MAXQDA Alternative: Meet Delve Coding Software
Delve is a MAXQDA alternative that’s easy to use, affordable, and collaboration-friendly.
Delve: The Customer-Centric MAXQDA Alternative
MAXQDA is one of the better-known options for qualitative data analysis software. But today, researchers are looking for MAXQDA alternatives that are more user-friendly, cloud-based, and affordable. That’s why more and more researchers are switching to Delve.
While both coding programs offer robust features, they also have key differences. This article compares Delve and MAXQDA using direct feedback from real-life researchers.
Affordability
Pricing is often a deciding factor for most students, members of academia, and researchers.
MAXQDA’s standard subscription package is USD $232 per year. This restricts work to one researcher working from one dedicated device.
Adding a MAXQDA TeamCloud subscription brings the price to USD $432 per year. This allows up to 5 people to collaborate on research with limited storage space.
Delve is available for $18 per user per month for students and those working in education. Otherwise, it is $50 per user per month. The software is cloud-based, and there are no user limits on projects.
✅ What Customers Love About Delve
“The price is very competitive for the student version.” Read more.
“Delve is less expensive than other options and easier to use.” Read more.
“Very reasonably priced.” Read more.
❌ What Customers Say About MAXQDA
“Cost restrictive for students.” Read more.
“It is rather expensive and I would like to find some software that offers a very low-cost student edition. Our students are not going to be doing as much research as some doc students as they are leaders in public schools. Purchasing an expensive product doesn't make sense.” Read more.
“Because MAXQDA is quite costly, it is a barrier that detracts from more widespread use.” Read more.
Cloud-based Collaboration
Collaborative tools are a core feature of Delve and are included in the price. MAXQDA users express frustration at the limited collaborative functionality of MAXQDA. The added $200 per person per year for MAXQDA TeamCloud (5 users max, limited storage) also prices out many would-be users.
✅ What Customers Love About Delve
“Most importantly, Delve makes it easy and intuitive to share my results with my collaborators.” Read more.
“Loved how easy it is to collaborate with others.” Read more.
“It works easily when collaborating with others on a qualitative project. When coding I like the flexibility of this software to rename, regroup as you conduct your analysis.” Read more.
“Delve is very easy to learn and use individually or as a team. Using Delve has shortened our time to process text for coding and organizing for presentations. Used with time codes, it can also shorten video editing times. We've used several other products and found Delve to be a perfect complement to our workflow.” Read more.
“We were up and running with Delve within minutes. It was very intuitive to use, with very quick setup. We were able to easily collaborate and facilitate our thematic analysis process without a steep learning curve and at a very reasonable price.” Read more.
“Wonderful user interface and coding process, loved how easy it is to collaborate with others.” Read more.
“I love that it is web-based and easy to use. I needed software to assist me in coding my interview for my dissertation.” Read more.
❌ What Customers Say About MAXQDA
“A downside of using MaxQDA was that it had to be purchased for each individual laptop (as far as I am aware) and so we were limited to coding on just one device.” Read more.
“The teamwork options are not as seamless as they could be. You have to set up coding in a particular way or merges do not work properly. We find there are not as much functionality as we would like when comparing coding results between different coders.” Read more.
“It does not have a web version for collaborative work and the TeamCloud tool requires that all users have a license.” [Translated from Spanish] Read more.
“You cannot have multiple users working on the same project and automatically save. merging projects is not a very obvious function.” Read more.
“It cannot use collaboratively with another teammate in real-time. The file gets corrupted easily when shared with others.” Read more.
“Although it offers some services and features for teamwork, I think it should now also work entirely on a cloud environment.” Read more.
“Collaboration with the tool is precarious. It is not available for Linux, nor does it have a web version, only Desktop for Windows.” Read more.
Learning Curve, Tutorials, and Support
Despite the availability of various tutorials and resources, MAXQDA is a complex software that’s challenging to learn. Delve is easy to learn and easy to use. It is designed for researchers who want to analyze qualitative data without the added downtime of learning complex programs.
✅ What Customers Love About Delve
“Very simple and doesn't require any long training hours. Just go through 30 min long quick short videos and you are all set.” Read more.
“One of the things that I like most about this software is that the support team is incredibly responsive and helpful. They answer questions quickly and more than once I have asked about a feature that wasn't available just to have Delve modify the software to include that feature shortly after I asked.” Read more.
“The product is very easy to use, it has very good tutorials that explain in detail how to use the product. Also, the tutorials are short so you don't have to spend lots of time to understand how the tool works. This aspect was very important for me. Read more.
“For a first-time researcher like me, Delve made the process so simple and effective. It helped me save time that I might've wasted in trying to learn another software that wouldn't be as user-friendly.” Read more.
“Delve offers a training course and a follow-along training to help beginners who are coding for the first time.” Read more.
“Delve was very easy to use and it was quick to pick up. All of the functions I used were user-friendly and perfect for my research project.” Read more.
❌ What Customers Say About MAXQDA
“The actual coding process can be unintuitive and has a steep learning curve.” Read more.
“Licensing, different devices and shared projects can get complicated. Also, getting the most out of it does require a rather steep learning curve.” Read more.
“There is a required learning curve for MAX QDA. You will need to commit some time to learning the software to succeed.” Read more.
“I also wish tutorials and professional learning development would be more accessible. [...] It sometimes becomes overwhelming and difficult without guidance.” Read more.
Inuitive, User-friendly Interface
Delve customers gravitate towards helpful features and training resources such as their free online course and YouTube tutorials. MAXQDA users report struggling to navigate the software’s user interface, which often led to confusion during analysis.
✅ What Customer Love About Delve
“The simplicity and the ease in navigating their tool is commendable.” Read more.
“For a first-time researcher like me, Delve made the process so simple and effective. It helped me save time that I might've wasted in trying to learn another software that wouldn't be as user-friendly. I also love the customer support! The team at Delve is extremely accessible!” Read more.
“Delve was easy to use. I used it for my doctoral research and it helped me to organize my interview information into codes and categories.” Read more.
“Delve's beauty is in it's simplicity and ease of use, yet it is intelligent enough to get the thematic analysis done for you in a very fast space of time, at a much more detailed rate than us mere mortals. Highly recommended, company and the software.” Read more.
“Great feature set is very intuitive to learn and start using right away. Interface makes it very easy to construct codes, highlight and code text and view excerpts in different ways. Being able to code as little as a word or as much as a paragraph (or multiple paragraphs) results in more robust coding.” Read more.
❌ What Customers Say About MAXQDA
“The user interface of this software leaves a lot to desire.” Read more.
“I found it a bit confusing to use the software to organize the data once all of the data is coded. There are supposedly a ton of functions that allow you to organize the data, yet, even with doing the online, it still felt difficult to me.” Read more.
“While coding, there is an interface on the left that is very restrictive. […] I think the program is confusing, especially during analysis.” Read more.
Auto-Save: Less Anxiety, Less Lost Work
Like Google Docs, Delve automatically saves your work and notifies you each time. MAXQDA users report multiple anxiety-inducing episodes with the software’s save functionality.
✅ What Customers Love About Delve
“The product is very easy to both access and use. You don't need to download any software, it always saves your work.” Read more.
“Since I use the software to analyze my data directly through the website, I don't need worry about losing my progress when my computer breaks down. It happened several times during my dissertation, but the work on Delve was always perfectly saved.” Read more.
Delve was superb, a lifesaver. I was making my political science senior thesis and I was having a hard time in my analysis. As someone who is used to the quantitative research, I was having a hard time how I would analyse my data. I was hanging by a thread however, it was when I found out Delve that helped me finish my thesis fast without sacrificing time.” Read more.
❌ What Customers Say About MAXQDA
“The way it saves your work can be a bit confusing at first and can cause some anxiety about whether it saved properly or not.” Read more.
“We had to upload copies in a way that was confusing and sometimes the work we did was saved to the wrong place.” Read more.
“Lastly, I had a few scares with my research in MAXQDA because it appeared that some codes were not saved.” Read more.
Glitches, Time-Saving, and Efficiency
Delve receives accolades for its seamless coding process, while MAXQDA users have encountered frustrations with clunky and slow systems, raising concerns about efficiency.
✅ What Customers Love About Delve
“It is easy-to-use, with a clean interface that required no lag-time of reviewing instructions or familiarizing myself with the tool.” Read more.
“Using Delve saves me tremendous amounts of time, and brings my research insights more to life! It saves me loads of time when preparing a report and helps me digest qualitative themes more efficiently.” Read more.
"Fantastic qualitative analysis and organization tool that saves time!" Read more.
“It is a well thought out and efficient piece of software well worth using as a student or researcher.” Read more.
“Delve was incredibly easy to get on with and saved me an awful lot of time when I was new to data analysis.” Read more.
❌ What Customers Say About MAXQDA
“I came across glitches sometimes that can be frustrating. Although MAXQDA saves projects automatically, there have been instances of the software freezing or slowing down, even on small datasets.” Read more.
Head-to-Head: MAXQDA vs. Delve
Check out the full head-to-head over on Capterra.
Get To Know Delve
Designed by researchers, for researchers, Delve is your ultimate companion for coding and analyzing transcripts from interviews or focus groups, all in record time.
Simplify your research structure with Delve's powerful coding capabilities, granting you more control over the evolving coding structure that leads to deeper data insights.
Streamlined and intuitive, Delve outshines traditional CAQDAS software, making coding with spreadsheets and documents a thing of the past.
Best For
Delve is for qualitative researchers who conduct in-depth interviews, focus groups, contextual inquiry, generative research, ethnographic research, and foundational research.
Qualitative Analysis Made Easy – With Delve
Watch this two-minute demo to see how easy it is to streamline your qualitative analysis with Delve. When you’re ready to get started, check out Delve’s 14-day free trial.
Qualitative analysis doesn't have to be overwhelming
Take Delve's free online course to learn how to find themes and patterns in your qualitative data. Get started here.
