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I came so close to getting our app off of Google Maps a few months ago, we'd be saving literally thousands a month. But the "look" of the map from open street
by jmuguy 9mo ago
I came so close to getting our app off of Google Maps a few months ago, we'd be saving literally thousands a month. But the "look" of the map from open street map, map tiler, etc was deemed too different and the team was scared it would negatively impact our users. The Maps API is definitely getting worse, and the pricing setup seems like it was cooked up by someone from Microsoft. Also Maplibre and its various wrappers are so much nicer to work it.
- jtbaker 9mo agoI feel like with custom vector based styles, you should be able to get pretty dang close to cloning the look of it? Also subjectively, I find the protomaps basemap themes to be much nicer.
- jmuguy 9mo agoYeah I agree, I found dozens of options that look (subjectively!) a hell of a lot better.
- tdeck 9mo agoWould it be possible to run an AB test?
- cwmma 9mo agonot OP but the google maps API doesn't actually support other vector tiles (and other map libraries are not allowed to use the google map basemap) which means it's not easy to just have two versions of the site that differ only in basemap
- jmuguy 9mo agoPossibly but we don't have much to measure which is "better" - maybe could just ask people to give thumbs up or down.
- bfayers 9mo agoI find that the OpenFreeMap[1] 'Liberty' style looks fairly close to Google Maps. 1: https://openfreemap.org/ https://openfreemap.org/
- embedding-shape 9mo agoCouldn't OpenFreeMap/someone else offer an identical style/theme to Google Maps, or would that be a "copyright" or some other type of infringement in the US?
- dannyfritz07 9mo agoProbably an issue of trademark if people confuse the product with Google Maps.
- embedding-shape 9mo agoDo people understand that embedded Google Maps "widgets" are "the product Google Maps"? I think for most people it's just "that map on a website", even if there is labels and stuff explicitly saying "Google Maps".
- butvacuum 9mo agothey won't care as long as it links to google maps when they click it.
- NooneAtAll3 9mo agospeaking of trademarks... when will google walk the xerox plank already? to google has been a verb for like a decade already
- cwmma 9mo agoUsually the 'look' is not the issue as much as the geocoder (which you are only allowed to use with a google basemap, no that clever idea you have isn't going to work), like clients are often excited to use a more customizable basemap but balk when it comes to other geocoders which are nice but are not the google one which people really really are used to.
- jmuguy 9mo agoYeah this was a major problem for us as well. Luckily we can just replace the map, and we'll continue to use the Geocoder and address lookups elsewhere. Its kind of crazy how much better it is with "newer" US addresses vs everything else we've tried.
- theshrike79 9mo agoI tried to use GMaps for a commercial thing years and years ago, but the pricing was "FREE (*)", which made me nope out really fast. (*) we will tell you when you go over our undeclared free limit and send you a bill