CARTO vs ESRI

CartoDB is a Software as a Service cloud computing platform that provides GIS and web mapping tools for display in a web browser. CartoDB users can use the company's free platform or deploy their own instance of the open source software. CartoDB is offered as freemium service, where accounts are free up to a certain size. For larger accounts, a fee is applied. CartoDB was built on open source software including PostGIS and PostgreSQL. The tool uses JavaScript extensively in the front end web application, back end Node.js based APIs, and for client libraries.

Esri is an international supplier of Geographic Information System software, web GIS and geodatabase management applications. The company is headquartered in Redlands, California. The company was founded as Environmental Systems Research Institute in 1969 as a land-use consulting firm. Esri products have 40.7% of the global market share. The company has 10 regional offices in the U.S. and a network of 80 international distributors, with about a million users in 200 countries. The firm has 3,000 employees in the U.S., and is still privately held by the founders. In 2006, revenues were about $660 million.