I use both, below are my impressions, hope it helps, cheers. Dedoose Pros: it is simpler, much easier to collaborate with (cloud based) and is payable on a monthly use basis, Cons : since it is browser based, can get slow and crash, also although you can easily modify your coding tree to create sub codes, in context, it is difficult to split a code, once the excerpt is coded you can relabel it as something else but not easily break it into smaller coded excerpts. I feel this lack of in-text flexibility could potentialy impact your analysis as it makes it harder to evolve from your initial, first cycle coding tree. Nvivo Pros: you can sub code excerpts (lump and detail) including from within -soon to be- parent code excerpts, or on the other hand merge codes (split and gather) at will. the software is computer based, no lagging, very rare crashing. Cons: it is expensive (easily worth 20 months of Dedoose subscription), the learning curve is longuer, it is difficult to collaborate with, but not impossible (you either need to coordinate coders to regularily export and then you gather and consolidate NVP files, or have access to Nvivo servers/ Nvivo for teams which is very expensive-in the thousands USD per year). in brief, it depends: the shorter the analysis timeframe, the more collaborative= Dedoose; the longuer the analysis timeframe, the less collaborative (i.e. PhD thesis)=Nvivo

My prof made us use ChatGPT for small projects and AILYZE for large projects. ChatGPT’s good at suggesting key themes which you can use for coding. AILYZE is better for large projects. It was one of the tools recommended in our library’s assessment of AI research platforms ( https://guides.temple.edu/ai-research-tools/data ), and I’ve found it way more stable than NVivo. It does AI-generated themes, automatic coding, frequency/ cross segment analyses, etc. Might be worth checking out if NVivo is giving you headaches.

See/consider Atlas.ti

Hi Joanna, do you mean mixed methods or multiple modalities? If mixed methods, then you have some quantitative data, I'd assume, and NVivo would be a good choice because you can code your qualitative data quantitatively and export it, plus any descriptive data you have, to SPSS. If you mean multi-modal data (several different kinds of data gathered from different sources, but all of it the same basic kind of data, like all qualitative, or all quant), then I'd go with Atlas.ti because it's a bit more flexible and you can get it for the iPad. Which, hey, who doesn't like total portability? But honestly, I've used both, and regardless of which you choose, you'll be well-supported. I guess my final recommendation is this: go with the program your immediate peers use, because when you ultimately need help, grabbing a colleague down the hall is a heck of a lot faster than calling a support center or finding a super user. Good luck! If you ever want to discuss further, feel free to ping me! Nice to meet you.