--- title: Surfer Reviews meta_title: 'Surfer Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 126 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how Surfer works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.6 review_count: 126 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-07-12' parent_category: name: Oil and Gas url: https://www.g2.com/categories/oil-and-gas --- # Surfer Reviews **Vendor:** Golden Software **Category:** [Geology and Seismic Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/geology-and-seismic) **Average Rating:** 4.6/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 126 ## About Surfer Surfer® is a full-function 2D and 3D mapping, modeling, and analysis software package for scientists and engineers. Surfer's sophisticated interpolation engine quickly transforms XYZ and XYZC data into publication-quality maps. Virtually every aspect of the map is customizable. Enhance maps with profiles, legends, titles and labels, faults and breaklines, or external maps from any web mapping service. Surfer is used extensively by geologists, geophysicists, hydrologists, archaeologists, oceanographers, biologists, consultants, engineers, and many others across the globe. ## Surfer Reviews ### 1. Surfer as a 3D modeling tool **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Devendran A. | Manager - SI & Geophysics, Civil Engineering, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** Easily create maps. Simple interface with ACAD. Have been using Surfer to present geophysical sectional drawings, such as 2D resistivity, seismic sections, gravity maps, etc. Easy digitizing. Create 3D bedrock maps combing borehole and geophysical information. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** Unable to model closed surfaces like sphere. **Recommendations to others considering Surfer:** Get one ASAP **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Actively used surfer for tunneling project. Easily produce kmz files from acad drawings. Transformation to different coordinate system. Many more. ### 2. I'd be lost without it **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Tim C. | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** Easy to use and great looking outputs. Powerful gridding and calculus tools. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** Lack of DWG import. Difficult to manage layers in dxf files. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Quick and relatively easy modelling of slopes, groundwater, contamination, cut/fill models. Can be used by anyone, not just those trained in CAD. Means the engineers/scientists can do the modelling themselves and interact with the data first hand. ### 3. The David to Arc Info's Goliath **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mark H. | Owner, Environmental Services, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 02, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** The general ease of use. It use to be friendlier back 20 years ago but as software goes its a pretty easy learning curve. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** The map cursor. Who is the dolt that thinks this map cursor is a good idea. For God's sake either make it bright pink or better yet the chromatic opposite of whatever color is beneath it. It would also be nice if there were a cutout tool so you can extract a part of map A and over lay it on map B. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Everything from mapping to graphic design ### 4. Surfer use in environmental industry **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Lukas F. | Senior Hydrogeologist in Ridgeline Environment, Environmental Services, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** Ability to produce high quality contamination and flow maps, digitize old data. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** Recent change in licencing policies. Additional payment for downloadable User Guide. **Recommendations to others considering Surfer:** Easy to use software, in comparison with similar products relatively inexpensive. Continuous updates. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Production of high quality maps. ### 5. Surfer is a grate fairly easy to use modelling tool. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Georg K. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 26, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** I am using surfer for over 20 years by now. The principal workflow has not changed very much over this period also the program has constantly been improved by fine tuning it an introducing new features. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** I am not a big fan of the new bigger menue band. The wizards to create a new map from the scratch are kind of anoing. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** We generaly use surfer to survey the morphology and the submersed vegetation of lakes and rivers. I also use surfer for terrain analysis and sometimes to visualize GIS results. ### 6. Use in marine geophysics and rock magnetism by lightning **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Research | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 06, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** The possibility to select many parameters for every plot element so that the created Figure is really ready for printing; the possibility to add data of any kind as .bna files **What do you dislike about Surfer?** The use of settings in the Preferences file has been much easier in earlier versions of Surfer. It is impossible to import .srf files in Corel Draw. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Plot of magnetic and gravimetric anomalies and bathymetric data ### 7. Surfing through contours **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Brian L. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** The ease of using the software even when updates come out. I use it mostly on a project requiring quarterly updates so having the ability to set the contour levels automatically is a plus. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** There is not much that I can say that I dislike. Maybe the ability to add more contour levels in places where there is a contour yet not an elevations associated with it. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Groundwater flow. I have been able to show the regulators that we are maintaining capture according to our performance criteria. ### 8. Awesome comprehensive software **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Research | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** I started using this software with no prior experience. using Surfer was simple to use and they have a great comprehensive, easy to understand tutorial and help guide that helped me to create some awesome models without frustration! **What do you dislike about Surfer?** I have no dislikes about the product, I think the Golden Software is very good at what it does. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use the Surfer software to create plume maps to track sediment and contamient transport for my research. I really enjoy using the software becasue it allows me to take the raw data and turn it into a striking visuals. These visuals consequently allows me to present my findings to the scientic and general population in a way that make sense and has an impact. ### 9. Very intuitive program **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mark G. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** Aside from the great functionality, Surfer is very intuitive and it is rare that I need to even look at the help. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** Would like Surfer to be able to export 8-bit color jpegs, not just 24-bit. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Display of dispersion modeling results and maps/diagrams for environmental reports. ### 10. Simple and Consise **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** John M. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** Very flexible. I can map, do map math, and even build cross sections and other projects simply by importing images onto the large page sizes. I love it for multipurpose work. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** No crop of imported images. I would like to have the option to import large images and then crop and splice. Even if just cropping, I can splice myself then group to maintain one item. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Consulting Petroleum Engineering issues. Mapping and building log cross sections. I like that flexibility in one package. ### 11. some simple help tip **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Environmental Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 23, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** possibilty to represent different kind of 3d data as morfology river discharge electric filed **What do you dislike about Surfer?** difficult to recover information on previous jobs. Should be added information from which data file grid as been created and used gridding method. Useful to compare data of different grid **Recommendations to others considering Surfer:** Good result easy to obtain despite not very fond of geostatistics and maths **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Evaluation of reservoir sedimentation Assessment of the reduction of water amount ### 12. Great for contouring and figures **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Research | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** This is program can do analysis and also be used for creating figures. I am a hydrogeologist and its contouring capabilities are standard in the field. In addition, I use Surfer to scale images for figures and add overlays. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** I don't have much that I dislike about the program. Certain things take a lot of steps. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use Surfer for hydrogeology research and making academic paper figures. It is a great program for visualizing data in new ways. ### 13. Surfer feedback **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Medical Devices | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** The ease of creating multilayer graphics **What do you dislike about Surfer?** lack of ability to record macros in real time **Recommendations to others considering Surfer:** Very versatile tools that can be extended to other applications other than geology, mining, mapping or any field of the like. East to learn/use. Mostly using it for generating contour plots, 3D maps for presentations. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Mostly used for quickly generating graphics that are self explainatory. ### 14. Very easy to use tool to plot and examine mappable data **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** christian s. | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 16, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** Ease of use for many features; clear layout of plot properties; ease of data upload/editing **What do you dislike about Surfer?** resizing maps (limits) often messes up labels; contour intervals do not always show up **Recommendations to others considering Surfer:** Very easy to use; variety of dataformats supported; quality results in a short time even without prior software knowledge **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** determining trends in otherwise jumbled datasets; highlighting and comparing data from other applications ### 15. I love this programme **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Environmental Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** Versatility, it is a fantastic programme for interpreting and displaying all sorts of data, and generates great visuals for reporting to stake holders. Love the 3D wire mesh for terrain modelling! **What do you dislike about Surfer?** It requires administrator user permissions to run upgrades (pain in the proverbal when dealing with corporate IT) **Recommendations to others considering Surfer:** Export/Import DWG , not just DXF **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Sorry, I don't actually undertstand what you're asking. Please see answer to first question ### 16. Been using Surfer since 1990 **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Oil & Energy | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 28, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** I can give raw data to Surfer and it gives me straight answers, no guessing and no mind games on what it should have been showing. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** Sometimes the contouring does not do well with large differences in the data. If nearby wells have 20 feet of break and a dud well has only 3 feet it does not put in all the contour rings necessary to show the hole. **Recommendations to others considering Surfer:** John Layman 832 483 5354 so call him! **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** The data truthfully displayed shows no geo-poetry just raw data and no fiddling with the data to get it different than what is actually there. ### 17. very useful tool for the examination of surface and relief conditions **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Environmental Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 28, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** gridding power, watershed tool including flowlines/streams, depiction of detailed contour models with possibility of individual colloring of certain contours **What do you dislike about Surfer?** the catchments/basins in the watershed tool cannot be separately chosen and manipulated, the size of basins cannot be separately measured, the speed of processing high resolution maps is low although I have a modern PC with a powerful Pentium processor, I have the impression that the processing power of the graphics card is not substantially used by surfer. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** working out catchments and water supply of mires, depiction of ditches and peat cutting edges, finding of barriers blocking water flow, planning bog restoration measures ### 18. Effective data visualization, gridding, contouring, and mapping tool **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Gordon B. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 27, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** Kriging gridding algorithm. Versatility. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** Updated versions of the software sometimes re-arrange menus in a counterintuitive way. Sometimes when exporting files in alternate formats (i.e. .DXF), the formats aren't fully compatible with the receiving software. **Recommendations to others considering Surfer:** The license is expensive. While it's a useful tool, I wouldn't recommend it unless you know that you'll have enough work to justify the high price. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Engineering and environmental consulting. ### 19. One of my essential tools **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Tim C. | Contaminated Site Auditor / Principal Hydrogeologist, Civil Engineering, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 25, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** I have used Surfer for many years. I have found it to be highly flexible and reliable, and the customer service has been great. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** I have nothing I dislike about the product. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use Surfer for environmental consulting and hydrogeology. I use it for interpolating groundwater contours and plotting sample locations. ### 20. GENIAL AND FRIENDLY SOFTWARE **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Mining & Metals | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** The best thing is the simplicity with which the commands can be used, as well as the generation of different files to achieve optimal results. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** AT THIS TIME, ALL IS OK. IS A TERRIFIC SOFTWARE **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** GENERATION OF SKETCHES AND PLANS, AS WELL AS DATABASE AND GENERATION OF TWO-DIMENSIONAL PROFILES. ### 21. Surfer15 **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Environmental Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** Ease of use, scripter is a good environment for at programmer of my level. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** Still use Arc or QGIS for most figure production, but Surfer do some things better. Would like it it interpolation could occur from multiple input datasets, and from SHP. Would like GridMath to be able to calculate statistics (mean, min, max etc) from multiple rasters. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Geological layering, presentation of groundwater contours. ### 22. Powerful and Easy **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Environmental Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** Intuitive nature of software's architecture and the resulting ease of use **What do you dislike about Surfer?** Dislike that in order to upgrade I can only get a digital download not a hardcopy Disk. Full blown users manual should be included not a $25 add-on **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Isopleth, post maps and other data presentations from surfer of meteorological conditions and pollutant concentrations are very easy for my primary audience, the public, to understand. ### 23. More Versatile and Easy-to-Use **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mundzir B. | Senior Groundwater Hydrologist, Environmental Services, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** 1. Small software but powerful. 2. Can be used for data processing. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** Visualization is very simple in Surfer. **Recommendations to others considering Surfer:** I do recommend that others use Surfer **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Engineering problems ### 24. Apply Surfer to build 3D groundwater model based on geological logs **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Environmental Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** The interpolation from 2d scatter data into surface grid file is great. The BLN files are easy to use for defining zones. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** If there is a way to generate animation to show the changes in properties over time, it will be great. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I build regional groundwater model. My organization uses Surfer to generate surfaces for different geological units as foundation for 3D groundwater model. ### 25. Fantastic geologic software **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Environmental Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** Great for contouring. Still no other alternative for creating detailed cross-sections. More and more GIS like compatibility. Now includes point cloud/LIDAR capabilities. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** File size. Wish there was capabilities that referenced data rather than incorporating all shapefiles, data, etc into the file. Been known to end up with 1/2GB file size for one map. **Recommendations to others considering Surfer:** Buy it! **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Updates to environmental conceptual site models. ### 26. Best gridding software (also for converting from different grid type) **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Environmental Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 23, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** The simple way to grid data and produce countoring maps to be loaded in GIS / Flow model application. You use the standard gridding algorithm without any knowledge or, better, you have the opportunity to learn about the gridding algorithm that best suits your data and needs. Surfer can import/export different gri format and different file type. It's the perfect companion to GIS (QGis) and Rockworks and AutoCAD applications. Very useful the Contouring convert to 3D Shapefile. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** Pour documentation for develop script in BAS. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Environmental issues: grounwater contouring data, DEM/DTM elevation contouring map and cross sections, contaminant maps. ### 27. Dr. William E. Full **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Oil & Energy | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** The price and the overall functionality is good. The ability to integrate a lot of different types of data is also a great bonus. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** The geostatistical functionality needs to be totally redone using comments from those that use these features. The ability to add folders to the layer menu is long overdue. **Recommendations to others considering Surfer:** Go for it! **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** The types of problems I am working with involve the oil and gas industry. These include working with geophysical data such a magnetic, gravity, resistivity, soil gases and similar type data. The benefits realized are the ability to identify new and overlooked prospects. ### 28. great intuitive software **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Environmental Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** I have an older version of Surfer that I haven't used for at least 5 years. I recently had an application where I need to use it and was amazed by how easy it was to pick up where I left off and use the software effectively. It really is a testament to the original design of this software that it is so intuitive and well engineered. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** Sometimes need to reset the scale when a new layer is added, which can be time consuming when adding multiple layers. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Display of topographic maps and isopleths. ### 29. Poor man's GIS with a lot more besides **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Environmental Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** Overall versatility and multi-functionality. I can work with a variety of different consultants and collaborating geo-scientists, all working on a variety of systems. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** There is a clunkiness to the Property Manager system. It has improved in recent years, but it still does not feel native Windows in operation. **Recommendations to others considering Surfer:** Spend some time exploring different approaches to utilising data within Surfer. Attend the free webinars online. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** To be able to quickly assemble the maps, grids, posts and other base-maps for a given area. The time overhead is the lowest of available systems I have worked with. ### 30. Surfer contouring and mapping tool is phenomenal for making maps and statistical plots such as CFADs. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Allen W. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 23, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** Can quickly contour large datasets. Can easily produce publication-quality graphics. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** Surfer 15 menu bar is not as easy to use as previous versions. **Recommendations to others considering Surfer:** Try it. Play around with it and see if it provides everything you need. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Not in business. ### 31. Best tools to data gridding and contour map creating **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Grzegorz N. | geolog, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** Easy using and flexible options. I use this software sińce 1995 **What do you dislike about Surfer?** I dislike new ribbon menu and new properites window **Recommendations to others considering Surfer:** Best tool to making surface msps **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Gridding Waters table, compute soil volume, preparing data for groundwater modeling ### 32. I use Surfer all the time. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Environmental Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** It has many methods to grid data and many to low and high pass filter. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** The one thing I want to see added to the functionality is a polynomial transformation where you tell it local grid coordinates (like 4 corners) and it transforms them to global coordinates like UTM. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** It is efficient. ### 33. I used Surfer for geophysical data vizualization many years and I teach students to work with him **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Mining & Metals | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 28, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** 1. Correct gridding. 2. Very good visualization (especially 3D). 3. Good surface analysis procedures. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** In some cases, it is inconvenient to configure the card, there is no export in GeoTiff. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Visualization of geophysical fields and their spatial analysis, as well as separation over spatial frequencies. **Official Response from Kari Dickenson:** > Thank you for your review! I wanted to let you know that you can export in GeoTIFF format. Click File | Export, choose to export to a TIF file and click Save. In the Export Options dialog, there is a Spatial References tab that allows you to select how to save the spatial reference information (internal file format = GeoTIFF). If you have any questions about this, feel free to contact surfersupport@goldensoftware.com. I hope that helps! ### 34. The best contouring package money can buy **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Hugo J. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** Naturally Surfer's contouring abilities are at the core of the package functionality **What do you dislike about Surfer?** There is absolutely nothing that I dislike about Surfer **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am working in the field of hydrogeological modelling and solve all my contouring problems of groundwater level contours and contaminant mass transport contouring with Surfer ### 35. GIS and 3D DTM **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Thierry H. | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 27, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** Brilliant software, constant progression, hot line always available and very efficient **What do you dislike about Surfer?** I dislike nothing, complex solutions are necessary for complex problems **Recommendations to others considering Surfer:** High performance software, continuous improvement, high level of technical expertise, immediate help disponibility **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Research in urban history, GIS, 3D DTM, power and flexibility ### 36. Surfer insight **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Environmental Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 23, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** the number of mapping algorithm and the clarity of the figures produced **What do you dislike about Surfer?** I would like that surfer will implement the kriging algorithm by addin more kriging types (i.e., kriging with external drift, cokriging, regression kriging, disjunctive kriging) and to add the possibility to modelling more variograms. Implement the cross- section potential (i.e, geological cross- sections) I do not like the recent policy of the golden software regarding the annual fees for Surfer, I prefer the old purchase method **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use Surfer for Research ### 37. Surfer makes my job easier **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Environmental Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** I like the ability to drill down into the model and examine various scenarios **What do you dislike about Surfer?** I really don't have any dislikes, works as advertised and the documentation helps a lot too **Recommendations to others considering Surfer:** Download the trial version and see what you think. The license seems expensive but it really does pay for itself in the long run. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** We are able to design soil and groundwater remediation systems more efficiently by being able to examine and validate our various conceptual models of the project sites ### 38. Easy to use by anyone. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Reinaldo C. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 23, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** The possibility of display grids and modify its horizontal resolution. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** It is not a dislike, but the grid interpolation algorithm could be better. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Displaying topographic and bathymetric schemes. ### 39. Large amount of mapping done in surfer **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** blake h. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** ease of use and speed when using scrpits. Great support **What do you dislike about Surfer?** some simple functions like not being able to turn off multiple layers in a map, slow export process **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** mapping for presentations and analysis. Great looking maps when finished and very meaningful results ### 40. Surfer does everything that I need. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Bennie S. | Consulting Geologist, Oil & Energy, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 28, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** Map making ability. I also like the ability to use data from worksheets to make maps. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** Sometimes Surfer seems to get hung up and takes a while to respond. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** The ability to make digital terrain maps. ### 41. Great an very helpful **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Environmental Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 23, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** If you have to manage datasets and want a Multi-Tool to visualize them **What do you dislike about Surfer?** There is nothing I miss. Really. Now the 40 signs are reached. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Environmental investigations of soil, water and air. Visualize complex datasets to the customer. ### 42. Great tool for processing data **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Government Administration | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 23, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** The easy way to play with data during processing step. Surfer is a great tool for 2D and 3d mapping, modeling and analysis. It is very useful for bathymetric data, when you easily upload ASCII - x,y,z files. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** Dislike? Nothing. The Surfer is excellent software with reasonable price. **Recommendations to others considering Surfer:** Very reasonable price for the software. Highly recommend this product. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I usually use Surfer for magnetometer and bathy data, to create shapes , maps and models. ### 43. To show in a simple way world's complexity **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Alain P. | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 23, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** The ability to manage big amount of spatial data to make clear and comprehensive maps **What do you dislike about Surfer?** Nothing except i always want new features. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Surface and ground water pollution management. I get a better understanding of those problems. ### 44. Surfer experience since 20 years **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Environmental Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 23, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** Easy handling, good control on many details **What do you dislike about Surfer?** With large images view built-up gets much too slow **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Creating maps, handling complex data, reprojecting Good interaction of Surfer, CAD, QGis, CorelDraw ### 45. Amazing software for map construction **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Eduardo S. | Associate Professor, Government Administration, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** I like best the user-friendly interface. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** You cannot build easily map with other types of data classification different from equal interval. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I work with precision agriculture ### 46. Surfer review **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Research | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 23, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** The software is fast and good control of what you are doing. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** I would like to have interpolation methods like least squares collocation. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Deformation modelling ### 47. Versitile 3d Visualization Software **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Civil Engineering | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** Ability to take data with three dimensions and quickly and effectively create a picture of what it looks like **What do you dislike about Surfer?** Bit hard to understand all the bells and whistles at first. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Quick visualizations of large or complex data sets to achieve a picture of what is going on. ### 48. Regular user **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jean-Marie L. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** Ability to create quickly quality maps from Excel data **What do you dislike about Surfer?** High cost of software and of software updates **Recommendations to others considering Surfer:** Go for it. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Generate structure maps ### 49. Easy to work with and very efficient **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Civil Engineering | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 23, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** I tried to create watersheds with GIS and had a lot of problems but with surfer it was super easy and fast. The visualization is also really good. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** I find working with the basemap a bit hard and slow. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** I created Aquifers with multiple layers. I created the Grids for a Modlflow groundwater model. I make Watersheds for Floodprotection. ### 50. Filtering spatial data. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Research | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 22, 2018 **What do you like best about Surfer?** Ease of use. The program has a good user interface. **What do you dislike about Surfer?** The lack of quantitative spatial filtering. A user should be able to say that they have filtered all features with wavelengths shorter than 1 km, rather than saying that they simply smoothed the data. Program needs a spatial Fourier Transform filtering capability. **What problems is Surfer solving and how is that benefiting you?** Geophysics research and teaching. ## Surfer Discussions - [What technical resources are available to me?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/technical-resources) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [What license options are available?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/license-options) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [How much does Surfer cost? Are there ongoing maintenance and support fees?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/surfer-pricing) - 2 comments, 1 upvote - [Do you offer a trial version of Surfer?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/1827-do-you-offer-a-trial-version-of-surfer) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [View Surfer pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/surfer/reviews?page=2§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-07-21+03%3A42%3A19+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=3b4f62c4-274e-487d-b009-7de0bdfe77eb&secure%5Btoken%5D=037efd1d371ecb92957ea2b9dea0fba92405d90377e8235eb2d874f80b42942b&format=llm_user) ## Surfer Features **Data Management** - Data Capture - Data Storage - Data Manipulation - Data Visualization **Agentic AI - Geology and Seismic** - Multi-step Planning - Cross-system Integration - Adaptive Learning - Decision Making **Agentic AI - Oil and Gas Engineering** - Autonomous Task Execution - Multi-step Planning - Cross-system Integration - Adaptive Learning - Decision Making **Agentic AI - Oil and Gas Simulation and Modeling** - Adaptive Learning - Decision Making **Map Creation** - Geocoding - Buffer Zone Query - Overlaying - Publishing **Analysis** - Spatial Analysis ## Top Surfer Alternatives - [Esri ArcGIS](https://www.g2.com/products/esri-arcgis/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (516 reviews) - [GEOVIA Surpac](https://www.g2.com/products/geovia-surpac/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (22 reviews) - [Petrel E&P Software Platform](https://www.g2.com/products/schlumberger-petrel-e-p-software-platform/reviews) - 4.7/5.0 (17 reviews)