Quirkos vs NVivo: Differences and Similarities
I’m often asked ‘How does Quirkos compare to Nvivo?’. Nvivo is by far the largest player in the qualitative software field, and is the product most researchers are familiar with. So when looking at the alternatives
I’m often asked ‘How does Quirkos compare to NVivo?’. NVivo is by far the largest player in the qualitative software field, and is the product most researchers are familiar with. So when looking at the alternatives like Quirkos (but also Dedoose, ATLAS.ti, MAXQDA, Transana and many others), people want to know what’s different, and when you should use each!
NVivo is best for large-scale projects with thousands of sources
In a nutshell, Quirkos has fewer features than NVivo, but wraps them up in an easier to use package. So Quirkos does not have support for integrated multimedia, Twitter analysis, quantitative analysis, or hypothesis mapping. For large projects with thousands of sources, those using multimedia data or requiring powerful statistical analysis, NVivo will be much more suitable.
Quirkos is best for simplicity and ease of use
Our focus with Quirkos has been on providing simple tools for exploring qualitative data that are flexible and easier to use. This means that people can get up and running quicker in Quirkos, and we hear that a lot of people who are turned off by the intimidating interface in NVivo find Quirkos easier to understand. Whichever tool you use, the basics of coding and analysing qualitative data are the same.
Quirkos and NVivo both allow you to code and retrieve text with a variety of different methodologies
In Quirkos, you can create and group themes (called 'Nodes' in NVivo), and drag text or click codes to attach sections of text to them. You can perform code and retrieve functions by double clicking on the theme to see text coded to that node. And you can also generate reports of your coded data, with lots of details about your project.
Both Quirkos and NVivo allow you to analyse many different textual data types
Like NVivo, we can also handle all the common text formats, such as PDFs, Word files, and the ability to copy and paste from any other source like plain text files and web pages. Quirkos and NVivo also both allow you to import survey data from spreadsheets.
You can transcribe audio and video in Quirkos and NVivo
In both Quirkos and NVivo, it's possible to automatically transcribe audio and video files into text, using machine learning 'AI'. However, we found that our transcription accuracy, pricing and data privacy practices fared considerably better to not just NVivo, but MAXQDA and Otter.ai as well:
Daniel Turner
Quirkos makes it simpler to compare demographic data and overlaps than NVivo
While Quirkos doesn’t have ‘matrix coding’ in the same way as NVivo, we do have overlap and side-by-side comparison views, where you can use any demographic or quantitative data about your sources to do powerful sub-set analysis. A lot of people find this more interactive, and we try and minimise the steps and clicks between you and your data.
NVivo can do some quantitative analysis built-in, but Quirkos gives you the exports you need to work in a more flexible dedicated quantitative tool
Unlike NVivo, which has some quantitative tools, Quirkos doesn’t really have any dedicated tools for quantitative analysis. However, our spreadsheet export allows you to bring data into Excel, SPSS or R where you have much more control over the statistical models you can run than NVivo or other mixed-methods tools allow. For more on why we took a qualitative-only approach with Quirkos, read our post on inter-rater reliability metrics:
Daniel Turner
NVivo offers automated coding with 'AI', but Quirkos is designed for true qualitative exploration
Like many other tools, NVivo has jumped on the generative AI bandwagon and offers an AI tool that can summarise text for you, suggest codes and even automatically code text.
We are actually pretty unique in the qualitative analysis software space, because we haven't added AI analysis to our software. This is because we don't believe generative AI is the best solution for doing qualitative analysis. It is a quantification of qualitative data, it's biased by the data it's trained on, and it often misreads or fails to understand the context of the data.
Daniel Turner
AI qualitative coding and analysis could be helpful if you have more data than you can realistically analyse by yourself, which can often be the case with huge market research or impact surveys. In this case, NVivo might be the better solution.
But in all other cases, we urge you to spend the time coding and thinking about your data yourself. Your own critical thinking and perspective is better than any automated tool out there!
For more on how our critical approach to AI and machine learning has informed the design of our automated transcription service, check out our post about issues with automated transcription.
You can transfer projects between Quirkos and NVivo using REFI-QDA
The .qdpx file type can be transferred between different qualitative software packages. It is possible to export your project as a .qdpx file from either Quirkos and NVivo and import it into the other one. Not all features will transfer across, but the project sources and codes will. This means that if you're not sure whether to use Quirkos or NVivo, you don't have to start from scratch, as you can try the same project in both.
Find out more about REFI-QDA projects here.
Features that are unique to Quirkos
Here are some features in Quirkos that NVivo doesn’t have at the moment.
Highlighted Word document export
The most popular of these is the Word export function. This creates a standard Word file of your complete transcripts, with your coding shown as color coded highlights. It’s just like using pen and highlighter, but you can print, edit and share them with anyone who can open a Word file.
Note that in Microsoft Word, you'll have to go to Review, Track Changes, and select ‘Show Full Markup’ in your settings to get comments with the full colour-coding of your codes. In LibreOffice Writer like below, colour coding is enabled by default:
Autosave
Quirkos has a constant save feature that is always on. This means that even in a crash you don’t lose any work, something I know people have had problems with in NVivo. In NVivo, you have to manually enable autosave, and doing this also disables your ability to undo/redo. There are no such restrictions in Quirkos!
True cross-compatibility
Another important differential for some people is that that Quirkos is the same on Windows, Mac and Linux. There's even support for iOS and Android devices, when using the Web App. Both the Web app and Quirkos 3 have the same interface, and almost all the same features (the exception being the ones that require an internet connection – live collaboration and transcription).
With NVivo, the Windows and Mac versions have different interfaces, features and file formats. This makes it very difficult to switch between the versions, or collaborate with people on a different platform. Their Collaboration Cloud platform is cross-platform and allows cloud-based projects to be shared across Windows and Mac, but this is an expensive add-on on top of your main licence or subscription. NVivo also still doesn't provide Linux support.
Both platforms have live collaboration, but Quirkos doesn't charge an extra fee for this
Quirkos Cloud has live, unlimited collaboration on projects, meaning that any number of people can work on a project at the same time, and see the work happen in real time. NVivo has live collaboration too, but currently charges an extra fee for this. NVivo project files aren't backwards compatible with earlier number versions, and the project sharing and access process is much less intuitive.
This isn't the case in Quirkos, where you can use either the Quirkos 2 desktop application or Quirkos Web (which has the same interface and features as Quirkos 3) to access cloud projects, depending on which you prefer. This is a huge reason many people have shifted from NVivo to Quirkos – teamwork is a lot easier, and you're not locked into buying new versions just to continue collaborating with someone who's upgraded.
Quirkos has backwards and forwards compatibility, with no forced upgrades
NVivo only provides continued support for the last 3 versions. If you're wanting to share projects or collaborate in the cloud, you'll have to ensure everyone is working on the same version.
In Quirkos, we maintain support for all versions of the software that have been released. It has always been designed to ensure people don't have to buy upgrades unless they would like to. Projects can be opened in earlier or later versions, so you can upgrade or downgrade as you would like. A Quirkos offline licence is permanent for that version number of Quirkos, which you can download again and again, and reactivate on new computers. You can even buy a Quirkos perpetual licence as a student, with a huge discount and no missing features.
It's easier to get support for Quirkos
We offer training sessions free of charge for groups of 5 or more, and all our online support materials are free to view on our website, without requiring you to log into your account or search through complicated menus. If you email us for help, you will get support seven days a week from a real human with qualitative expertise – no AI chatbots here!
And Quirkos has a unique visual interface!
And we didn’t mention the thing people love most about Quirkos – the clear visual interface! With your themes represented as colourful, dynamic bubbles, you are always hooked into your data, and have the flexibility to play, explore and drill down into the data.
But the best way to decide is for yourself, since your style of working and learning, and what you want to do with the software will always be different. Quirkos won’t always be the best fit for you, and for a lot of people sticking with NVivo will provide an easier path. And for new users, learning the basics of qualitative analysis in Quirkos will be a great first step, and make transitioning to a more complex package like NVivo easier in the future. Download our free trial (ours also lasts longer!) and let us know if you have any questions!