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KH Coder
What it is
KH Coder is software for quantitative content analysis, text mining and computational linguistics. It can be used to examine free-response survey answers, interview records, newspaper articles and other text. Its analysis options include word-frequency lists, keyword searches, KWIC, cluster analysis, multidimensional scaling, co-occurrence networks, correspondence analysis, self-organizing maps and coding cross-tabulations. Visual outputs include network diagrams with betweenness centrality and community detection, as well as correspondence-analysis plots, heatmaps, line charts and bubble plots. Statistical results can be considered alongside the source text, and analysis can run without an internet connection. The English site lists text support for Catalan, Simplified Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Slovenian and Spanish. KH Coder runs on Linux, macOS and Windows. The free Windows Starting Edition has limits on data and features and is an older beta; the paid Base Edition is described as the full version. The Mac Edition costs $99 once and requires Apple silicon, macOS 11 or later, and 5 GB of available disk space.
For and against
For
- Supports analysis in 13 listed text languages
- Offers multiple statistical and visualization methods
- Can run analysis without an internet connection
- Free Windows Starting Edition is available
Against
- Free Windows edition has data and feature limits
- Starting Edition is described as an older beta
- Mac edition requires Apple silicon and macOS 11 or later
- Mac license requires a separate copy per computer
The verdict
KH Coder offers a broad set of text-analysis methods, including ways to connect statistical results with their source context. Check the edition limits and platform requirements, especially if using the free Windows edition or Mac version.
Who it suits
KH Coder suits researchers and analysts working with qualitative text who want quantitative methods and visual analysis. It may also suit users who need offline analysis or on-premise deployment.
Plans and prices
Starting Edition
Windows beta/demo · limited data and features · 1 PC
Read 15 Oct 2026 · screen.co.jp
KH Coder 5 Mac Edition
Apple Silicon Mac M1+ · macOS 11+ · 5 GB disk · separate paid installer
Read 15 Oct 2026 · khcoder.net
Update subscription (academic)
Version updates while subscription is active · academic eligibility
Read 15 Oct 2026 · screen.co.jp
Base Edition (academic)
Eligible educational users · Windows · 2 PCs
Read 15 Oct 2026 · screen.co.jp
Update subscription (normal)
Version updates while subscription is active
Read 15 Oct 2026 · official-store.as.screen.co.jp
Base Edition (normal)
Windows · full analysis · 2 PCs · one-year update service
Read 15 Oct 2026 · official-store.as.screen.co.jp
Master Edition (academic)
Eligible educational users · Windows · 2 PCs · installation support
Read 15 Oct 2026 · official-store.as.screen.co.jp
Master Edition (normal)
Windows · full analysis · 2 PCs · installation support
Read 15 Oct 2026 · official-store.as.screen.co.jp
Pro Edition (normal)
Windows · full analysis · 2 PCs · installation support
Read 15 Oct 2026 · official-store.as.screen.co.jp
On the record
- Analysis features
- The gallery shows word frequency lists, keyword searches, KWIC, cluster analysis, multidimensional scaling, co-occurrence networks, correspondence analysis, self-organizing maps, and coding cross-tabulations.khcoder.net · read 7 Oct 2026
- Analysis workflow
- The maker says statistical analyses can be viewed alongside their source-text context, and that analysis does not require an internet connection to reduce data-leakage and ethics risks.khcoder.net · read 7 Oct 2026
- Backend integrations
- The maker lists ChaSen, FreeLing, HanDic, MeCab, MySQL, Perl, R, Snowball Stemmer, Stanford POS Tagger, and TermExtract among its backend programs.khcoder.net · read 7 Oct 2026
- Coding
- Coding rules support code frequencies, cross-tabs, similarity matrices, correspondence analysis, multidimensional scaling, clustering, and co-occurrence networks.khcoder.net · read 15 Oct 2026
- Company and owner
- The official site credits Koichi Higuchi, a Ritsumeikan University professor, as the author; the footer shows copyright beginning in 2001.khcoder.net · read 15 Oct 2026
- Customization
- The maker says users can customize KH Coder by editing R and MySQL code when needed.khcoder.net · read 7 Oct 2026
- Distribution change
- SCREEN Advanced System Solutions announced the paid official package in December 2023 after Higuchi said one-person development, maintenance, and support had become unsustainable.prtimes.jp · read 15 Oct 2026
- Document analysis
- Document tools include document search, document clustering, Naive Bayes model building/classification, and export of document-word or word-context matrices.khcoder.net · read 15 Oct 2026
- Documentation
- Official support includes a tutorial, video, PDF slides, a 99-page reference manual, GitHub Discussions, and an archived forum.khcoder.net · read 15 Oct 2026
- Extensibility
- The software exposes plugin examples, lets users execute SQL statements, and documents direct retrieval from its MySQL databases.khcoder.net · read 15 Oct 2026
- Independent technical assessment
- A Nature research article describes KH Coder as open source, using R and MySQL, with word-frequency, cross-tabulation, co-occurrence, multivariate analysis, multilingual processing, and term-variant search.nature.com · read 15 Oct 2026
- Integrations
- KH Coder delegates database work to MySQL and statistical analysis and graphics to R; Windows packages bundle these dependencies.khcoder.net · read 15 Oct 2026
- KWIC and search
- Users can search words and documents and inspect KWIC concordance lines with collocation statistics.khcoder.net · read 15 Oct 2026
- Languages
- The maker lists Catalan, simplified Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Slovenian, and Spanish support.khcoder.net · read 15 Oct 2026
- Licence
- The KH Coder core is free software under GNU GPL version 2 or later, permitting academic or commercial use, modification, and redistribution under GPL conditions.khcoder.net · read 15 Oct 2026
- Licence caveat
- The maker says that since December 2023 the installer and some bundled utilities are proprietary and cannot be reverse engineered or redistributed.khcoder.net · read 15 Oct 2026
- Limit: encoding and scale
- SourceForge reviewers report BOM or POS-tagger failures with some English files and possible hangs on very long texts.sourceforge.net · read 15 Oct 2026
- Limit: interface and setup
- SourceForge complaints mention an old-fashioned interface, difficult installation, paid Mac setup, and no automatic update facility.sourceforge.net · read 15 Oct 2026
