MAXQDA vs SAS Visual Text Analytics

MAXQDA9.3Visit SAS Visual Text Analytics9.1Visit

Higher score MAXQDA #1 in Text Analysis Software 9.3/10 14-day trial Free trial✓ 2 of 3 features Visit MAXQDA

vs

SAS Visual Text Analytics #2 in Text Analysis Software 9.1/10 Pricing on request ✓ 3 of 3 features Visit SAS

• MAXQDA fits best

  Established qualitative and mixed-methods teams

• SAS Visual Text Analytics fits best

  Large organizations building text analytics workflows

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Side by side

Feature	MAXQDA 9.3/10 Visit ↗	SAS Visual Text Analytics 9.1/10 Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score	9.3	9.1
Ranking	#1 in Text Analysis Software	#2 in Text Analysis Software
Best for	Established qualitative and mixed-methods teams	Large organizations building text analytics workflows
Pricing model	Paid	Paid
Starting price	—	Pricing on request
Free plan	—	Not checked yet
Free trial	14 days	—
Built for	Solo, Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise	Mid-market, Enterprise
Features MAXQDA 2/3 · SAS Visual Text Analytics 3/3
Sentiment analysis	✓	✓
Topic modeling	✓	✓
Entity extraction	—	✓ (best)
Specs
Supported languages	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Text input sources	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Export formats	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Our review
Pros	Combines qualitative coding, quantitative text analysis, and statistical tools. Analyzes text, PDFs, surveys, audio, and video, with transcription support. AI features include document chat, coding, summaries, and topic analysis.	Combines parsing, sentiment, topics, classification and entity extraction Visual interfaces support creation and management of text models Integrates results with broader SAS analytics workflows
Cons	Desktop software is limited to Windows and macOS. No free plan; access is through paid plans with a 14-day trial. Its breadth may exceed the needs of teams focused only on basic text analysis.	Designed for SAS Viya environments rather than a standalone open-source stack Sales-led purchasing may require direct vendor engagement Enterprise-oriented scope may exceed the needs of small teams
Our verdict	MAXQDA is desktop software for qualitative, quantitative text, and mixed-methods analysis. It is aimed at researchers, universities, research institutions, and corporations that need to work across sources such as text, PDFs, survey… Read the review →	SAS Visual Text Analytics is text-analysis software within the SAS platform, built for organizations working with large collections of unstructured content. It applies linguistic processing and machine-learning techniques to customer… Read the review →

Strengths and trade-offs

• MAXQDA — where it wins

  • Combines qualitative coding, quantitative text analysis, and statistical tools.
  • Analyzes text, PDFs, surveys, audio, and video, with transcription support.
  • AI features include document chat, coding, summaries, and topic analysis.

  Where it doesn't

  • Desktop software is limited to Windows and macOS.
  • No free plan; access is through paid plans with a 14-day trial.
  • Its breadth may exceed the needs of teams focused only on basic text analysis.

• SAS Visual Text Analytics — where it wins

  • Combines parsing, sentiment, topics, classification and entity extraction
  • Visual interfaces support creation and management of text models
  • Integrates results with broader SAS analytics workflows

  Where it doesn't

  • Designed for SAS Viya environments rather than a standalone open-source stack
  • Sales-led purchasing may require direct vendor engagement
  • Enterprise-oriented scope may exceed the needs of small teams

• MAXQDA9.3/10 · 14-day trial

  Desktop analysis for teams combining qualitative research with text and statistical methods.

  Visit MAXQDAFull verdict →
• SAS Visual Text Analytics9.1/10 · Pricing on request

  An enterprise text-analysis suite for modeling, classification and SAS workflow integration.

  Visit SASFull verdict →