9 ms·

Organic Maps

1184 points by tosh 4mo ago

codingjoe 4mo ago
How is it different from OSMAnd?
- TFNA 4mo ago
  It's a fork from Maps.me, the streamlined map app popular with normies. I myself use and love OSMAnd, but in the travel communities I am active in, most people react badly to OSMAnd as something arcane and nerdy.
  - fender256 4mo ago
    Arcane and nerdy is a good description of OSMAnd. That's why I love it and would never switch to anything else.
- frabcus 4mo ago
  Better and easier to understand and use UX.
- xigoi 4mo ago
  Much better performance and much less cluttered UI, at the cost of having fewer features.
  - orbital-decay 4mo ago
    And at the cost of map fidelity. Complex curves look terrible at certain zoom levels in CoMaps/Organic Maps.
    - Aachen 4mo ago
      Same in OsmAnd though. Someone recently posted a screenshot of an area they thought was badly mapped (with AI or at least not using the "make square corners" tool). Turns out to be Osmand's coordinate rounding as part of the map data compression Comparing a building in my city between the two maps by flipping between the apps, it looks identical to me. Not a scientific test though
      - deleted 4mo ago
        [deleted]
  - bluebarbet 4mo ago
    The performance advantage is small to nil, IME. The UI is admittedly cleaner, though partly (as you say) that's simply because it has a ton less features.
    - xigoi 4mo ago
      Interesting. When I switched from OsmAnd to Organic, the map loaded much faster as I panned it.
      - orbital-decay 4mo ago
        The difference mostly comes from the default detail levels and shape optimization. You can make it as fast in OsmAnd as both are GPU-accelerated, but OsmAnd renders the map more detailed by default.
- Markoff 4mo ago
  much better UI, does osmand has now colored hiking trails without downloading some extra maps?
  - codingjoe 4mo ago
    Yes, you can toggle a setting to use the network colors. I use it mostly for hiking. The UI is a learning curve, 100%, I am curious to check another tool
arnab777 4mo ago
amazing
Yacoby 4mo ago
There is also CoMaps (https://www.comaps.app/ https://www.comaps.app/) which is a fork of Organic Maps, after concern over the governance of Organic Maps https://itsfoss.com/news/organic-maps-fork-comaps/ https://itsfoss.com/news/organic-maps-fork-comaps/
- hirako2000 4mo ago
  what are the concerns over governance of organics maps ?
  - physicalecon 4mo ago
    Some parts of the server were closed source for a bit. No longer the case. Also people got upset that the developers used the product funding to pay for their personal expenses. The idea is folks want the developers to isolate all the money they make from this project and use it to only pay expenses directly related to this project. If they need to eat or something they should get a job, presumably. https://www.comaps.app/news/2025-04-16/1/?ref=itsfoss.com https://www.comaps.app/news/2025-04-16/1/?ref=itsfoss.com
    - beart 4mo ago
      > If they need to eat or something they should get a job, presumably. The tone of this comment is quite different from the text of the open letter to which you refer. Specifically this section. I don't have any personal knowledge either way, but this stood out to me. > As it was revealed by Roman @rtsisyk it wasn't unusual for the Shareholders to use project's donations as their own money e.g. Alexander @biodranik paid for his personal holiday trip expenses this way. At the same time all other contributors were consistently denied any access to any financial information (even to the totals of money donated/spent). (It's fine for developers to be reimbursed for their hard work, but it should be done in a fair, transparent and accountable way.)
      - cryo32 4mo ago
        Going on holiday is why I work. And I use organic maps when I’m on holiday. And donate. Good luck to them.
eisa01 4mo ago
Organic Maps was my go to app for a navigation app where you can fix errors yourself immediately! So much better than having to work for free on the proprietary apps, and hope they accept your edits There’s a fork from one year ago, CoMaps, that is gaining different features E.g., I am adding CarPlay Dashboard support that you can test by joining the TestFlight We are in great need of both more testers and some proper iOS devs (I am not). We’re racing to get scene lifecycle support by September, perfect opportunity if you like modernising old codebases! https://www.comaps.app/ https://www.comaps.app/ https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps
- aitchnyu 4mo ago
  Any ones which tries to avoid realtime traffic, especially in India? Also ones which detects some shortcuts as narrow, meandering roads that will be extremely slow.
  - eisa01 4mo ago
    There’s actually work ongoing on live traffic support from various public sources! https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/projects/21877 https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/projects/21877
    - harkdif 4mo ago
      This looks really solid. It's the thing that would make me switch over. 90% of the time I know exactly where I'm going but need Google Maps to tell me what's unexpectedly in the way while I'm trying to get there.
      - dexterdog 4mo ago
        My problem is that more often than not the road or business name I'm trying to find us just not in the database. If I'm at home I'll try to add it but if I'm driving that is not going to happen and I'll just use something else.
bruce343434 4mo ago
Is there a nautical map equivalent of osm or organic maps? One that emphasizes waterways by drawing them thicker when zoomed out like regular maps draw roads thicker? Plan routes over the water? Even google maps lacks a nautical layer.
- shiandow 4mo ago
  OsmAnd has a nautical map plugin you can enable.
  - RobotToaster 4mo ago
    For some reason osmAnd was the only GPS map that would work on a flight for me.
    - ihatehn 4mo ago
      OM and CoMaps should also work, though you might need to wait awhile for a GPS fix and be near a window. Google's main hiccup will be an internet connection for the maps.
  - jboss10 4mo ago
    The plugin is just part of why OsmAnd is good for nautical use, there is also an alternate view in the configure map menu for nautical use.
- bmitch3020 4mo ago
  The OSS tool for nautical charts is OpenCPN.
- s3krit 4mo ago
  it depends what type of waterways you’re after. for the sea, https://map.openseamap.org/ https://map.openseamap.org/ is very good (but no route planning sadly - for that you’d need opencpn and some charts obtained. For inland waterways i can only speak for the English canals, for which i recommend https://opencanalmap.uk/ https://opencanalmap.uk/ which uses data from both OSM and the Canal and River Trust. Again, sadly no route planning but for that I use https://canalplan.org.uk/ https://canalplan.org.uk/
efrecon 4mo ago
I used comaps on a hike. It really is good at not draining your battery. I've wanted to run it on my wear OS watch, but while you can sideload the APK, wearOS does not have a file browser, so it's not possible to import a planned route or similar. Has anyone here any idea for how to solve this?
- gitaarik 4mo ago
  Send it in an attachment over Telegram or something and open that on your watch?
lexlambda 4mo ago
Organic mentions Open Source, but I just saw that FDroid mentions the following: "This app contains non open source components - compiled binary data files (including but not limited to .mwm map files) under a non FLOSS license" Anyone has context on the following not hidden over Git-* issues (I was left thoroughly confused trying to understand it)?
- gedankenstuecke 4mo ago
  OrganicMaps rolled their own 'data license' for the actual map files: https://github.com/organicmaps/organicmaps/blob/master/DATA_LICENSE.txt https://github.com/organicmaps/organicmaps/blob/master/DATA_... Plus the code that's necessary to generate the map files that OM relies on is no longer openly published. So while true that the actual app code is open source, you can't use it without relying on their proprietary map files.
  - mpawelski 4mo ago
    >Plus the code that's necessary to generate the map files that OM relies on is no longer openly published. Seems like a big red flag. And another reason to migrate to CoMaps.
    - deleted 4mo ago
      [deleted]
    - h4kunamata 4mo ago
      >Seems like a big red flag. And another reason to migrate to CoMaps. Why do you think OM user base forked and mass migrated to CoMaps?? haha
ravenstine 4mo ago
Organic Maps a great app in many ways, but I still don't get how people can actually use it every day and say it replaces Google Maps when its search feature totally stinks. I know it's a hard problem, but this is the number one thing that needs to somehow be fixed. I can't tell if I'm just too dumb or if FOSS/degoogle fanboys are just pretending. I just know I've tried to use it exclusively many times and always had to give in to Google Maps because the search totally failed.
- mac3n 4mo ago
  search greatly improved in the past couple years. try it again?
  - ravenstine 4mo ago
    I thought I updated the app before my recent backpacking trip in Europe, but I will give it a try again.
    - eisa01 4mo ago
      E.g., in the CoMaps fork test builds there is now a change to prioritize nearby places more https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/pulls/4604 https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/pulls/4604
      - everybodyknows 4mo ago
        Another CoMaps Search issue: https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/issues/4449 https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/issues/4449
- InsideOutSanta 4mo ago
  I guess it depends on how you use Google Maps, but I mainly navigate to addresses, and Comaps works fine for that.
- fuzzy2 4mo ago
  I actually think the search feature rocks, because you have high fidelity OSM maps to query. Can't search for drinkable wells in Google Maps! But then, it of course isn't Google Maps. It is likely to be more out of date and will not understand "natural" search queries as Google does. I believe it just takes some getting used to. There is overlap between the two, each service has its strengths and weaknesses, but also unique features.
gordonhart 4mo ago
Migrated all of my pins to Organic Maps from Maps.me when it started to aggressively monetize. Smooth process. Been a happy user for years!
- AmblingAvocado 4mo ago
  I bought Maps.me Pro in 2012, used it while traveling then and was happy. Fired it back up for a similar trip this year and in spite of having paid for it already, I don't have Pro features and I get aggressive "Sale ending in 4 hours!" popovers every time I launch the app.
sgt 4mo ago
Will this take down Big Maps?
- bmitch3020 4mo ago
  There are two things keeping me using "Big Map". 1. Address lookups. Many of the buildings in OSM have yet to get street addresses added, so navigating to an address is a bit hit or miss. This gets fixed with time as people update the maps and wouldn't be a show stopper. 2. Real time traffic and detour navigation. This is really needed when navigating around busy cities where a wreck on a major highway can result in significant delays. This needs a combination of an external service (separate from OSM) but also one that has enough adoption to have usable data.
  - bronson 4mo ago
    There's one more for me: reliable store hours.
    - ygra 4mo ago
      Both this and addresses is something that's really easy to survey with StreetComplete. Google has the benefit of having their own street-level imagery for house numbers and street names, Android devices for real-time traffic info, and the ability to simply scrape web pages for shop data including opening hours. but in places with a reasonable number of active mappers, OSM is so much richer and more up to date.
      - exhilaration 4mo ago
        Google doesn't just scrape websites for store hours, they actually call to confirm them: https://support.google.com/business/answer/7690269?hl=en https://support.google.com/business/answer/7690269?hl=en
        dhx 4mo ago
        At least in my experience for large retail chains or restaurant chains, hours on their websites are very accurate. I think where Google might benefit from calling to verify hours is, for example, where they've scraped https://schema.org/openingHours https://schema.org/openingHours from the web page for an independent store, but the website has used an invalid/incorrect format, and some manual human check or clean-up is necessary, but this work would be too time consuming for each of 100,000's of independent stores which exist. There are cases where a brand might have broken opening hours information such as "Mo- Tu - We 09 00 -4 p m". For alltheplaces.xyz scrapers, a human is often able to make sense of the situation and fix the problem through a few lines of extra code. Contacting the business to get the hours confirmed would only be necessary in very rare cases. Where it would perhaps make the _most_ sense to contact a business to confirm opening hours is: 1. Ahead of public holidays to confirm planned temporary changes to opening hours. Many brands don't bother to update hours on their websites for such temporary changes, or at least don't list those hours until the week prior, which is usually too late for OSM, ATP, offline maps, etc which would ideally want to know these changes to hours up to a year in advance. 2. To confirm actual dates of permanent store/restaurant closures. Many brands in liquidation tend to fire the website developers (or can't pay them to work) and leave an outdated website online until the final shop or restaurant is closed. Commonly it's only some "CLOSING DOWN SALE LAST DAYS EXTENDED TO FRIDAY" post on social media that informs visitors accurately.
thom 4mo ago
Always loved this. There are still parts of the UK where you’ll have no data offline navigation is great, and the walking paths are better than you can get elsewhere.
resters 4mo ago
I'm very pleased to see open source mapping/navigation systems. I have had the hypothesis for a while that many of the UI/UX designers on the google maps team do not actually drive a car.
- throw-the-towel 4mo ago
  IDK, my hypothesis is that they only go anywhere by car. The way they hide public transportation and pedestrian-only streets sucks.
- 01284a7e 4mo ago
  People at Apple are not left-handed, they don't drive, they don't work out, and they don't seem to go out in the cold very much. Oh, and they definitely don't play video games.
dxetech 4mo ago
I remember over 15 years ago my wife and I were honeymooning in Europe (rom the US). While we had iOS devices that could use maps, the data services then were terrible, and GPS was effectively useless We ended up taking screen shots of Google Maps where we zoomed in on local streets, on an ad hoc type atlas. I wish we had this app back then
- palata 4mo ago
  At that time I think I was using CityMaps2Go. Not sure if it still exists though.
- cmdoptesc 4mo ago
  I believe MapsWithMe (now Maps.me) was released about that time, but I personally didn't get an iOS device until 2013.
kotberg 4mo ago
[flagged]
- Cider9986 4mo ago
  >Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. >Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. >When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." That comment is against the guidelines. You should make a new comment that avoids breaking the guidelines if you want people to see your criticism.
- celsoazevedo 4mo ago
  > Btw they (respectively, only one guy, Konstantin!) copy code / changesets from Organic Maps, while this is not happening the other way around. Is anyone breaking any licence here? If not, then I don't understand this complaint.
aaronrobinson 4mo ago
This is amazing
mamaar 4mo ago
There is also https://gitlab.com/tilelessmap/tilelessmap https://gitlab.com/tilelessmap/tilelessmap with some of the same focus areas. > TilelessMap is an open, offline-first mapping engine designed for critical field use, such as forestry, emergency services, and humanitarian work. Built with C and optimized for mobile performance, TilelessMap enables full local map rendering without relying on cloud infrastructure — even in areas with poor or no internet connectivity. They have an Android app with maps of Yellowstone, Sweden and Norway. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.tileless.map.play https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.tileless.m...
- palata 4mo ago
  I am curious: is it called "tileless" because it uses tiles, but offline? Or does it somehow not use tiles?
  - mamaar 4mo ago
    There are no tiles. All geometry is loaded and rendered directly from an SQLite database on every render. Geometry is stored as TWKB (Tiny Well-Known Binary) to reduce storage and transport size. During decoding, they do clever work using aggregate functions and reusing buffers across rows to reduce allocations. There is real potential in the tech, but unfortunately little momentum behind it.
    - palata 4mo ago
      > There are no tiles. All geometry is loaded and rendered directly from an SQLite database on every render. Which can be done with tiles. Or maybe I don't understand what you mean by "tiles"? What do you describe as "tiles"?
      - mamaar 4mo ago
        I would define a tile as a slice of geometries, not whole features. The difference with Tileless' approach, is that they load whole features from the database and don't split them into tiles. So if a feature extends outside the current view, they would load the whole geometry rather than the intersection of the tile's extent and the geometry. Vector tiles are optimized for concurrent downloads and browser / CDN caching and doing a good job of that.
api 4mo ago
This belongs to a class of thing I've been predicting for a while: as non-volatile storage (not RAM but flash etc.) gets cheaper and cheaper, offline snapshots of quantities of information that used to require an Internet connection to practically access become possible. Example: a modern mid-high end phone can contain this, a complete copy of Wikipedia, and a small LLM capable of understanding natural language queries and using tools. All on board, no connection needed. Plus it an also carry most peoples' complete music and book collections and a meaningful chunk of most peoples' movie collections. A mid-high end laptop can carry all of it and then some. Laptop and desktop storage is gigantic by previous generation standards. Mine is a higher end laptop but has 8TB storage. 512GB to 1TB is mainstream.
- TFNA 4mo ago
  This sounds like an optimistic comment from a decade ago. Cost of storage has gone up recently, as a glance at data-hoarder fora will show. Phones have less storage capacity nowadays inasmuch as many manufacturers are removing SD card slots. The idea is that normies keep stuff in the cloud; self-storage of very large amounts of data is an edge case. In my country, the typical laptop purcase from a retail chain is still 512GB or so, and moreover, few and fewer people own a laptop since it is becoming normal for a smartphone to be one's only computing device outside the workplace (even uni students are foregoing "real computers" now). Anything more than such a basic laptop is a premium product, and premium products cost premium prices.
- palata 4mo ago
  Offline-first used to be the norm before everything started requiring an internet connection for some reason. I was using OSM data offline 15 years ago on smartphones. The reason it moved to the internet was not that it wasn't possible to stay offline-first. If the app depends on your server, then the owner can monetise that (e.g. with subscriptions) or track the users. It is more interesting for companies than allowing the users to buy a snapshot of the maps once and never come back. Offline-first nowadays comes from open source projects, not from companies.
snerbles 4mo ago
Tried it for while, works with GrapheneOS and Android Auto well enough. What I absolutely can’t stand is the routing. It once tried to send me through residential Oakland on some Manhattan-grade staircase labyrinth instead of just taking normal streets.
- Flere-Imsaho 4mo ago
  Honestly I've seen google maps suggest some absurd routes, especially to avoid 1 minute of traffic on the motorway. Always best to double check the routing suggestion.
- doug-moen 4mo ago
  One of the routing options in CoMaps is "avoid stairs". Not enabled by default. See ≡ → Settings → Routing Options. (CoMaps is the open-source, non-profit community fork of Organic Maps.)
NoboruWataya 4mo ago
I use OrganicMaps a lot for long walks and it's great. Works perfectly offline if you have downloaded the map of the region beforehand, which is helpful if you are in an area with poor reception or just want to conserve phone battery by turning off data. And being OSM, it is great for showing less prominent paths/trails and other useful info like drinking water sources, picnic benches etc. And supports importing GPX trails. So IMO it's way better than Google Maps for this use case. It's also very easy to edit some basic data through the app so if you notice an error in the map it's usually possible to fix it right there and then.
throawayonthe 4mo ago
is there any current benefit over comaps?
- johanyc 4mo ago
  comaps is a fork of organic maps
  - throawayonthe 4mo ago
    correct
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
maelito 4mo ago
Organic Maps and its fork Comaps still lack a Web client. We're this on https://cartes.app https://cartes.app, trying to push the Web further (even on mobile devices) so that you don't even need an app for most use cases.
- scanny 4mo ago
  Would you consider using cache storage for enabling offline capabilities? Maybe I am in the minority but I usually go to organic maps for offline usage.
  - maelito 4mo ago
    Yes it's planned. Should work in theory, but no one tried before. Maps are so often done as native apps that to my knowledge no one tried to just use the PWA capabilities to cache tiles on the Web. Of course what's hard is cache invalidation. Does the user want to update the tiles ? Never ? Daily, weekly ? Only some regions ? Or manually ? Here's an issue about that : https://codeberg.org/cartes/web/issues/1078 https://codeberg.org/cartes/web/issues/1078 It's in French, unfortunately Codeberg has no auto-translate capabilities yet.
    - bpev 4mo ago
      FWIW, I have an experimental open-source implementation of offline-capable PWA protomaps. Haven't advertised it much, because I haven't sorted out performance (particularly on mobile), and it's a bit buggy still. Also, don't have cache invalidation. But it does work. Usually. xD app: https://maps.bpev.me https://maps.bpev.me source: https://tangled.org/bpev.me/maps https://tangled.org/bpev.me/maps Based on results from indexeddb pmtiles work: https://github.com/jtbaker/pmtiles-offline https://github.com/jtbaker/pmtiles-offline https://github.com/protomaps/PMTiles/issues/395 https://github.com/protomaps/PMTiles/issues/395
      - maelito 4mo ago
        Awesome, thanks for the links.
pi-victor 4mo ago
For offline use I use pocket earth https://pocketearth.com/ https://pocketearth.com/ I'm pleased with it, it's one of the best out there.
roschdal 4mo ago
I love organic maps
dwa3592 4mo ago
This is exciting!! I was not aware of organic maps until today. I use offline maps in google maps also. It's not fully private if it requires GPS connection though!! That's why I have been working on https://github.com/deepanwadhwa/anumaan https://github.com/deepanwadhwa/anumaan for a while now. The focus is on navigating without internet and without GPS.
- jraph 4mo ago
  > It's not fully private if it requires GPS connection though!! How so? GPS is like FM radio: you send nothing, you only receive. Apps like organic maps or comaps let you use the maps fully offline and you can compute itineraries without GPS when your need this (from point A to point B, with as many stops as you wish). I strongly recommend you to seriously look into comaps or organic maps if you don't know them. Now, "GPS isn't working or depletes my battery, what do I do?" is an interesting topic worth looking into. It seems you are trying to automate what we all do when GPS doesn't work well. I find that relatively easy in a city, not so much in a road on the countryside.
  - wasting_time 4mo ago
    They may be thinking of Google's coarse location feature where the handset checks SSIDs in the proximity against Googles database for fast lookup.
    - dwa3592 4mo ago
      This is correct but if the phone's internet is off, there is no way for BSSID look up but maps might collect this in the background for telemetry and send it to the server once the internet is turned back on.
      - psd1 4mo ago
        On android, that's false. Turning off wifi or internet does not disable bssid scanning. You can do it, but it's buried in the settings.
scanny 4mo ago
This is my regular hiking and cycling map, fantastic for offline use as well! Edit: didn’t know about the ads / proprietary server issues. I guess this is the only sort of place to find out unless users are browsing the GitHub repo.
- ihatehn 4mo ago
  The Telegram/Matrix channel had the info... for minutes at a time before the owners deleted it :X
JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
How does this compare to AllTrails for discovery, tracking and accuracy?
- ivanjermakov 4mo ago
  I had bad experience tracking my bike ride with it on iOS - seems like app offloaded and didn't record half of the track. Strava and OutRun don't have this problem.
- ihatehn 4mo ago
  A.T. is extremely trail oriented including user-submitted routes and reviews, but it may miss some less popular raw OSM-based paths. OSM based apps like OsmAnd and CoMaps just display all the data neutrally, such might be better for people who want to see raw reality and make their own route.
lone-cloud 4mo ago
I would recommend people use comaps instead which is the actual FOSS fork. OM has a long history of malicious behaviour like quietly adding ads, turning a part of its previously open sourced code proprietary and misappropriating donations. OM has lost most of its community a year ago to comaps and are now rushing vibe coded features to compensate.
- TheRoque 4mo ago
  Thanks for the heads up, I wasn't not aware of that. I never got a single ad in OM though
  - ihatehn 4mo ago
    It's the Kayak referral links on hotel POIs, which some people consider ads
    - ragazzina 4mo ago
      > which some people consider ads How are they not ads? Is this the "icloud storage promotion in ios settings" discourse again?
- ponkipo 4mo ago
  > OM has lost most of its community a year ago to comaps > rushing to compensate I understand that you, being a contributor to CoMaps which people can see on your page, want to promote it, but it’s just spreading false info. Just one Russian community of OrganicMaps in Telegram has 4000+ members, CoMaps RU is not even at 200. Global group of OM is at 1650, CoMaps is at 840 of it. It’s not OM who is compensating all over the place in this thread.
RetroTechie 4mo ago
I'll repeat a question asked in an earlier thread on OM: Do there exist apps that share their offline map data? As in: install app A, dowload offline map data for country xyz, use in app A, install app B, use same map data in app B (or C, D etc) without re-downloading the map data? As I understood, that was not the case as each app uses its own format which is some underlying public geo info (presumably too big to have on device), filtered / processed in per-app fashion. The sillyness & waste of this is obvious. So: any progress in resolving this situation?
- palata 4mo ago
  > The sillyness & waste of this is obvious Until you realise that there is not one true way to show a map, and that different apps may actually have different needs. Suddenly it becomes obvious that not all apps can use the same shared offline data.
  - davidee 4mo ago
    To further back this up, just because OSM might be a map's data source, it doesn't mean they use the same rendered vectors or images for the tiles. I make changes to OSM so they can be propagated to a cycling-specific mapping tool I use (it's a commercial tool with their own custom map layers) - it takes about 3-4 weeks from when a change is made on OSM for it to be incorporated into their data set. So yeah, it's not as simple as "we all use OSM so we'll just share all our rendered mapping values".
  - RetroTechie 4mo ago
    There's no fundamental reason that underlying map data used by a good % of mapping apps, couldn't be stored 1x on-device, in some standard format and shared across apps. Users could pick & choose what subset(s) of map data they want to store locally. Different apps could pick & choose what features to offer, how to use available data & how to render it. Sad to see that such a conceptually simple problem hasn't been addressed yet. We're talking a good # of apps here, many millions of users, and enormous amounts of storage & bandwidth wasted. Edit: I'm assuming that last bit is a problem for the app developers themselves, too.
mistercheph 4mo ago
Using CoMaps gave me the "Oh shit!" moment for the first time that the convergence of enough high quality open map data and a reasonably designed maps app to consume it was finally happening. It's crazy to think about how much thankless work it took to the point where we have something that is in many ways at parity and even exceeding in some dimensions the user-hating map software. There is still a super long way to go until it suits everyone's needs, but the end + even further is starting to come into sight.
einpoklum 4mo ago
How does Organic Maps differ from Maps.Me (which it also mentions), or PocketEarth mentiond in comments here? Or CoMaps for that matter? I've had Maps.Me on my phone for some years; it's often not as accurate or polished as the commercial offerings (Google, Here Technologies), but it's pretty nice. What might make me switch?
- thinkingemote 4mo ago
  CoMaps is a fork/spin-off of Organic Maps, which in turn is a fork of Maps.ME
  - einpoklum 4mo ago
    Ok, but - how is Organic Maps better than Maps.ME (and is Comaps better than Organic Maps in some way other than the transparency issues)?
    - Markoff 4mo ago
      Didn't use Maps.me for years, but does it have colored hiking trails for instance? OM does, CM doesn't.
    - pastk 4mo ago
      Feature-wise projects grow more and more different. Ultimately it'd depend what exact features are important to you. The following overview might help a bit: https://www.comaps.app/support/how-do-the-features-differ-from-those-of-organic-maps https://www.comaps.app/support/how-do-the-features-differ-fr... https://www.comaps.app/support/how-does-the-comaps-project-differ-from-organic-maps-and-maps-me https://www.comaps.app/support/how-does-the-comaps-project-d...
- palata 4mo ago
  In terms of forks, I believe it was Maps.Me -> Organic Maps -> CoMaps. So all forks of the same project. Maps.Me is not open source anymore (I think?), and CoMaps was started by a subset of the Organic Maps community that wasn't happy with the Organic Maps governance. > What might make me switch? Different reasons for different people, but OpenStreetMap is a great community project, for one. What I really like with those apps (I am now using CoMaps) is that they are open source, offline first and the UI is quite minimal and clean.
cobra_69 4mo ago
Is this support all countries? Specially Indian region
- eisa01 4mo ago
  Yup! It is worldwide since it uses OSM data https://www.openstreetmap.org/ https://www.openstreetmap.org/
radec 4mo ago
Is it feasible for something like this to have heatmaps? Maybe the data could be shared/distributed via hypercore or similar. I find heatmaps are my primary way of finding new mountain biking trails and routes.
- ivanjermakov 4mo ago
  Don't think anyone other than Strava and Komoot have sufficient user-generated trail database to be useful for your use-case.
  - radec 4mo ago
    That's possible. I use RideWithGPS, maybe a lot of people use it around here. Or maybe only two other people have ridden the route, it doesn't say, but it's still super useful for finding routes.
  - stigi 4mo ago
    OSM has a heatmap feature. Users can contribute tracks and feed into it: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Heat_maps https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Heat_maps
    - radec 4mo ago
      Awesome! Thanks. I'll look into it. Edit: hmmm I don't think I understand that wiki. Most of those are not the type of heatmap I was thinking of. I'll keep looking into it though.
      - stigi 4mo ago
        In fact they are called "Public GPS Traces" and can be enabled in the OSM layer inspector. I am not sure if anyone started distilling track recommendations from them yet though. Here's a link that has traces enabled (aka layer "G"): https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/52.47166/13.40590&layers=G https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/52.47166/13.40590&laye... There's also a list of recent uploaded traces: https://www.openstreetmap.org/traces https://www.openstreetmap.org/traces
Cider9986 4mo ago
StreetComplete is one of my favorite apps. It's like Pokemon Go mixed with Wikipedia because it gamifies contributing to OpenStreetMap, which powers (all?) mainstream opensource maps. Looking forward to iOS support so more people can use it. https://streetcomplete.app/ https://streetcomplete.app/ https://www.openstreetmap.org/ https://www.openstreetmap.org/
- Tmpod 4mo ago
  For the more experience OSM contributors, there is also a fork called SCEE[1] that adds some extra "quests" and a ton of UI customisability! [1]: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/SCEE https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/SCEE
  - Cider9986 4mo ago
    I wonder if that one lets you add flock cameras. I can't find the option in Streetcomplete.
    - flexagoon 4mo ago
      There is a tag for ALPRs on OpenStreetMap: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:surveillance:type%3DALPR https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:surveillance:type%3D... So you can just add them using a normal OSM editor like EveryDoor or Vespucci
    - Aachen 4mo ago
      You can use the things overlay and add a camera, but it'll not ask you for any properties because of a decision that StreetComplete doesn't want to ask about private objects and cameras without some public tag might be private... Maybe this flock camera situation would provide some impetus to getting this conversation moving again With SCEE you can add the camera and then select it and use "edit tags" to add all the properties. I find it a nice middle ground between a full editor like Vespucci and the quick and easy SC. Haven't tried EveryDoor or MapComplete yet though (the latter's website aims to be as good as a native app would be, idk if they also have an app nowadays but it's an option either way) though
KolmogorovComp 4mo ago
I just wished Organic Map had a better way to download many countries/regions at once. I frequently use it in the airplane without WiFi and wish to have high definition, but downloading country by country is too cumbersome.
informal007 4mo ago
I had my first hiking in a route without network connection one month ago, that was the first time I used the GPS without network by Organic Maps even I knew I could do it in the past. It showed me the possibility that some feature work well without network. It's a really good experience.
zgucci 4mo ago
If there any chance for supporting AppImage for linux? Are there any plans for that?
- etdznots 4mo ago
  There is a desktop client but it’s kind of immature it seems to me compared to the iOS and android frontends
AmblingAvocado 4mo ago
> the same people, who created MapsWithMe/Maps.Me app Ah, the same people who I bought Maps.Me from in 2012 - that when I went to use it recently now bombards me with "sale ending in 4 hours!" pro subscription ad popovers in order to restore functionality (more than 10 offline map areas) that existed at the time I bought the app? No thanks.
- TFNA 4mo ago
  Maps.me got sold to a series of subsequent owners. It was those subsequent owners who enshittified the app, not the original developers mentioned in your quotation. The original developers only later returned to the codebase, because it was freely licensed, and forked it in a different direction.
  - gedankenstuecke 4mo ago
    the original developers of MM then just started to do the same to OM by equally aggressively ask for money :p
    - u8080 4mo ago
      >do the same to OM by equally aggressively ask for money I use OM for a lot of years and never saw any aggressive money ask, could you point me what I am missing?
      - gedankenstuecke 4mo ago
        when opening the page for a place, the bottom for me regularly displays the "donation" ask which in good big tech fashion gives you the "ask again later" option.
        u8080 4mo ago
        Is that on iOS? Never saw such thing on android
storus 4mo ago
I tried to use it while biking but it's extremely confusing for bike trails (colors and parallel routes display, not highlighting real bike trails). I vastly prefer mapy.com in just showing a simple red dashed line for any official bike trail. The elevation is also displayed in 50m increments which is too little for bikes.
kannishk 4mo ago
so helpful
manoDev 4mo ago
In the old times, I bought a Nokia smartphone (5230) because it shipped with offline maps – Nokia had the license for satellite data before Google Maps existed. I also drive a VW with built-in GPS and map loaded from SD card. Offline maps are an obligatory "survival" tool. Most people trust too much they'll have connectivity, but it'll be the first thing to go down when it's most needed (extreme weather, blackouts, conflicts, etc). Thank you for the tip on the app!
dang 4mo ago
Related: Organic Maps migrates to Forgejo due to GitHub account blocked by Microsoft - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43525395 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43525395 - March 2025 (49 comments) Organic Maps Turns 4: The Privacy-Focused Alternative to Google Maps - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42470155 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42470155 - Dec 2024 (6 comments) Organic Maps: Offline Hike, Bike, Trails and Navigation - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42343654 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42343654 - Dec 2024 (1 comment) Maps.me co-founder tries to close down Organic Maps open-source fork - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42343121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42343121 - Dec 2024 (72 comments) Google removed Organic Maps from the Play Store - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41272925 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41272925 - Aug 2024 (224 comments) Organic maps: Experimental feed based public transport mapping - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41152559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41152559 - Aug 2024 (35 comments) Organic Maps is a free Android and iOS offline maps app for travelers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39582797 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39582797 - March 2024 (24 comments) In 2023 Organic Maps got its first million users - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38746187 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38746187 - Dec 2023 (88 comments) Organic Maps - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37347447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37347447 - Sept 2023 (485 comments) OrganicMaps is Android and iOS offline maps for travel without trackers or ads - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27576882 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27576882 - June 2021 (116 comments) Organicmaps: Android and iOS offline maps app for travelers, tourists, hikers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27543012 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27543012 - June 2021 (113 comments)
paulreaney 4mo ago
Love this app. Simple, useful, works offline, and doesn’t feel like it’s trying to track everything I do. Really appreciate that.
MoneyBurning 4mo ago
The offline-first approach is underrated. Most mapping apps assume connectivity as a given — Organic Maps treating it as a luxury is the right call for global users.
rplnt 4mo ago
My favorite renderer of OSM (and possibly other data) https://mapy.com/en/turisticka?x=-3.1744145&y=55.9517954&z=15 https://mapy.com/en/turisticka?x=-3.1744145&y=55.9517954&z=1... there's an app too, some features are paid, and there are some long-standing bugs, but is otherwise quite fine. I use it when I want a map, not just uniform gray void with roads that is google maps.
- Markoff 4mo ago
  yeah, their app will make you pay even for offline maps
mintyLemon 4mo ago
I love organic maps. It’s great for hiking especially coverage through cities is really good too with small landmarks such as water fountains.
goblin89 4mo ago
Organic Maps finally made Hong Kong a region this year. Previously they required you to download the entire “China South” region, which was an extremely weird and wasteful choice. Next it should standardize region naming. For example, the new region is called “China Hong Kong” (every online ordering form out there does simply “Hong Kong”). Simultaneously, Taiwan is just “Taiwan”, so it’s clearly not about following a party line. Simultaneously, places like Falklands (not without its own disputes), South Georgia, Saint Helena have no mention of UK in their respective region titles, while Hawaii and Puerto Rico both lead with USA. I think they should stick with toponyms, instead of trying to be some sort of political arbiter.
- vinay427 4mo ago
  > I think they should stick with toponyms, instead of trying to be some sort of political arbiter. This can mostly work for sub-national names, but doesn’t really address cases such as Taiwan, Cyprus, etc.
h4kunamata 4mo ago
To the best of my knowledge, Organic Maps is a dying project. CoMaps was forked from Organic Maps because of shift in how things were being done and ignored. I mean, those in IT know very well how that is ending. CoMaps is highly active and receiving new features release by release. If you wanna use a 5 stars app based on OpenStreet Maps: https://www.comaps.app/download/ https://www.comaps.app/download/ The fact that OP just posted Organic Maps URL here with no context, and not mentioning that it is a dying project with its user base massively shifting to CoMaps, that is a red flag on its own.
- Markoff 4mo ago
  Does this amazing new fork of a fork have colored hiking trails as this "dying" Organic Maps? I know the answer, tried both, I will let myself out...
  - eisa01 4mo ago
    No, because that part of OM is closed source, one of the main reasons for the fork! It’s coming though: https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/pulls/4111 https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/pulls/4111
    - h4kunamata 4mo ago
      It is already implemented and it works like a charm. I have been using it to explore trails and 4WD tracks, just enabled it on the map at the top left corner. You will see Outdoors which enables the trails/4WD tracks, Contour Lines and Subway.
      - pastk 4mo ago
        Display of marked hiking/cycling routes is a different feature from display of trails and tracks. I.e. a marked route is usually a well-known and/or official one and often quite long (sometimes international even) route which goes through many different trails and tracks and even some roads etc. And - as it had been mentioned above already - its coming to CoMaps too.
shitlorde 4mo ago
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bigdawgg 4mo ago
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taegee 4mo ago
I tried all of them (organic maps, OSMAnd, etc.) and eventually stuck with locus maps. https://locusmap.app https://locusmap.app The interface is a bit cumbersome, but it got way better over time and there are some really engaged developers behind it you can always contact. It's intended for biking and hiking, but you can also use it for cars. Meanwhile, they even support android auto. It's the type of app that grew massively over decades and that offers basically every functionality that you can imagine.
roshanroyj 4mo ago
[flagged]
y04nn 4mo ago
The quality of the maps is getting better, much more useful and detailed than Google Maps. I find it much easier to locate myself on Organic Maps than Google Maps. For example parks are only a green blob on Google Maps, while benches, walking paths, drinking water points, toilets and other landmarks and buildings are visible on Organic Maps. I find that adding transit lines or cycling routes as an overlay is also a great feature. Even the search feature is getting broken on Google Maps, when making a search, it would show up advertised results (in red squares instead of red circles) and when browsing the map there are more advertised useless places surrounded by an almost empty map. The only advantage of Google Map is to find the best way from point A to point B and places reviews.
- kqr 4mo ago
  I often reference this comparison in this context: https://i.xkqr.org/gmapsvsosm.png https://i.xkqr.org/gmapsvsosm.png
  - Tmpod 4mo ago
    That's OSM Carto[1] on the bottom, the default renderer/style on osm.org, but there are many alternative ones too. For example, Maptiler[2] has a bunch of cleaner styles, closer to Google's, yet with greater detail. Here is a basic one used my OSMApp[3] for that place as well: https://i.ibb.co/7dD05Ldp/Captura-de-ecr-20260706-092411.png https://i.ibb.co/7dD05Ldp/Captura-de-ecr-20260706-092411.png [1]: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenStreetMap_Carto https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenStreetMap_Carto [2]: https://www.maptiler.com https://www.maptiler.com [3]: https:/osmapp.org
  - Doohickey-d 4mo ago
    It's often more nuanced than that IMO. OSM in my experience is better at features (roads, hiking trails, and stuff like that), i.e. what's shown in that comparison screenshot. Google Maps is better at place-metadata, such as opening hours; as well as user-contributed content like reviews and photos. So I end up using both, depending on usecase.
    - 4mo ago
ponkipo 4mo ago
As a active OSM contibutor with 7k+ changesets, Organic is my favorite map app I use for years traveling around the world, also donated to them. Only use GMaps for finding businesses. Tried CoMaps, saw no reason to migrate to it at all - why migrate to basically no-name app (in terms of popularity) which is developed by who knows who (not even a Maps Me or OM devs) if Organic is totally good, has updates, stable, works well and has no ads? Have no idea what is this ad talk to be honest. OSMAnd is nice, but too cluttered, OM is much easier to use. Only cool thing is being able to get live updates to a map if you changed something in OSM, but never actually used it for real.
- ffaser5gxlsll 4mo ago
  I'm also a regular OSM contributor and I cycle between various apps/layers. I'm in the alpine region, regular hiker, and osm is the only map source I use (frankly, I find gmaps to be garbage for anything except looking up businesses). I regularly try comaps, but while it's pretty smooth at rendering, the detail is visibly lacking at anything except maximum zoom level. When enabling contour lines, it's cluttered and hard to read. I tried to use it a few times on hikes, and while it's still much better than gmaps, if you're looking for something to use on a hike as an actual readable map and not just something to follow directions on, I'd say bite the bullet and get osmand. osmand has indeed confusing interface, but the map rendering itself is excellent and can be heavily customized as needed. On the web front, tracestack and mapy are both excellent presentations.
mFixman 4mo ago
The killer feature of Organic Maps and OSM is the POI markers for small things. If you are cycling, knowing where the nearest bike rack is to your location is crucial. Google Maps is very good at showing car parking spaces, which is the requirement if you live in a suburb in California like its developers.
zecg 4mo ago
You mean this one: https://www.comaps.app/download/ https://www.comaps.app/download/
superzero11 4mo ago
Excellent open-source mapping alternative. The fact that it's fully offline-capable and privacy-respecting makes it invaluable. The community-driven OSM data model is powerful. Great to see projects like this thriving.
zftnb666 4mo ago
Google Maps shows me ads for restaurants I can't afford. Organic Maps shows me a hiking trail I didn't know existed. Guess which one I opened last

Organic Maps

1184 points by tosh 4mo ago

codingjoe 4mo ago

How is it different from OSMAnd?

TFNA 4mo ago
It's a fork from Maps.me, the streamlined map app popular with normies. I myself use and love OSMAnd, but in the travel communities I am active in, most people react badly to OSMAnd as something arcane and nerdy.
- fender256 4mo ago
  Arcane and nerdy is a good description of OSMAnd. That's why I love it and would never switch to anything else.
frabcus 4mo ago
Better and easier to understand and use UX.
xigoi 4mo ago
Much better performance and much less cluttered UI, at the cost of having fewer features.
- orbital-decay 4mo ago
  And at the cost of map fidelity. Complex curves look terrible at certain zoom levels in CoMaps/Organic Maps.
  - Aachen 4mo ago
    Same in OsmAnd though. Someone recently posted a screenshot of an area they thought was badly mapped (with AI or at least not using the "make square corners" tool). Turns out to be Osmand's coordinate rounding as part of the map data compression Comparing a building in my city between the two maps by flipping between the apps, it looks identical to me. Not a scientific test though
    - deleted 4mo ago
      [deleted]
- bluebarbet 4mo ago
  The performance advantage is small to nil, IME. The UI is admittedly cleaner, though partly (as you say) that's simply because it has a ton less features.
  - xigoi 4mo ago
    Interesting. When I switched from OsmAnd to Organic, the map loaded much faster as I panned it.
    - orbital-decay 4mo ago
      The difference mostly comes from the default detail levels and shape optimization. You can make it as fast in OsmAnd as both are GPU-accelerated, but OsmAnd renders the map more detailed by default.
Markoff 4mo ago
much better UI, does osmand has now colored hiking trails without downloading some extra maps?
- codingjoe 4mo ago
  Yes, you can toggle a setting to use the network colors. I use it mostly for hiking. The UI is a learning curve, 100%, I am curious to check another tool

arnab777 4mo ago

amazing

Yacoby 4mo ago

There is also CoMaps (https://www.comaps.app/ https://www.comaps.app/) which is a fork of Organic Maps, after concern over the governance of Organic Maps https://itsfoss.com/news/organic-maps-fork-comaps/ https://itsfoss.com/news/organic-maps-fork-comaps/

hirako2000 4mo ago
what are the concerns over governance of organics maps ?
- physicalecon 4mo ago
  Some parts of the server were closed source for a bit. No longer the case. Also people got upset that the developers used the product funding to pay for their personal expenses. The idea is folks want the developers to isolate all the money they make from this project and use it to only pay expenses directly related to this project. If they need to eat or something they should get a job, presumably. https://www.comaps.app/news/2025-04-16/1/?ref=itsfoss.com https://www.comaps.app/news/2025-04-16/1/?ref=itsfoss.com
  - beart 4mo ago
    > If they need to eat or something they should get a job, presumably. The tone of this comment is quite different from the text of the open letter to which you refer. Specifically this section. I don't have any personal knowledge either way, but this stood out to me. > As it was revealed by Roman @rtsisyk it wasn't unusual for the Shareholders to use project's donations as their own money e.g. Alexander @biodranik paid for his personal holiday trip expenses this way. At the same time all other contributors were consistently denied any access to any financial information (even to the totals of money donated/spent). (It's fine for developers to be reimbursed for their hard work, but it should be done in a fair, transparent and accountable way.)
    - cryo32 4mo ago
      Going on holiday is why I work. And I use organic maps when I’m on holiday. And donate. Good luck to them.

eisa01 4mo ago

Organic Maps was my go to app for a navigation app where you can fix errors yourself immediately! So much better than having to work for free on the proprietary apps, and hope they accept your edits There’s a fork from one year ago, CoMaps, that is gaining different features E.g., I am adding CarPlay Dashboard support that you can test by joining the TestFlight We are in great need of both more testers and some proper iOS devs (I am not). We’re racing to get scene lifecycle support by September, perfect opportunity if you like modernising old codebases! https://www.comaps.app/ https://www.comaps.app/ https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps

aitchnyu 4mo ago
Any ones which tries to avoid realtime traffic, especially in India? Also ones which detects some shortcuts as narrow, meandering roads that will be extremely slow.
- eisa01 4mo ago
  There’s actually work ongoing on live traffic support from various public sources! https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/projects/21877 https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/projects/21877
  - harkdif 4mo ago
    This looks really solid. It's the thing that would make me switch over. 90% of the time I know exactly where I'm going but need Google Maps to tell me what's unexpectedly in the way while I'm trying to get there.
    - dexterdog 4mo ago
      My problem is that more often than not the road or business name I'm trying to find us just not in the database. If I'm at home I'll try to add it but if I'm driving that is not going to happen and I'll just use something else.

bruce343434 4mo ago

Is there a nautical map equivalent of osm or organic maps? One that emphasizes waterways by drawing them thicker when zoomed out like regular maps draw roads thicker? Plan routes over the water? Even google maps lacks a nautical layer.

shiandow 4mo ago
OsmAnd has a nautical map plugin you can enable.
- RobotToaster 4mo ago
  For some reason osmAnd was the only GPS map that would work on a flight for me.
  - ihatehn 4mo ago
    OM and CoMaps should also work, though you might need to wait awhile for a GPS fix and be near a window. Google's main hiccup will be an internet connection for the maps.
- jboss10 4mo ago
  The plugin is just part of why OsmAnd is good for nautical use, there is also an alternate view in the configure map menu for nautical use.
bmitch3020 4mo ago
The OSS tool for nautical charts is OpenCPN.
s3krit 4mo ago
it depends what type of waterways you’re after. for the sea, https://map.openseamap.org/ https://map.openseamap.org/ is very good (but no route planning sadly - for that you’d need opencpn and some charts obtained. For inland waterways i can only speak for the English canals, for which i recommend https://opencanalmap.uk/ https://opencanalmap.uk/ which uses data from both OSM and the Canal and River Trust. Again, sadly no route planning but for that I use https://canalplan.org.uk/ https://canalplan.org.uk/

efrecon 4mo ago

I used comaps on a hike. It really is good at not draining your battery. I've wanted to run it on my wear OS watch, but while you can sideload the APK, wearOS does not have a file browser, so it's not possible to import a planned route or similar. Has anyone here any idea for how to solve this?

gitaarik 4mo ago
Send it in an attachment over Telegram or something and open that on your watch?

lexlambda 4mo ago

Organic mentions Open Source, but I just saw that FDroid mentions the following: "This app contains non open source components - compiled binary data files (including but not limited to .mwm map files) under a non FLOSS license" Anyone has context on the following not hidden over Git-* issues (I was left thoroughly confused trying to understand it)?

gedankenstuecke 4mo ago
OrganicMaps rolled their own 'data license' for the actual map files: https://github.com/organicmaps/organicmaps/blob/master/DATA_LICENSE.txt https://github.com/organicmaps/organicmaps/blob/master/DATA_... Plus the code that's necessary to generate the map files that OM relies on is no longer openly published. So while true that the actual app code is open source, you can't use it without relying on their proprietary map files.
- mpawelski 4mo ago
  >Plus the code that's necessary to generate the map files that OM relies on is no longer openly published. Seems like a big red flag. And another reason to migrate to CoMaps.
  - deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
  - h4kunamata 4mo ago
    >Seems like a big red flag. And another reason to migrate to CoMaps. Why do you think OM user base forked and mass migrated to CoMaps?? haha

ravenstine 4mo ago

Organic Maps a great app in many ways, but I still don't get how people can actually use it every day and say it replaces Google Maps when its search feature totally stinks. I know it's a hard problem, but this is the number one thing that needs to somehow be fixed. I can't tell if I'm just too dumb or if FOSS/degoogle fanboys are just pretending. I just know I've tried to use it exclusively many times and always had to give in to Google Maps because the search totally failed.

mac3n 4mo ago
search greatly improved in the past couple years. try it again?
- ravenstine 4mo ago
  I thought I updated the app before my recent backpacking trip in Europe, but I will give it a try again.
  - eisa01 4mo ago
    E.g., in the CoMaps fork test builds there is now a change to prioritize nearby places more https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/pulls/4604 https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/pulls/4604
    - everybodyknows 4mo ago
      Another CoMaps Search issue: https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/issues/4449 https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/issues/4449
InsideOutSanta 4mo ago
I guess it depends on how you use Google Maps, but I mainly navigate to addresses, and Comaps works fine for that.
fuzzy2 4mo ago
I actually think the search feature rocks, because you have high fidelity OSM maps to query. Can't search for drinkable wells in Google Maps! But then, it of course isn't Google Maps. It is likely to be more out of date and will not understand "natural" search queries as Google does. I believe it just takes some getting used to. There is overlap between the two, each service has its strengths and weaknesses, but also unique features.

gordonhart 4mo ago

Migrated all of my pins to Organic Maps from Maps.me when it started to aggressively monetize. Smooth process. Been a happy user for years!

AmblingAvocado 4mo ago
I bought Maps.me Pro in 2012, used it while traveling then and was happy. Fired it back up for a similar trip this year and in spite of having paid for it already, I don't have Pro features and I get aggressive "Sale ending in 4 hours!" popovers every time I launch the app.

sgt 4mo ago

Will this take down Big Maps?

bmitch3020 4mo ago
There are two things keeping me using "Big Map". 1. Address lookups. Many of the buildings in OSM have yet to get street addresses added, so navigating to an address is a bit hit or miss. This gets fixed with time as people update the maps and wouldn't be a show stopper. 2. Real time traffic and detour navigation. This is really needed when navigating around busy cities where a wreck on a major highway can result in significant delays. This needs a combination of an external service (separate from OSM) but also one that has enough adoption to have usable data.
- bronson 4mo ago
  There's one more for me: reliable store hours.
  - ygra 4mo ago
    Both this and addresses is something that's really easy to survey with StreetComplete. Google has the benefit of having their own street-level imagery for house numbers and street names, Android devices for real-time traffic info, and the ability to simply scrape web pages for shop data including opening hours. but in places with a reasonable number of active mappers, OSM is so much richer and more up to date.
    - exhilaration 4mo ago
      Google doesn't just scrape websites for store hours, they actually call to confirm them: https://support.google.com/business/answer/7690269?hl=en https://support.google.com/business/answer/7690269?hl=en
      - dhx 4mo ago
        At least in my experience for large retail chains or restaurant chains, hours on their websites are very accurate. I think where Google might benefit from calling to verify hours is, for example, where they've scraped https://schema.org/openingHours https://schema.org/openingHours from the web page for an independent store, but the website has used an invalid/incorrect format, and some manual human check or clean-up is necessary, but this work would be too time consuming for each of 100,000's of independent stores which exist. There are cases where a brand might have broken opening hours information such as "Mo- Tu - We 09 00 -4 p m". For alltheplaces.xyz scrapers, a human is often able to make sense of the situation and fix the problem through a few lines of extra code. Contacting the business to get the hours confirmed would only be necessary in very rare cases. Where it would perhaps make the _most_ sense to contact a business to confirm opening hours is: 1. Ahead of public holidays to confirm planned temporary changes to opening hours. Many brands don't bother to update hours on their websites for such temporary changes, or at least don't list those hours until the week prior, which is usually too late for OSM, ATP, offline maps, etc which would ideally want to know these changes to hours up to a year in advance. 2. To confirm actual dates of permanent store/restaurant closures. Many brands in liquidation tend to fire the website developers (or can't pay them to work) and leave an outdated website online until the final shop or restaurant is closed. Commonly it's only some "CLOSING DOWN SALE LAST DAYS EXTENDED TO FRIDAY" post on social media that informs visitors accurately.

thom 4mo ago

Always loved this. There are still parts of the UK where you’ll have no data offline navigation is great, and the walking paths are better than you can get elsewhere.

resters 4mo ago

I'm very pleased to see open source mapping/navigation systems. I have had the hypothesis for a while that many of the UI/UX designers on the google maps team do not actually drive a car.

throw-the-towel 4mo ago
IDK, my hypothesis is that they only go anywhere by car. The way they hide public transportation and pedestrian-only streets sucks.
01284a7e 4mo ago
People at Apple are not left-handed, they don't drive, they don't work out, and they don't seem to go out in the cold very much. Oh, and they definitely don't play video games.

dxetech 4mo ago

I remember over 15 years ago my wife and I were honeymooning in Europe (rom the US). While we had iOS devices that could use maps, the data services then were terrible, and GPS was effectively useless We ended up taking screen shots of Google Maps where we zoomed in on local streets, on an ad hoc type atlas. I wish we had this app back then

palata 4mo ago
At that time I think I was using CityMaps2Go. Not sure if it still exists though.
cmdoptesc 4mo ago
I believe MapsWithMe (now Maps.me) was released about that time, but I personally didn't get an iOS device until 2013.

kotberg 4mo ago

[flagged]

Cider9986 4mo ago
>Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. >Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. >When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." That comment is against the guidelines. You should make a new comment that avoids breaking the guidelines if you want people to see your criticism.
celsoazevedo 4mo ago
> Btw they (respectively, only one guy, Konstantin!) copy code / changesets from Organic Maps, while this is not happening the other way around. Is anyone breaking any licence here? If not, then I don't understand this complaint.

aaronrobinson 4mo ago

This is amazing

mamaar 4mo ago

There is also https://gitlab.com/tilelessmap/tilelessmap https://gitlab.com/tilelessmap/tilelessmap with some of the same focus areas. > TilelessMap is an open, offline-first mapping engine designed for critical field use, such as forestry, emergency services, and humanitarian work. Built with C and optimized for mobile performance, TilelessMap enables full local map rendering without relying on cloud infrastructure — even in areas with poor or no internet connectivity. They have an Android app with maps of Yellowstone, Sweden and Norway. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.tileless.map.play https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.tileless.m...

palata 4mo ago
I am curious: is it called "tileless" because it uses tiles, but offline? Or does it somehow not use tiles?
- mamaar 4mo ago
  There are no tiles. All geometry is loaded and rendered directly from an SQLite database on every render. Geometry is stored as TWKB (Tiny Well-Known Binary) to reduce storage and transport size. During decoding, they do clever work using aggregate functions and reusing buffers across rows to reduce allocations. There is real potential in the tech, but unfortunately little momentum behind it.
  - palata 4mo ago
    > There are no tiles. All geometry is loaded and rendered directly from an SQLite database on every render. Which can be done with tiles. Or maybe I don't understand what you mean by "tiles"? What do you describe as "tiles"?
    - mamaar 4mo ago
      I would define a tile as a slice of geometries, not whole features. The difference with Tileless' approach, is that they load whole features from the database and don't split them into tiles. So if a feature extends outside the current view, they would load the whole geometry rather than the intersection of the tile's extent and the geometry. Vector tiles are optimized for concurrent downloads and browser / CDN caching and doing a good job of that.

api 4mo ago

This belongs to a class of thing I've been predicting for a while: as non-volatile storage (not RAM but flash etc.) gets cheaper and cheaper, offline snapshots of quantities of information that used to require an Internet connection to practically access become possible. Example: a modern mid-high end phone can contain this, a complete copy of Wikipedia, and a small LLM capable of understanding natural language queries and using tools. All on board, no connection needed. Plus it an also carry most peoples' complete music and book collections and a meaningful chunk of most peoples' movie collections. A mid-high end laptop can carry all of it and then some. Laptop and desktop storage is gigantic by previous generation standards. Mine is a higher end laptop but has 8TB storage. 512GB to 1TB is mainstream.

TFNA 4mo ago
This sounds like an optimistic comment from a decade ago. Cost of storage has gone up recently, as a glance at data-hoarder fora will show. Phones have less storage capacity nowadays inasmuch as many manufacturers are removing SD card slots. The idea is that normies keep stuff in the cloud; self-storage of very large amounts of data is an edge case. In my country, the typical laptop purcase from a retail chain is still 512GB or so, and moreover, few and fewer people own a laptop since it is becoming normal for a smartphone to be one's only computing device outside the workplace (even uni students are foregoing "real computers" now). Anything more than such a basic laptop is a premium product, and premium products cost premium prices.
palata 4mo ago
Offline-first used to be the norm before everything started requiring an internet connection for some reason. I was using OSM data offline 15 years ago on smartphones. The reason it moved to the internet was not that it wasn't possible to stay offline-first. If the app depends on your server, then the owner can monetise that (e.g. with subscriptions) or track the users. It is more interesting for companies than allowing the users to buy a snapshot of the maps once and never come back. Offline-first nowadays comes from open source projects, not from companies.

snerbles 4mo ago

Tried it for while, works with GrapheneOS and Android Auto well enough. What I absolutely can’t stand is the routing. It once tried to send me through residential Oakland on some Manhattan-grade staircase labyrinth instead of just taking normal streets.

Flere-Imsaho 4mo ago
Honestly I've seen google maps suggest some absurd routes, especially to avoid 1 minute of traffic on the motorway. Always best to double check the routing suggestion.
doug-moen 4mo ago
One of the routing options in CoMaps is "avoid stairs". Not enabled by default. See ≡ → Settings → Routing Options. (CoMaps is the open-source, non-profit community fork of Organic Maps.)

NoboruWataya 4mo ago

I use OrganicMaps a lot for long walks and it's great. Works perfectly offline if you have downloaded the map of the region beforehand, which is helpful if you are in an area with poor reception or just want to conserve phone battery by turning off data. And being OSM, it is great for showing less prominent paths/trails and other useful info like drinking water sources, picnic benches etc. And supports importing GPX trails. So IMO it's way better than Google Maps for this use case. It's also very easy to edit some basic data through the app so if you notice an error in the map it's usually possible to fix it right there and then.

throawayonthe 4mo ago

is there any current benefit over comaps?

johanyc 4mo ago
comaps is a fork of organic maps
- throawayonthe 4mo ago
  correct

deleted 4mo ago

[deleted]

maelito 4mo ago

Organic Maps and its fork Comaps still lack a Web client. We're this on https://cartes.app https://cartes.app, trying to push the Web further (even on mobile devices) so that you don't even need an app for most use cases.

scanny 4mo ago
Would you consider using cache storage for enabling offline capabilities? Maybe I am in the minority but I usually go to organic maps for offline usage.
- maelito 4mo ago
  Yes it's planned. Should work in theory, but no one tried before. Maps are so often done as native apps that to my knowledge no one tried to just use the PWA capabilities to cache tiles on the Web. Of course what's hard is cache invalidation. Does the user want to update the tiles ? Never ? Daily, weekly ? Only some regions ? Or manually ? Here's an issue about that : https://codeberg.org/cartes/web/issues/1078 https://codeberg.org/cartes/web/issues/1078 It's in French, unfortunately Codeberg has no auto-translate capabilities yet.
  - bpev 4mo ago
    FWIW, I have an experimental open-source implementation of offline-capable PWA protomaps. Haven't advertised it much, because I haven't sorted out performance (particularly on mobile), and it's a bit buggy still. Also, don't have cache invalidation. But it does work. Usually. xD app: https://maps.bpev.me https://maps.bpev.me source: https://tangled.org/bpev.me/maps https://tangled.org/bpev.me/maps Based on results from indexeddb pmtiles work: https://github.com/jtbaker/pmtiles-offline https://github.com/jtbaker/pmtiles-offline https://github.com/protomaps/PMTiles/issues/395 https://github.com/protomaps/PMTiles/issues/395
    - maelito 4mo ago
      Awesome, thanks for the links.

pi-victor 4mo ago

For offline use I use pocket earth https://pocketearth.com/ https://pocketearth.com/ I'm pleased with it, it's one of the best out there.

roschdal 4mo ago

I love organic maps

dwa3592 4mo ago

This is exciting!! I was not aware of organic maps until today. I use offline maps in google maps also. It's not fully private if it requires GPS connection though!! That's why I have been working on https://github.com/deepanwadhwa/anumaan https://github.com/deepanwadhwa/anumaan for a while now. The focus is on navigating without internet and without GPS.

jraph 4mo ago
> It's not fully private if it requires GPS connection though!! How so? GPS is like FM radio: you send nothing, you only receive. Apps like organic maps or comaps let you use the maps fully offline and you can compute itineraries without GPS when your need this (from point A to point B, with as many stops as you wish). I strongly recommend you to seriously look into comaps or organic maps if you don't know them. Now, "GPS isn't working or depletes my battery, what do I do?" is an interesting topic worth looking into. It seems you are trying to automate what we all do when GPS doesn't work well. I find that relatively easy in a city, not so much in a road on the countryside.
- wasting_time 4mo ago
  They may be thinking of Google's coarse location feature where the handset checks SSIDs in the proximity against Googles database for fast lookup.
  - dwa3592 4mo ago
    This is correct but if the phone's internet is off, there is no way for BSSID look up but maps might collect this in the background for telemetry and send it to the server once the internet is turned back on.
    - psd1 4mo ago
      On android, that's false. Turning off wifi or internet does not disable bssid scanning. You can do it, but it's buried in the settings.

scanny 4mo ago

This is my regular hiking and cycling map, fantastic for offline use as well! Edit: didn’t know about the ads / proprietary server issues. I guess this is the only sort of place to find out unless users are browsing the GitHub repo.

ihatehn 4mo ago
The Telegram/Matrix channel had the info... for minutes at a time before the owners deleted it :X

JumpCrisscross 4mo ago

How does this compare to AllTrails for discovery, tracking and accuracy?

ivanjermakov 4mo ago
I had bad experience tracking my bike ride with it on iOS - seems like app offloaded and didn't record half of the track. Strava and OutRun don't have this problem.
ihatehn 4mo ago
A.T. is extremely trail oriented including user-submitted routes and reviews, but it may miss some less popular raw OSM-based paths. OSM based apps like OsmAnd and CoMaps just display all the data neutrally, such might be better for people who want to see raw reality and make their own route.

lone-cloud 4mo ago

I would recommend people use comaps instead which is the actual FOSS fork. OM has a long history of malicious behaviour like quietly adding ads, turning a part of its previously open sourced code proprietary and misappropriating donations. OM has lost most of its community a year ago to comaps and are now rushing vibe coded features to compensate.

TheRoque 4mo ago
Thanks for the heads up, I wasn't not aware of that. I never got a single ad in OM though
- ihatehn 4mo ago
  It's the Kayak referral links on hotel POIs, which some people consider ads
  - ragazzina 4mo ago
    > which some people consider ads How are they not ads? Is this the "icloud storage promotion in ios settings" discourse again?
ponkipo 4mo ago
> OM has lost most of its community a year ago to comaps > rushing to compensate I understand that you, being a contributor to CoMaps which people can see on your page, want to promote it, but it’s just spreading false info. Just one Russian community of OrganicMaps in Telegram has 4000+ members, CoMaps RU is not even at 200. Global group of OM is at 1650, CoMaps is at 840 of it. It’s not OM who is compensating all over the place in this thread.

RetroTechie 4mo ago

I'll repeat a question asked in an earlier thread on OM: Do there exist apps that share their offline map data? As in: install app A, dowload offline map data for country xyz, use in app A, install app B, use same map data in app B (or C, D etc) without re-downloading the map data? As I understood, that was not the case as each app uses its own format which is some underlying public geo info (presumably too big to have on device), filtered / processed in per-app fashion. The sillyness & waste of this is obvious. So: any progress in resolving this situation?

palata 4mo ago
> The sillyness & waste of this is obvious Until you realise that there is not one true way to show a map, and that different apps may actually have different needs. Suddenly it becomes obvious that not all apps can use the same shared offline data.
- davidee 4mo ago
  To further back this up, just because OSM might be a map's data source, it doesn't mean they use the same rendered vectors or images for the tiles. I make changes to OSM so they can be propagated to a cycling-specific mapping tool I use (it's a commercial tool with their own custom map layers) - it takes about 3-4 weeks from when a change is made on OSM for it to be incorporated into their data set. So yeah, it's not as simple as "we all use OSM so we'll just share all our rendered mapping values".
- RetroTechie 4mo ago
  There's no fundamental reason that underlying map data used by a good % of mapping apps, couldn't be stored 1x on-device, in some standard format and shared across apps. Users could pick & choose what subset(s) of map data they want to store locally. Different apps could pick & choose what features to offer, how to use available data & how to render it. Sad to see that such a conceptually simple problem hasn't been addressed yet. We're talking a good # of apps here, many millions of users, and enormous amounts of storage & bandwidth wasted. Edit: I'm assuming that last bit is a problem for the app developers themselves, too.

mistercheph 4mo ago

Using CoMaps gave me the "Oh shit!" moment for the first time that the convergence of enough high quality open map data and a reasonably designed maps app to consume it was finally happening. It's crazy to think about how much thankless work it took to the point where we have something that is in many ways at parity and even exceeding in some dimensions the user-hating map software. There is still a super long way to go until it suits everyone's needs, but the end + even further is starting to come into sight.

einpoklum 4mo ago

How does Organic Maps differ from Maps.Me (which it also mentions), or PocketEarth mentiond in comments here? Or CoMaps for that matter? I've had Maps.Me on my phone for some years; it's often not as accurate or polished as the commercial offerings (Google, Here Technologies), but it's pretty nice. What might make me switch?

thinkingemote 4mo ago
CoMaps is a fork/spin-off of Organic Maps, which in turn is a fork of Maps.ME
- einpoklum 4mo ago
  Ok, but - how is Organic Maps better than Maps.ME (and is Comaps better than Organic Maps in some way other than the transparency issues)?
  - Markoff 4mo ago
    Didn't use Maps.me for years, but does it have colored hiking trails for instance? OM does, CM doesn't.
  - pastk 4mo ago
    Feature-wise projects grow more and more different. Ultimately it'd depend what exact features are important to you. The following overview might help a bit: https://www.comaps.app/support/how-do-the-features-differ-from-those-of-organic-maps https://www.comaps.app/support/how-do-the-features-differ-fr... https://www.comaps.app/support/how-does-the-comaps-project-differ-from-organic-maps-and-maps-me https://www.comaps.app/support/how-does-the-comaps-project-d...
palata 4mo ago
In terms of forks, I believe it was Maps.Me -> Organic Maps -> CoMaps. So all forks of the same project. Maps.Me is not open source anymore (I think?), and CoMaps was started by a subset of the Organic Maps community that wasn't happy with the Organic Maps governance. > What might make me switch? Different reasons for different people, but OpenStreetMap is a great community project, for one. What I really like with those apps (I am now using CoMaps) is that they are open source, offline first and the UI is quite minimal and clean.

cobra_69 4mo ago

Is this support all countries? Specially Indian region

eisa01 4mo ago
Yup! It is worldwide since it uses OSM data https://www.openstreetmap.org/ https://www.openstreetmap.org/

radec 4mo ago

Is it feasible for something like this to have heatmaps? Maybe the data could be shared/distributed via hypercore or similar. I find heatmaps are my primary way of finding new mountain biking trails and routes.

ivanjermakov 4mo ago
Don't think anyone other than Strava and Komoot have sufficient user-generated trail database to be useful for your use-case.
- radec 4mo ago
  That's possible. I use RideWithGPS, maybe a lot of people use it around here. Or maybe only two other people have ridden the route, it doesn't say, but it's still super useful for finding routes.
- stigi 4mo ago
  OSM has a heatmap feature. Users can contribute tracks and feed into it: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Heat_maps https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Heat_maps
  - radec 4mo ago
    Awesome! Thanks. I'll look into it. Edit: hmmm I don't think I understand that wiki. Most of those are not the type of heatmap I was thinking of. I'll keep looking into it though.
    - stigi 4mo ago
      In fact they are called "Public GPS Traces" and can be enabled in the OSM layer inspector. I am not sure if anyone started distilling track recommendations from them yet though. Here's a link that has traces enabled (aka layer "G"): https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/52.47166/13.40590&layers=G https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/52.47166/13.40590&laye... There's also a list of recent uploaded traces: https://www.openstreetmap.org/traces https://www.openstreetmap.org/traces

Cider9986 4mo ago

StreetComplete is one of my favorite apps. It's like Pokemon Go mixed with Wikipedia because it gamifies contributing to OpenStreetMap, which powers (all?) mainstream opensource maps. Looking forward to iOS support so more people can use it. https://streetcomplete.app/ https://streetcomplete.app/ https://www.openstreetmap.org/ https://www.openstreetmap.org/

Tmpod 4mo ago
For the more experience OSM contributors, there is also a fork called SCEE[1] that adds some extra "quests" and a ton of UI customisability! [1]: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/SCEE https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/SCEE
- Cider9986 4mo ago
  I wonder if that one lets you add flock cameras. I can't find the option in Streetcomplete.
  - flexagoon 4mo ago
    There is a tag for ALPRs on OpenStreetMap: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:surveillance:type%3DALPR https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:surveillance:type%3D... So you can just add them using a normal OSM editor like EveryDoor or Vespucci
  - Aachen 4mo ago
    You can use the things overlay and add a camera, but it'll not ask you for any properties because of a decision that StreetComplete doesn't want to ask about private objects and cameras without some public tag might be private... Maybe this flock camera situation would provide some impetus to getting this conversation moving again With SCEE you can add the camera and then select it and use "edit tags" to add all the properties. I find it a nice middle ground between a full editor like Vespucci and the quick and easy SC. Haven't tried EveryDoor or MapComplete yet though (the latter's website aims to be as good as a native app would be, idk if they also have an app nowadays but it's an option either way) though

KolmogorovComp 4mo ago

I just wished Organic Map had a better way to download many countries/regions at once. I frequently use it in the airplane without WiFi and wish to have high definition, but downloading country by country is too cumbersome.

informal007 4mo ago

I had my first hiking in a route without network connection one month ago, that was the first time I used the GPS without network by Organic Maps even I knew I could do it in the past. It showed me the possibility that some feature work well without network. It's a really good experience.

zgucci 4mo ago

If there any chance for supporting AppImage for linux? Are there any plans for that?

etdznots 4mo ago
There is a desktop client but it’s kind of immature it seems to me compared to the iOS and android frontends

AmblingAvocado 4mo ago

> the same people, who created MapsWithMe/Maps.Me app Ah, the same people who I bought Maps.Me from in 2012 - that when I went to use it recently now bombards me with "sale ending in 4 hours!" pro subscription ad popovers in order to restore functionality (more than 10 offline map areas) that existed at the time I bought the app? No thanks.

TFNA 4mo ago
Maps.me got sold to a series of subsequent owners. It was those subsequent owners who enshittified the app, not the original developers mentioned in your quotation. The original developers only later returned to the codebase, because it was freely licensed, and forked it in a different direction.
- gedankenstuecke 4mo ago
  the original developers of MM then just started to do the same to OM by equally aggressively ask for money :p
  - u8080 4mo ago
    >do the same to OM by equally aggressively ask for money I use OM for a lot of years and never saw any aggressive money ask, could you point me what I am missing?
    - gedankenstuecke 4mo ago
      when opening the page for a place, the bottom for me regularly displays the "donation" ask which in good big tech fashion gives you the "ask again later" option.
      - u8080 4mo ago
        Is that on iOS? Never saw such thing on android

storus 4mo ago

I tried to use it while biking but it's extremely confusing for bike trails (colors and parallel routes display, not highlighting real bike trails). I vastly prefer mapy.com in just showing a simple red dashed line for any official bike trail. The elevation is also displayed in 50m increments which is too little for bikes.

kannishk 4mo ago

so helpful

manoDev 4mo ago

In the old times, I bought a Nokia smartphone (5230) because it shipped with offline maps – Nokia had the license for satellite data before Google Maps existed. I also drive a VW with built-in GPS and map loaded from SD card. Offline maps are an obligatory "survival" tool. Most people trust too much they'll have connectivity, but it'll be the first thing to go down when it's most needed (extreme weather, blackouts, conflicts, etc). Thank you for the tip on the app!

dang 4mo ago

Related: Organic Maps migrates to Forgejo due to GitHub account blocked by Microsoft - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43525395 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43525395 - March 2025 (49 comments) Organic Maps Turns 4: The Privacy-Focused Alternative to Google Maps - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42470155 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42470155 - Dec 2024 (6 comments) Organic Maps: Offline Hike, Bike, Trails and Navigation - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42343654 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42343654 - Dec 2024 (1 comment) Maps.me co-founder tries to close down Organic Maps open-source fork - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42343121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42343121 - Dec 2024 (72 comments) Google removed Organic Maps from the Play Store - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41272925 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41272925 - Aug 2024 (224 comments) Organic maps: Experimental feed based public transport mapping - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41152559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41152559 - Aug 2024 (35 comments) Organic Maps is a free Android and iOS offline maps app for travelers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39582797 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39582797 - March 2024 (24 comments) In 2023 Organic Maps got its first million users - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38746187 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38746187 - Dec 2023 (88 comments) Organic Maps - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37347447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37347447 - Sept 2023 (485 comments) OrganicMaps is Android and iOS offline maps for travel without trackers or ads - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27576882 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27576882 - June 2021 (116 comments) Organicmaps: Android and iOS offline maps app for travelers, tourists, hikers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27543012 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27543012 - June 2021 (113 comments)

paulreaney 4mo ago

Love this app. Simple, useful, works offline, and doesn’t feel like it’s trying to track everything I do. Really appreciate that.

MoneyBurning 4mo ago

The offline-first approach is underrated. Most mapping apps assume connectivity as a given — Organic Maps treating it as a luxury is the right call for global users.

rplnt 4mo ago

My favorite renderer of OSM (and possibly other data) https://mapy.com/en/turisticka?x=-3.1744145&y=55.9517954&z=15 https://mapy.com/en/turisticka?x=-3.1744145&y=55.9517954&z=1... there's an app too, some features are paid, and there are some long-standing bugs, but is otherwise quite fine. I use it when I want a map, not just uniform gray void with roads that is google maps.

Markoff 4mo ago
yeah, their app will make you pay even for offline maps

mintyLemon 4mo ago

I love organic maps. It’s great for hiking especially coverage through cities is really good too with small landmarks such as water fountains.

goblin89 4mo ago

Organic Maps finally made Hong Kong a region this year. Previously they required you to download the entire “China South” region, which was an extremely weird and wasteful choice. Next it should standardize region naming. For example, the new region is called “China Hong Kong” (every online ordering form out there does simply “Hong Kong”). Simultaneously, Taiwan is just “Taiwan”, so it’s clearly not about following a party line. Simultaneously, places like Falklands (not without its own disputes), South Georgia, Saint Helena have no mention of UK in their respective region titles, while Hawaii and Puerto Rico both lead with USA. I think they should stick with toponyms, instead of trying to be some sort of political arbiter.

vinay427 4mo ago
> I think they should stick with toponyms, instead of trying to be some sort of political arbiter. This can mostly work for sub-national names, but doesn’t really address cases such as Taiwan, Cyprus, etc.

h4kunamata 4mo ago

To the best of my knowledge, Organic Maps is a dying project. CoMaps was forked from Organic Maps because of shift in how things were being done and ignored. I mean, those in IT know very well how that is ending. CoMaps is highly active and receiving new features release by release. If you wanna use a 5 stars app based on OpenStreet Maps: https://www.comaps.app/download/ https://www.comaps.app/download/ The fact that OP just posted Organic Maps URL here with no context, and not mentioning that it is a dying project with its user base massively shifting to CoMaps, that is a red flag on its own.

Markoff 4mo ago
Does this amazing new fork of a fork have colored hiking trails as this "dying" Organic Maps? I know the answer, tried both, I will let myself out...
- eisa01 4mo ago
  No, because that part of OM is closed source, one of the main reasons for the fork! It’s coming though: https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/pulls/4111 https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/pulls/4111
  - h4kunamata 4mo ago
    It is already implemented and it works like a charm. I have been using it to explore trails and 4WD tracks, just enabled it on the map at the top left corner. You will see Outdoors which enables the trails/4WD tracks, Contour Lines and Subway.
    - pastk 4mo ago
      Display of marked hiking/cycling routes is a different feature from display of trails and tracks. I.e. a marked route is usually a well-known and/or official one and often quite long (sometimes international even) route which goes through many different trails and tracks and even some roads etc. And - as it had been mentioned above already - its coming to CoMaps too.

shitlorde 4mo ago

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bigdawgg 4mo ago

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taegee 4mo ago

I tried all of them (organic maps, OSMAnd, etc.) and eventually stuck with locus maps. https://locusmap.app https://locusmap.app The interface is a bit cumbersome, but it got way better over time and there are some really engaged developers behind it you can always contact. It's intended for biking and hiking, but you can also use it for cars. Meanwhile, they even support android auto. It's the type of app that grew massively over decades and that offers basically every functionality that you can imagine.

roshanroyj 4mo ago

[flagged]

y04nn 4mo ago

The quality of the maps is getting better, much more useful and detailed than Google Maps. I find it much easier to locate myself on Organic Maps than Google Maps. For example parks are only a green blob on Google Maps, while benches, walking paths, drinking water points, toilets and other landmarks and buildings are visible on Organic Maps. I find that adding transit lines or cycling routes as an overlay is also a great feature. Even the search feature is getting broken on Google Maps, when making a search, it would show up advertised results (in red squares instead of red circles) and when browsing the map there are more advertised useless places surrounded by an almost empty map. The only advantage of Google Map is to find the best way from point A to point B and places reviews.

kqr 4mo ago
I often reference this comparison in this context: https://i.xkqr.org/gmapsvsosm.png https://i.xkqr.org/gmapsvsosm.png
- Tmpod 4mo ago
  That's OSM Carto[1] on the bottom, the default renderer/style on osm.org, but there are many alternative ones too. For example, Maptiler[2] has a bunch of cleaner styles, closer to Google's, yet with greater detail. Here is a basic one used my OSMApp[3] for that place as well: https://i.ibb.co/7dD05Ldp/Captura-de-ecr-20260706-092411.png https://i.ibb.co/7dD05Ldp/Captura-de-ecr-20260706-092411.png [1]: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenStreetMap_Carto https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenStreetMap_Carto [2]: https://www.maptiler.com https://www.maptiler.com [3]: https:/osmapp.org
- Doohickey-d 4mo ago
  It's often more nuanced than that IMO. OSM in my experience is better at features (roads, hiking trails, and stuff like that), i.e. what's shown in that comparison screenshot. Google Maps is better at place-metadata, such as opening hours; as well as user-contributed content like reviews and photos. So I end up using both, depending on usecase.
  - 4mo ago

ponkipo 4mo ago

As a active OSM contibutor with 7k+ changesets, Organic is my favorite map app I use for years traveling around the world, also donated to them. Only use GMaps for finding businesses. Tried CoMaps, saw no reason to migrate to it at all - why migrate to basically no-name app (in terms of popularity) which is developed by who knows who (not even a Maps Me or OM devs) if Organic is totally good, has updates, stable, works well and has no ads? Have no idea what is this ad talk to be honest. OSMAnd is nice, but too cluttered, OM is much easier to use. Only cool thing is being able to get live updates to a map if you changed something in OSM, but never actually used it for real.

ffaser5gxlsll 4mo ago
I'm also a regular OSM contributor and I cycle between various apps/layers. I'm in the alpine region, regular hiker, and osm is the only map source I use (frankly, I find gmaps to be garbage for anything except looking up businesses). I regularly try comaps, but while it's pretty smooth at rendering, the detail is visibly lacking at anything except maximum zoom level. When enabling contour lines, it's cluttered and hard to read. I tried to use it a few times on hikes, and while it's still much better than gmaps, if you're looking for something to use on a hike as an actual readable map and not just something to follow directions on, I'd say bite the bullet and get osmand. osmand has indeed confusing interface, but the map rendering itself is excellent and can be heavily customized as needed. On the web front, tracestack and mapy are both excellent presentations.

mFixman 4mo ago

The killer feature of Organic Maps and OSM is the POI markers for small things. If you are cycling, knowing where the nearest bike rack is to your location is crucial. Google Maps is very good at showing car parking spaces, which is the requirement if you live in a suburb in California like its developers.

zecg 4mo ago

You mean this one: https://www.comaps.app/download/ https://www.comaps.app/download/

superzero11 4mo ago

Excellent open-source mapping alternative. The fact that it's fully offline-capable and privacy-respecting makes it invaluable. The community-driven OSM data model is powerful. Great to see projects like this thriving.

zftnb666 4mo ago

Google Maps shows me ads for restaurants I can't afford. Organic Maps shows me a hiking trail I didn't know existed. Guess which one I opened last