IF FINANCE  PROBLEM IS THERE THEN YOU CAN USE Q GIS. BECAUSE IT IS FREE OF COST. CERTAINLY ARCG GIS IS VERY STANDARD SOFTWARE. THERE IS NO COMPARISON OF ARC GIS SOFTWARE WITH OTHER GIS SOFTWARE.

Endless benefits - it's smaller and faster I think, it's free, as are updates, so you can be consistent even if moving between jobs/travelling/your institute's licence runs out. It is more adaptable, you can adapt it yourself for one thing but I would say now there are also more people using it and finding solutions to problems that arise than for arcGIS. It is intuitive enough and there is good support to learn your way around it. It can make the graphics just as pretty as your figure above, though I did find that part a little harder than arc. Overall though, it's probably better and at the very least as good as arcGIS, and it's free. Go for it!

QGIS is fast developing, easy to learn, multiplatform (linux), customizable (plugins etc.) and open-source (the biggest benefit). If more complicated analysis are needed, you can run there functions from GRASS, SAGA or R. Also its more  user-friendly in many cases (for me). I am using QGIS for years and never need go for ArcGIS again.

In my opinion the first benefit is its Open Source nature. QGIS is multiplatform and often upgraded/updated, you can participate (or donate) in the development. It has a useful support system and it is highly customizable. Currently the old weaknesses as styles and layout system are strongly improved. I'm using QGIS for research works since 2006 and it satisfies/satisfied me for all tasks I had to do. I suggest you to start using it.

Just have a look....http://www2.qgis.org/en/site/about/case_studies/index.html

I have used and continue to use both in research work. There are mixed benefits with either package.

ArcGIS has some of the best help and API documentation I've seen for any software package whatsoever, which really helps when you're doing things like Python scripting. I actually quite like the way ArcGIS Python scripting is set up, too, better and more intuitive than in QGIS (my opinion, of course).

I am, though, a huge fan of open source software. QGIS itself is pretty decent, but its real power comes in with respect to all the other packages it subsumes: GDAL/OGR (http://www.gdal.org/), SAGA (http://www.saga-gis.org/en/index.html), Orfeo ToolBox (https://www.orfeo-toolbox.org/), GRASS (http://grass.osgeo.org/). I kinda think of QGIS as mostly a GUI environment that allows you to use all these other packages under one roof, so to speak. With the combination of all these, it's my opinion that QGIS is actually more algorithm-rich than ArcGIS, at least at present. For example, SAGA has many terrain analysis algorithms built-in than does the Spatial Analyst extension in ArcMap. You can still do just about anything in ArcMap, though that would often require you to essentially build the algorithms yourself as a chain of geoprocessing tools that use primitive map algebra operations. It's very nice to be able to calculate, for example, topographic position index (TPI) directly in QGIS via SAGA.

There is another advantage for open-source software with respect to research: Esri's algorithms are "black-box", in that you can't find out exactly how some operation was done. With open source software, you can actually read the code, so you can know exactly how some algorithm is implemented. That can be important for academic integrity.

Finally, from my cartographic point of view neither ArcGIS or QGIS are particularly strong. Really high-quality cartography these days still goes through an additional graphic design software step (often Adobe Illustrator with Avenza's Map Publisher extension, though I like to use Inkscape and GIMP because they're open source and excellent). Still, I generally like the options you get for symbolization in QGIS (finer grain control over details like the statistical sample of the data taken when binning for a choropleth), and I like that you can export from QGIS in lots of formats (you can in Arc too, but things like the .ai Illustrator format don't play that well with modern versions of Illustrator). I've seen QGIS bug out a little while rendering on the fly in the software itself, but I suspect that's a bug that will be fixed soon, and it hasn't hurt any analysis in my experience.

simply its free, many minds and volunteers working on, keep up with new functions are added yearly, you can have paid service as well if you or your organization contribute.

I agree totally with Paulo.

QGIS is an open source software and is easy to learn and use.

QGIS is of course an open source s/w so it allows to develop your own tool/module whereas in ESRI you have limitations, you can customize some module but you can't develop new module like in QGIS... ESRI s/w are much easier to learn as they have strong Graphical User Interface 

I have been using QGIS for 4 years now both teaching in academic course and presenting scientific data. the main benefits I find vs. ARcsoftware:

enjoy using it

I cant think of anything Q and saga cant do that ArcGIS can... and you cant beat the price

I would highly recommend QGIS, works great! This article provides a great overview of all GIS software available, http://gisgeography.com/mapping-out-gis-software-landscape/. Might be interestiny to you. 

http://gisgeography.com/mapping-out-gis-software-landscape/

everyone can use QGIS no matter what country, or how well funded. Also, it works very well.

QGIS easy to understand ,QGIS is the user friendly software and most important QGIS open source software.

I teach QGIS, ArcGIS (including ArcGIS Pro) and Caliper products (Maptitude, TransCAD and Transmodeler). I also use SAS, SPLUS (including S+spatial), OpenBUGS (for Bayesian spatial stats) and recently moved to R-INLA for bayesian spatial modeling. For stat modeling, R is miles ahead of the rest, including spatial statistics.

W.r.t. GIS functionality only, I find the most advanced vector modeling is done with Maptitude/TransCAD GIS (Caliper products). By far, the most advanced transportation GIS and 3D GIS for traffic simulation modeling (like moving cars/trains is done with Transmodeler), Caliper products are natural for advanced GIS operations. For basic euclidean GIS analysis, like slicing/overlays/buffers/DBMS/pivoting etc. Maptitude/TransCAD has fast tools that scale well with file size, unlike other GIS software (try overlaying 3000 counties with ~30,000 zip code (ZCTA) boundaries in ArcGIS).

For performing advanced network GIS (like shortest path, redistricting, facility location, routing, transportation planning, traffic management etc) TransCAD is way ahead of ArcGIS and QGIS. There's a basic limit in ArcGIS for # of nodes that it can handle; unlike TransCAD where you can create a network object for all ~48 million USA street segments in one go (that means you can find house to house shortest paths more than 5000 miles apart!).

Finally, Maptitude/TransCAD does amazing visualization (including 3D) without depending on photoshop or other graphic software.

Pricing: Although ArcGIS full suite price is not posted (try network analyst pricing w/o logging in ...). However, the place I worked before bought the whole suite of ArcGIS for $15,000 (including extensions). Next is TransCAD priced at $12,500, then Maptitude ( network analysis with a limit of 1000 nodes) is priced at $695 (free for students and faculty) and finally QGIS which is free!

Overall, Maptitude does more for less and uses the least amount of time for similar GIS tasks -- a winning combination. It also requires, almost no coding, but is designed for native python (unlike arcpy in ArcGIS where you cannot use native python codes), R etc programming.

In my opinion, I prefer QGIS because it easy to use (especially for those of you who just start to learn GIS software) and also opensource so everyone with their innovation in GIS can contribute.