MAXQDA alternative

A free, open-source alternative to MAXQDA.

MAXQDA is a powerful QDA tool, but it's proprietary and paid. Magnolia gives you powerful coding, graphical queries, and a full analysis suite for free — on macOS, Windows, and Linux.

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How Magnolia compares

Magnolia and MAXQDA, side by side.

Feature	MAXQDA	Magnolia
Price	Paid licence or subscription	Free forever
Source code	Proprietary	Open source under the EUPL
Platforms	Windows and macOS	macOS · Windows · Linux
Project format	Proprietary	Native open QDPX standard
AI features	Offers AI-assisted features	None — you are the researcher

A general comparison at the time of writing — MAXQDA's features and pricing change over time. MAXQDA is a trademark of its respective owner; Magnolia is not affiliated with or endorsed by it.

Switching to Magnolia

Bring your MAXQDA project with you.

Magnolia uses the open QDPX (REFI-QDA) standard natively. If your version of MAXQDA can export a QDPX file, you can open that project in Magnolia — and export your work back out the same way, so there's no lock-in.

01

Export from MAXQDA

Export your project as a QDPX file.

02

Open it in Magnolia

Your documents, codes, and coded segments come with it.

03

Carry on working

Code, query, and analyse as before — for free.

Worth knowing

What Magnolia doesn't do.

Magnolia has no AI features, by design: it doesn't code, summarise, or transcribe for you. You are the researcher.

There is no cloud either. Your project is a file that stays where you put it — on your computer or your own network drive.

What you get

Everything you need to interrogate your data.

Coding, queries, a full analysis suite, relationship maps, transcription, and survey analysis — all free, all running locally on your own computer.

See all features

01

Framework Matrix

Summarise each code in each document, with documents as rows and codes as columns.

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A Framework Matrix with documents and tag groups as rows, codes as columns, and a written summary in each cell.

02

Graphical query builder

Combine codes with logical and spatial operators on a canvas, and see results update live.

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The graphical query builder: two code nodes feed an Overlapping operator connected to a Result node, with matching passages listed in the query panel below.

03

Codes in Documents

See which documents contain which codes, as a table, a heat map, or a Sankey diagram.

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Codes in Documents as a numeric table: four codes as rows, with counts for Domestic and International students, subtotals, and totals.

04

Code Co-Occurrences

See which codes overlap with each other.

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A code co-occurrence table with the same five codes as rows and columns, and how often each pair overlaps.

05

Relationships

Map the relationships between codes, documents, quotes, memos, queries, and analyses.

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A relationship map under a Research Themes heading, linking codes, a quote, two memos, and a saved query.

06

Reports

Compile your findings into a PDF report built from live data.

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A report being assembled from a section heading, text, a quote, a memo, and a live analysis.