# What is CARTO used for?

What is CARTO used for?

##### Post Metadata
- Posted at: over 2 years ago
- Author title: Pinned by G2 as a common question



## Comments
### Comment 1

CARTO is a leading Location Intelligence platform designed for the modern data stack. It empowers organizations to harness spatial data and analysis for various purposes, including network deployment, fraud detection, market analysis, territory planning, and more. 

CARTO is widely utilized by Data Scientists, Developers, and Analysts to streamline business processes and make predictions through the application of Spatial Data Science. One distinctive feature of CARTO is its cloud-first approach, functioning seamlessly on top of popular cloud data warehouse platforms like Google BigQuery, Snowflake, Databricks, and AWS Redshift. This enables users to easily access highly scalable spatial analysis and visualization capabilities in the cloud, supporting applications in analytics, app development, data engineering, and beyond. CARTO is available in both cloud and self-hosted deployments, providing flexibility to different user preferences. 

CARTO enables direct connections to cloud data warehouses without the need for migration or ETL processes. The platform utilizes native SQL and offers an Analytics Toolbox that runs natively in the data warehouse, expanding its geospatial capabilities. 

CARTO excels in scalability and performance, allowing users to process large volumes of data with millions or billions of records using the computational power of cloud data warehouses. It supports spatial indexing techniques, such as H3, optimizing transformations, enrichment, and analysis for superior performance with substantial datasets. The platform's tiling strategies enable the creation of performant visualizations regardless of the data scale. The time-to-value aspect is enhanced through CARTO Builder, facilitating the quick creation and sharing of dashboards, and CARTO Workflows, a low-code approach for spatial analyses and data preparation. CARTO also stands out for its focus on making geospatial tools accessible to individuals with limited exposure to such technologies, differentiating it from traditional GIS tools. 

The CARTO platform consists of various components tailored to different user needs, including Workspace; Builder for map making and data visualizations; Workflows for visual model building; Platform APIs and libraries for developers; Analytics Toolbox with advanced spatial functions; and Data Observatory that catalogs and distributes vetted spatial datasets for enrichment and use in spatial applications and analyses. Overall, CARTO provides a comprehensive suite of tools to support diverse spatial data applications across industries.

##### Comment Metadata
- Posted at: over 2 years ago
- Author title: Demand Generation Manager




## Related Product
[CARTO](https://www.g2.com/products/carto/reviews)

## Related Category
[Location Intelligence](https://www.g2.com/categories/location-intelligence)

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