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It's not hard to produce your own tiles from OpenStreetMap data and serve them from your own server using something as Leaflet. If you only need to show maps, a

by bambax 8y ago

It's not hard to produce your own tiles from OpenStreetMap data and serve them from your own server using something as Leaflet. If you only need to show maps, and if OSM data is good enough in your part of the world (a big if), this is the way to go. What is very hard is coming up for a replacement of either geocoding/reverse geocoding, or routing; many solutions exist but most don't really work or are quite difficult to setup (IMHO). Best of luck!

zylepe 8y ago
I had very good luck with graphhopper for routing. On digitalocean it costs about $10 to process planet.osm and the server can run on as small as a $40/month droplet. I am having trouble finding a good autocomplete/geo search solution though, curious if anyone has found a decent quality provider or solution you can self host like graphhopper.
- Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
  Photon is the most popular autocomplete solution. Runs fine on an SSD and there are pre-built database dumps you can download. Obviously OSM's address coverage isn't great, which is always going to be the limitation.
ddoolin 8y ago
I'd think you can cache results of geocoding either direction as their results should hardly change. Not sure of the usage model but if it involves repeated look ups, this should be OK if it doesn't break any terms.
lucb1e 8y ago
> and if OSM data is good enough in your part of the world (a big if) Same for Google Maps: https://twitter.com/lucb1e/status/522491538912604160 https://twitter.com/lucb1e/status/522491538912604160 Most of us here are from reasonably rich countries, and here Google is always fine, while OSM is usually fine (but not always). I am curious if you compare a few hundred random populated places on earth, how they compare. Where it is not economical to create a map, as in the tweet above, Google Maps is terrible. OSM is more often terrible in a country where they have just enough money to be worth it to Google, but where OSM just didn't happen to catch on among local mappers. You only need a few dozen for a country of a few million. The Netherlands is truly the best country on OSM that I know of: 100% road and address coverage, and there are always people who love to jump on new things like a new bridge or tunnel. Somehow almost all the cyclepaths, trails, etc. are also on there. Turns out, a grand total of 65 monthly active users maintain it. I was very surprised. Apparently it doesn't take that much to maintain the map. If we get a few hundred people to work on OSM once a month in a given country of average size, it seems that you can maintain a map of a quality higher than Google Maps, at a tiny fraction of the cost (look at the expenses of the OSM Foundation), while being objective and free for everyone (scientists, businesses, consumers) to use.

by bambax 8y ago

zylepe 8y ago

I had very good luck with graphhopper for routing. On digitalocean it costs about $10 to process planet.osm and the server can run on as small as a $40/month droplet. I am having trouble finding a good autocomplete/geo search solution though, curious if anyone has found a decent quality provider or solution you can self host like graphhopper.

Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
Photon is the most popular autocomplete solution. Runs fine on an SSD and there are pre-built database dumps you can download. Obviously OSM's address coverage isn't great, which is always going to be the limitation.

ddoolin 8y ago

I'd think you can cache results of geocoding either direction as their results should hardly change. Not sure of the usage model but if it involves repeated look ups, this should be OK if it doesn't break any terms.

lucb1e 8y ago

> and if OSM data is good enough in your part of the world (a big if) Same for Google Maps: https://twitter.com/lucb1e/status/522491538912604160 https://twitter.com/lucb1e/status/522491538912604160 Most of us here are from reasonably rich countries, and here Google is always fine, while OSM is usually fine (but not always). I am curious if you compare a few hundred random populated places on earth, how they compare. Where it is not economical to create a map, as in the tweet above, Google Maps is terrible. OSM is more often terrible in a country where they have just enough money to be worth it to Google, but where OSM just didn't happen to catch on among local mappers. You only need a few dozen for a country of a few million. The Netherlands is truly the best country on OSM that I know of: 100% road and address coverage, and there are always people who love to jump on new things like a new bridge or tunnel. Somehow almost all the cyclepaths, trails, etc. are also on there. Turns out, a grand total of 65 monthly active users maintain it. I was very surprised. Apparently it doesn't take that much to maintain the map. If we get a few hundred people to work on OSM once a month in a given country of average size, it seems that you can maintain a map of a quality higher than Google Maps, at a tiny fraction of the cost (look at the expenses of the OSM Foundation), while being objective and free for everyone (scientists, businesses, consumers) to use.