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I've found MapBox (if you're using MapBox GL) to have pretty decent pricing on my own hobby projects, albeit higher than I'd prefer I have to assume the fact t

I've found MapBox (if you're using MapBox GL) to have pretty decent pricing on my own hobby projects, albeit higher than I'd prefer I have to assume the fact that nobody is just cheap-hosting opentiles mapsets for a tenth of the price indicates that the underlying infrastructure (bandwidth?) is pretty pricey. Anyway, I'm glad Nukemap found a way to stay up. I've had fun playing with it, and have used it as a reference before.

barnabask 7y ago
Mapbox is awesome, but there are alternatives for hobby projects, such as https://www.maptiler.com/ https://www.maptiler.com/. I wrote about some more here: https://barnabas.me/articles/webmaps.html#map-tile-servers-and-apis https://barnabas.me/articles/webmaps.html#map-tile-servers-a... If your project is confined to a limited geographic area and you don’t need super high zoom levels, you could even host the static tiles yourself without too much trouble and disk space. It can be very cost effective.
usrusr 7y ago
Last time I checked, Google was mostly charging per viewer instance, whereas OSM tile providers where universally charging by actual volume. That way, Google pricing would be unbeatably attractive for an SPA where users are panning and zooming a lot in a single map instance, but prohibitively expensive for sites where users open a lot of pages that each contain a little map viewer (or multiple) that is hardly ever interacted with. A clear horses for courses situation. Unfortunately the site I had in mind was just as clearly a "both". The main reason for not self-hosting is data updates I think. Setting up that "data supply chain" might not be very hard or expensive, but it can adds a lot to the overall maintenance demand of a site. Chances are that automation will keep working precisely as long as you can remember how you did it, plus a few more days.
NetToolKit 7y ago
> I have to assume the fact that nobody is just cheap-hosting opentiles mapsets for a tenth of the price indicates that the underlying infrastructure (bandwidth?) is pretty pricey. Mapbox charges ~$4 for a thousand map views, while we charge $0.10 for a thousand map views (less than a tenth of Mapbox's price). How do we convince you to switch to our services? https://www.nettoolkit.com/geo/about https://www.nettoolkit.com/geo/about
- wizzwizz4 7y ago
  Privacy guarantees (or, rather, an explanation as to what you do with the statistics you can gather from people using the tile server) – currently it's not clear what's the policy for your site v.s. the API. Plus, actually knowing about it in the first place would be nice! You have a piece of text saying "you don't need to credit us; just credit OpenStreetMap contributors because they made the thing", but it might be a good idea to say "but if you're feeling generous, you can tack a 'via NetToolKit' on the end". I found out about Mapbox, Leaflet and OpenStreetMap via those little copyright signs at the bottom of maps – and if asked, I'd certainly put one in for you if I were using your services.
  - NetToolKit 7y ago
    Thanks for your answer and for your suggestions. We'll try to find a place to clarify the privacy policy (we don't do anything externally facing with it, but might use it to track down performance issues), and I like your wording regarding attribution. I agree that we have a marketing problem (letting people know about our services). However, even if we to solve that, I want to understand what it would take for someone who is aware of our services to actually convert. Hence, I appreciate your answer and hope others chime in as well. Thanks again.
lukeqsee 7y ago
> opentiles mapsets for a tenth of the price We are! https://stadiamaps.com https://stadiamaps.com But we don't skimp on infrastructure (8 datacenters around the globe), etc. We built all of it from the ground-up to be as effective as possible, and thus are able to pass significant cost savings to our customers.

barnabask 7y ago

Mapbox is awesome, but there are alternatives for hobby projects, such as https://www.maptiler.com/ https://www.maptiler.com/. I wrote about some more here: https://barnabas.me/articles/webmaps.html#map-tile-servers-and-apis https://barnabas.me/articles/webmaps.html#map-tile-servers-a... If your project is confined to a limited geographic area and you don’t need super high zoom levels, you could even host the static tiles yourself without too much trouble and disk space. It can be very cost effective.

usrusr 7y ago

Last time I checked, Google was mostly charging per viewer instance, whereas OSM tile providers where universally charging by actual volume. That way, Google pricing would be unbeatably attractive for an SPA where users are panning and zooming a lot in a single map instance, but prohibitively expensive for sites where users open a lot of pages that each contain a little map viewer (or multiple) that is hardly ever interacted with. A clear horses for courses situation. Unfortunately the site I had in mind was just as clearly a "both". The main reason for not self-hosting is data updates I think. Setting up that "data supply chain" might not be very hard or expensive, but it can adds a lot to the overall maintenance demand of a site. Chances are that automation will keep working precisely as long as you can remember how you did it, plus a few more days.

NetToolKit 7y ago

> I have to assume the fact that nobody is just cheap-hosting opentiles mapsets for a tenth of the price indicates that the underlying infrastructure (bandwidth?) is pretty pricey. Mapbox charges ~$4 for a thousand map views, while we charge $0.10 for a thousand map views (less than a tenth of Mapbox's price). How do we convince you to switch to our services? https://www.nettoolkit.com/geo/about https://www.nettoolkit.com/geo/about

wizzwizz4 7y ago
Privacy guarantees (or, rather, an explanation as to what you do with the statistics you can gather from people using the tile server) – currently it's not clear what's the policy for your site v.s. the API. Plus, actually knowing about it in the first place would be nice! You have a piece of text saying "you don't need to credit us; just credit OpenStreetMap contributors because they made the thing", but it might be a good idea to say "but if you're feeling generous, you can tack a 'via NetToolKit' on the end". I found out about Mapbox, Leaflet and OpenStreetMap via those little copyright signs at the bottom of maps – and if asked, I'd certainly put one in for you if I were using your services.
- NetToolKit 7y ago
  Thanks for your answer and for your suggestions. We'll try to find a place to clarify the privacy policy (we don't do anything externally facing with it, but might use it to track down performance issues), and I like your wording regarding attribution. I agree that we have a marketing problem (letting people know about our services). However, even if we to solve that, I want to understand what it would take for someone who is aware of our services to actually convert. Hence, I appreciate your answer and hope others chime in as well. Thanks again.

lukeqsee 7y ago

> opentiles mapsets for a tenth of the price We are! https://stadiamaps.com https://stadiamaps.com But we don't skimp on infrastructure (8 datacenters around the globe), etc. We built all of it from the ground-up to be as effective as possible, and thus are able to pass significant cost savings to our customers.