PlantsPack - a free, open-data vegan places app (iOS & Android)
I've been building a vegan places directory (shared in this post) and enough people asked for an app that it's finally live on iOS and Android. It's a small independent project run by 2 people. If you've used HappyCow it lives in that world, but the focus is a bit different:
- Vegan-oriented, not vegetarian. A place with no vegan options doesn't get listed, and 100% vegan spots are flagged separately from mostly-vegan, vegan-friendly, and "only 1-2 vegan options" - so you know before you go.
- Free, no ads, nobody can pay to rank higher. Businesses can claim and manage their own page for free.
- Open and community-correctable: much of the data is OpenStreetMap + other open sources, so if a spot's missing you can add it, and if something's mislabelled or mis-categorised you can help me fix it from its page in one tap.
- It's more than a map - there are free vegan tools in there too (barcode scanner, menu/ingredients scanner, and more).
Honest about the state: it's still growing, some cities are thin, and since a lot of the data comes from OSM/open sources the quality isn't perfect yet.
Looking forward to your feedback and criticism - be brutal.
24 replies
That's great to see! HappyCow is already a decent option, but something vegan oriented is of course better. Do you plan to also release your app on F-Droid or similar open source stores?
Cheers for the work!
I have a plan for a dedicated F-Droid version of the app. And hope to launch it during the summer still (hope the new google approach to apps will fail as well). It's a little more tricky for me personally as this is my first-ever production-grade mobile app, so it takes some time to figure out the details. For example, push notifications will not work, for better or worse and I'd like people to get notifications when there is a new vegan spot in their city + I use Expo (this felt like the best path initially) which will not work well for F-droid builds.
So it will take some time - but I will open source it and move to F-Droid and hopefully other catalogs as well.
That's great to hear that an f-droid version is coming! Would you be open to implementing UnifiedPush for those builds?
For an app like this, not having notifications wouldn't be the end of the world for me, but the more apps that support alternatives to Google Firebase, the better.
I'll definitely consider this. It gets harder to maintain, the more users are joining, so I need to reconsider some of the aprooval flows, review flows etc. to make sure data-quality is at least stable and hopefully improving first. But UnifiedPush will indeed land in the backlog right below the basic F-Droid version
Not an FSF complaint license and no Fdroid option.
Remember if you don’t get the source code and the app is “free as in beer” then you are paying them with your privacy.
Valid point, as I mentioned in one of previous replies - this is my first ever mobile app and I've used some things along the way that would not work with F-droid builds right away, but I'm working on it as we speak, to make an open source version and make it available for public.
Also inside the platform -> you may delete your account at any time and I commit to never use any customers data outside of the customers experience with a platform itself.
I'd definitely download it once its open source :)
I will add another post here once it's opened and available. Thanks for your interest :)
Thanks for making this! It'll be good to have an alternative to Happy Cow. I've recently broken free of Google play services and the map on the Happy Cow app no longer works for me.
Indeed, that's part of the mission! I'm still educating myself in terms of veganism (being vegan for 2 years so far) while building this, so it takes some time to make it good, but I'm genuinely impressed with how far I could get so far and I have no intentions to slow down and your comment is very encouraging to keep pushing it forward :)
Checked it and my city has way more vegan options than I was aware of, thanks!
wow, happy to hear that! I'd still recommend to check at least google maps to be sure it's open and opening hours are correct. My data is OK, but I can't guarantee yet, unless the verification badge clearly states that it's verified (I've checked quite some places manualy).
I keep improving data every day. So thanks for an encouraging comment :)
Already downloaded on iOS, looks really promising! I’m gonna add some places looking on what’s missing comparing to other apps. If I add a place to OSM would it be available on this app too?
thanks and great question! I run automated scripts every week now and it looks back ~9 days, not 7 - a deliberate overlap buffer so nothing that changed between runs slips through, but for now it's not automatic - it produces the report for me to work on. I'm considering automating it at some point.
At first glance I like the app! There are some nice to have things I haven't seen before, like the explaination in different languages.
However, there are also quite a few UI bugs. Like the map settings having an animated backdrop, or the partially invisible pet friendly toggle. Do you accept these anywhere?
Thanks for flagging those! I will add a "leave feedback form" in app. But I surely accept all feedback/corrections/suggestions at [email protected] and there is a contact form on the web platform as well.
And i will fix those UI issues asap :)
Is there a reason for not accepting issues directly on whatever platform you host the git repository? It's a lot more convienient and allows for a proper back and forth.
I get not allowing other contributors with the recent flood of AI crap, but issues should be fine.
No valid reason tbh. I just forgot about it while building and now have tons of things to work on (also aside from the project). Will make sure to open the repo for contributions asap and notify everyone in the app that it's possible now. Thanks for highlighting it :)
Looks good! I did see multiple places that were listed as 100% vegan even though they were tagged ‘diet:vegan=yes’ and not ‘diet:vegan=only’. I know for a fact these places aren’t vegan only, so is it possible to see how a listing was established?
There are more details on web version, probably still not enough. I did not want to make the place page to crowded with more "technical" data. But I will reconsider it moving on. You may also help me verify the places by markign them in app or on web or suggesting exact changes on web :) thanks
Why not on f-droid?
As I mentioned in one of the previous comment -> this is my first ever mobile app. I'm basically educating myself building it and found out about F-droid to late in the process, when there were already in-app firebase notifications, that will not work there. As someone mentioned - there is alternative and I'm moving to it in nearest weeks + open sourcing the project, so it will land on F-Droid and will be open to contributions as well. Thanks for pushing for it :)
Hey, thanks for replying and being so open to your reasoning and thinking.
I was looking at the report on the aurora store, but indeed noticed a dependence on google services.
I'm lookin forward to the update and will check back regularly. Don't burn yourself out though, and ask for help when you need it! It's a great project and I'm eager to see where it goes.
Thanks for the kind words :) I'm enjoying it a lot, but of course can't make it a full time activity, so, indeed, need to be careful about mindset and clarity to not burnout. But i will keep everyone here posted once it's open sourced and ready for contributions.