Comparison of GIS vector file formats
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of vector GIS file formats. Please see the individual products' articles for further information. This article is not all-inclusive or necessarily up-to-date. Unless otherwise specified in footnotes, comparisons are based on the stable versions without any add-ons, extensions or external programs.
- Geography Markup Language (GML) - XML based open standard (by OpenGIS) for GIS data exchange
- AutoCAD DXF - Contour elevation plots in AutoCAD DXF format
- Shapefile - ESRI's open, hybrid vector data format using SHP, SHX and DBF files
- Simple Features - Open Geospatial Consortium specification for vector data
- MapInfo TAB format - MapInfo's vector data format using TAB, DAT, ID and MAP files
- National Transfer Format (NTF) - National Transfer Format (mostly used by the UK Ordnance Survey)
- TIGER - Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing
- Cartesian coordinate system (XYZ) - Simple point cloud
- Vector Product Format - National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)'s format of vectored data for large geographic databases.
- GeoMedia - Intergraph's Microsoft Access based format for spatial vector storage.
- ISFC - Intergraph's MicroStation based CAD solution attaching vector elements to a relational Microsoft Access database
- Personal Geodatabase - ESRI's closed, integrated vector data storage strategy using Microsoft's Access MDB format
- File Geodatabase - ESRI's geodatabase format, stored as folders in a file system.
- Coverage - ESRI's closed, hybrid vector data storage strategy. Legacy ArcGIS Workstation / ArcInfo format with reduced support in ArcGIS Desktop lineup
- Spatial Data File - Autodesk's high-performance geodatabase format, native to MapGuide
- GeoJSON - a lightweight format based on JSON, used by many open source GIS packages