. Viewer access is unlimited on the paid plans, which is the main reason organisations with large map audiences choose it.
Is there a nonprofit discount?
Yes, 30 per cent for verified United States nonprofits, and free access for verified students and classrooms.
Keep looking
Where to go from Felt
- Felt alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Felt pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Felt badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Maps softwareThe full category
- Best Maps softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Maps software for
Compare Felt with
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- CARTO
- QGIS
- Atlas.co
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- GRASS GIS
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- Kepler.gl
- Trailforks
- AllTrails
- Bing Maps
- Cesium ion
- Citymapper
- ArcGIS Survey123
- ArcGIS Field Maps
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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Felt, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on Felt
Felt alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
Felt pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare Felt
Put it head to head with anything we hold
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