Contributing to OSM is the best way to give yourself and others freedom from Google. It's very easy to do through StreetComplete, which is a gamified system that updates the map as people complete quests.
I was also worried about this, but if you make your changes wide reaching enough and don't use the same username as everywhere else (honestly, this is a good practice for all accounts), it shouldn't leak your identity.
This is a real problem. Search on any OSM app is not the same as GMaps or the other mainstream map services. Contributing to OSM through EveryDoor or StreetComplete in your area will definitely help improve this but as a stop gap I use an app called GMaps WV. It loads Google Maps in an isolated web browser, which allows you to use their search and once you find what your looking for it has a share option that copies the coordinates to the clipboard which you paste into CoMaps and let it take over.
It's a French project, I guess it's translated in French before English. Non-English speakers are used to seeing snippets of English in translated UIs but I understand the other way around is unusual
If it meets your requirements, try Vela Maps which is a degoogled Google Maps.
" A degoogled maps & navigation client for Android - what NewPipe is to YouTube, for Google Maps. Open vector tiles for the basemap, the device itself scraping Google's public web endpoints (per-user, no backend) for the things only Google does well: POI quality, routing, and traffic-aware ETAs. Built to run on GrapheneOS and other no-GMS ROMs. "
I think it's a fairly new product and seems to be rapidly improving performance with quite a few updates lately. (I have discovered some glitches but they seem to be addressed as soon as the app updates the next time.)
It might meet your requirements because it's not Google Maps.
It might not meet your requirements if you want a truly no-Google product, because it uses a few Google things anonymously in the back end...
Osmand is free on fdroid. Comaps is probably a better google maps substitute for most people though. Osmand has deep features but is comparitively a bit clunky.
Despite being advertised as a community-driven project, key decisions, including financial management, partnerships (with Kayak, for instance), and the inclusion of proprietary components in the code were made by a small group of shareholders, often without input from the broader contributor community.
These shareholders have reportedly used the project’s donation funds for personal expenses, like holiday trips, raising serious concerns about financial transparency.
If you listen to the CoMaps developers’ perspective, they’re naturally going to talk up their competitors at Organic Maps. In any case, Organic Maps another open-source map, free and open to everyone. And new features are added much faster than in CoMaps (public transportation, hiking style, alternative routing). Try both options and choose the one that works best for you.
Organic Maps is also technically committing tax fraud by paying the owners dividends but no salaries. They're making quite a bit off the donations too. All of which was pocketed.
Co-maps generally works good for me, bht the bjg disadvantage is it has no traffic data (I think this might be inherently incompatable with standard foss, would love to be wrong though).
So my go to when driving is HERE wego, which works well and is up to date (and not evil as far as I know)
Ow that is super exciting, I figured it would be a festure not in line with theil way their map functions (as you need to download everything). Glad to be wrong.
CoMaps is good if you already know where to go.
I use it in conjunction with GMapsWV: look for a place, copy the coordinates with the share button and paste them into CoMaps.
Never missed an address and I use it quite a bit.
That can be a good strategy, and please, if you can, once you find a place in GMapsWV that isn't on OSM, add it to OSM so the map becomes better for everyone and we soon won't need GMapsWV.
Thanks for the recommendation for GMapsWV. I didn't know about that, and have always felt very uncomfortable when using Google Maps to find restaurants and such that aren't always listed in OSM.
I had this talk with a friend the other week, but I can't recommend enough that if something OSM based isn't showing correctly, you can always add it in once you find the right answer. For example, if it doesn't have hours listed for a business, I'll go to their website and copy that data in, or if the address doesn't show up right, I'll edit the building with the correct address. I found the other day that the address for my apartment was listed over a garage up the street instead of my building and I just removed the one and added in the other.
I completely fixed my neighborhood of 800 homes. took me a week. I drew in the house shapes and the heights, turned the row home blocks into individual linked blocks with exact addresses and accurate sidewalks.
I meant more how did you find the height of the structures? Is it listed in a property database somewhere or are all the houses roughly the size of yours so you just used that as a base?
I live in a neighborhood with 3 house styles; each has a fixed number of floors. The townhomes all have 8' ceilings, a basement, 1st, a second floor, and an attic or loft. All basements are walkout so i count them. I-joists are about 18 inches. So the townhomes are ~ 11 meters.
The single family are basement, 1st, and second, with 10" main floor and 8" second floor, then they have 16' attics, which puts them ~ 13m
The apartment complex has 5 fixed floors. It was trickier because I don't know the internal structure, nor the height of the decorative crowns, so I took a Google Earth look at the side of the building, drew a 45-degree line down from the top, and measured the bottom of the triangle
Not op but one i encountered was that gmaps kept sending people down a private road with a locked gate before someone submitted feedback and got it changed
From my own recent tests, Maps.me is good for finding businesses, citymapper is good for public transport, and TomTom is good for driving directions with live trafic.
OSMAnd is amazing, customisable, can do everything (I use it for hiking, saving locations, and topography) but for things you'd use google for (finding businesses, driving, street view) google does those things much better.
And PSA for those who don't know, Waze is owned by google and maintained in Israel.
Waze is my Achilles heel when it comes to degoogling. I use OSMAnd~ frequently and love it (even considering getting a lifetime license), but with the multitude of options it has it's missing a dedicated way for community driven police reports when driving. Absolutely essential feature in daily commutes for me. And not to mention I have to often find a location in GVmaps and manually input it to OSMAnd to be able to navigate to it since it's missing so many.
I was using organic until CoMaps forked it, now CoMaps is the way. It's open street map so you can sign up and fix whatever you want, pull down the next version and it's there.
I do miss street view, voiced street names, and really miss cowdsourced hazards from waze but it's worth it if you're not on a long high speed trip.
This right here; if I can ever manage to get my transmission fixed, I can start recording my DoorDash trips, again. OSM is painfully lacking info in my city.
It's primarily an issue of getting the necessary tools to be able to drop the bastich in the first place, and then figuring out when to do it, because now is absolutely not the time in the southeastern United States.
Interesting, I've been using the actual deflock app, but it doesn't have android auto. I'm assuming this pulls data from OSM or deflock. Do you know how quick that syncs?
Hmm. That doesn't seem to address what I'm after as it looks like just another app that doesn't let you export a route. Also I noticed that its routing algo is worse/doesn't allow fine grain control of the dodge distance. Also also absolutely proprietary. Ty tho!
I love Organic Maps. Works on Android and IOS. Fully offline (maps predownload at first run) and all route calculation is locally computed so it's especially good for hiking or where signal is poor.
Only thing I miss is live traffic updates but for me that's an acceptable tradeoff for the ultimate offline privacy as far as a digital map can do it.
The voice it uses is whatever's built into the phone's accessibility features so on some devices it sounds a bit janky, but on Android at least you can install different ones if that bothers you.
I've just started using MapQuest like many others since the lake ontario thing. It's been pretty good and I find it a lot more functional and accurate than the Foss options at the moment. It's not perfect but it's also not Google or apple.
I found when I typed in locations by name or even lots of street addresses to OSM it would often give wrong results or just say cannot be found. Haven't run into that at all with MapQuest, every address I type in has come up on the map. Type in company/business names and they pop up. Had trouble with that when I tried osm
Holy shit im impressed by this project! Vela is degoogled gmaps, like newpipe is an alternative for youtube. Mighty impressive what they have done so far, seems like a new project, keeping my eyes on this one!
Yeah, but so far I haven't had to provide any information to it whatsoever other than location access. For finding businesses and stuff like that, great stuff.
If you use live traffic re-checks, it pings google every few minutes, providing your updated position. And when it's off, I think it still sends Google your initial position and route? But I'm not sure that can be turned off completely.
Yeah, it pings Google for almost all of it. But for a quick "where is X store" and traffic if, for example, going to the airport and my wife made us late (it never happens, it's just an example 😏), I'm not too concerned. I have been using OSMAnd+ exclusively for a few years now, but this is something very useful for my needs.
I'm guessing that, since I'm on GrapheneOS, there's not much, if anything at all, that they can tie to my person.
What's the difference between Openstreetmap and Graphene's geocoder? I have the later, i think it's the default.
And yeah, ditto for me, I've been using comaps until now, but being able to search shops without resorting to the full invasion of gmaps is neat indeed.
The GraoheneOS one is a reimplementation of the stock Google play service, while OSM is entirely community driven. I chose OSM in my phone for that, but in all honesty, you should be fine using GrapheneOS's all the same.
sorry man, this is my best guess. herewego has not much local business data and rating. comaps is only good for biking basicly. osmand has no traffic data.
my biggest problem with vela, that tge gmap links my gf sends, wont open on lineage.maybe it does on graphene, cause the project priority is that platform.
I had been using them but just checked and they went MAGA recently. Looked up their history and... ofc they're owned by BMW/Mercedes. So No more Here WeGo.
MapQuest is a perfectly reasonable commercial alternative that has all of the things you'd expect - dynamically-loaded map tiles, turn-by-turn nav, etc. If you want to look at options that use OpenStreetMap data, I've found CoMaps to be very good. The biggest drawback is that you have to download maps (~100-300MB per geo area) all at once, which can be a problem if you're on the road and don't have great signal strength.
I use CoMaps for walking and for searching around, but Magic Earth's been better for driving. It's genuinely pretty good, but it sucks that it's closed source and proprietary, I'll gladly replace it with CoMaps or another FOSS alternative if one catches up.
I use that too! Kinda clunky but does the job. I prefer CoMaps - it seems smoother - but it doesn't have all the actual addresses for the little towns I pass through.
Which map is good depends largely on your needs, I think. Do you need it for car navigation, walking, biking, or public transport?
OSM maps are better for pedestrians and cyclists in many regions, while Google Maps is more designed for car drivers.
I can never find anything on OSM based maps by themselves. My current method is to search via the Apple Maps web beta then use geoshare to copy the location to CoMaps for turn-by-turn. I have magic earth installed as a fallback if I have problems with comaps.
No. Most aren't able to do basic navigation to addresses of people. I'd like it to be different but for me CoMaps and the other ones aren't useful (yet)
I've generally been able to with Organic Maps. If the street address won't get me exactly to them, I'll add a mark right at their place on the map and route to that. That almost always works.
Osmand is so good, Maps is a shittier alternative these days. I only use Osmand and occasiobaly "gmaps wv" wrapper for google maps from fdroid if I need traffic density.
The problem with Here Wego maps and MapQuest that they do contain outdated information, but in Osmand and CoMaps, you can just login and add this information yourself.
"Explore the globe with Mapcarta—the open map that unites the world through the collective knowledge of OpenStreetMap, Wikipedia, Wikidata, and other open projects."
I've tried several over the past few weeks. There aren't any that can even do the basic job of mapping from point a to b consistently for some reason. Mapquest came the closest, but 3 issues.
It won't stay in landscape mode unless I put my tablet on Dex
It often can't find addresses based on business names, and sometimes not at all.
It doesn't have wide enough categories to find a good amount of places if you don't know the address or name of what you're wanting
I like the interface, it looks nice, but it's missing key map things, that should be the basics over things like a unicorn icon, which is cute, but useless.
I tried most of the ones mentioned here but they rarely include any ratings or additional features. For me what comes close enough to a Google/apple maps alternative is mapy.com . Its not Foss and some features are behind a subscription. But its European and 19€ a year is OK with me. Some features that might be interesting:
I pay to use Sygic for turn by turn driving directions and it's been worth it. Can even pay through their website and bypass paying through Google Play, which I feel is a big blind spot for a lot of these services.
Also it's a euro based company, so data sovereignty is possible.
I've been using a few but mostly CoMaps. What I would love to see most in any google maps alternative is voice search, but not sure that is an option outside big tech.
I just wanted to add here that Here WeGo is owned by BMW/Mercedes (according to wikipedia) and they just changed GUlf of Mexico to the trash. So ... no Here WeGo.
They get outdated when names change, detours are required, anywhere they don't exist, lack public transit, don't have live traffic info, and don't even show you where you are.
Who cares? Most of that list is negligible and the rest is a specific real-time occurrence that may not even be updated in a timely manner on the tech side. The underlying geography and major routes don't change. Grab an old map and hit the road, you'll find it's mostly correct but you do need illumination if operating it in the dark.
About as safe as staring at a fake road on your phone screen ? You’re not supposed to look at the directions for too long on your phone just cuz you can put it at eye level now, that’s still distracted driving. You remember what turns you take and if you can’t do that you either pull over and look or you have someone that can navigate
Yeah and for me it’s always too late, and most of them don’t have a solid plan, like you’ll need to be in this lane etc. That’s one of the biggest parts of navigation. If you pre plan your route you will know where to go and so on
I really appreciate mapy.com. They are european (Czech) company. Outside of Czech Republic they base on OSM and have very pretty and useful rendering of "outdoor" map, especially with hiking trails and point of interests almost like on paper map.
They also have their own system of posting images and commenting and have some noticable community, yet much smaller than on google.
You can also contribute to map content, yet I am not sure if they contribute upstream to OSM.
The killer-paid-feature for me is vector offline maps in the "outdoor" flavor, which saved me many times on trips with poor internet coverage.
I hope they survive long before someone buys and enshittifies them.
@mfuhrmann@InterestingUsername Sorry, im on #GrapheneOS and I don't use any Google Services. So i could'nt test that.
It is a pity, that there is no open interface between cars and #AOSP based Smartphones...
I was wondering to pass to regular Navigator. There are many sold second hand . Why to use mobile for navigation? The only worry is the update of maps...
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I’ve been using CoMaps for a while as my only map app and I’m very happy with it.
My main issue with it is that often it cannot find the street/city I'm searching. That's why I don't use it all the time.
Contributing to OSM is the best way to give yourself and others freedom from Google. It's very easy to do through StreetComplete, which is a gamified system that updates the map as people complete quests.
The city exist on the map, it's the search that doesn't find. Not sure what I could do in that case.
It can't find the entire city on the map, even though it's on the map? I've never experienced that, I'm not sure how that's possible.
My issue with OSM is that i need an account which may potentially contribute to leak my identity
Not really fixing the account issue, but can you use an email alias? I use one for my account.
I was also worried about this, but if you make your changes wide reaching enough and don't use the same username as everywhere else (honestly, this is a good practice for all accounts), it shouldn't leak your identity.
This is a real problem. Search on any OSM app is not the same as GMaps or the other mainstream map services. Contributing to OSM through EveryDoor or StreetComplete in your area will definitely help improve this but as a stop gap I use an app called GMaps WV. It loads Google Maps in an isolated web browser, which allows you to use their search and once you find what your looking for it has a share option that copies the coordinates to the clipboard which you paste into CoMaps and let it take over.
Have you downloaded the map for that area?
Yes.
Cartes is probably the closest thing that I've found (besides Apple Maps or Bing Maps).
Interesting. I really need one that does public transit.
Funny how this one has random snippets of French in the UI.
It's a French project, I guess it's translated in French before English. Non-English speakers are used to seeing snippets of English in translated UIs but I understand the other way around is unusual
Clearly the French have their priorities straight.
Croissants clearly need to be before any meager restaurant or coffee shop.
Uh-uh, nop: Croissants, then Fine Dining with exceptional wines need be before anything else.
I read enough French that I didn't notice at first, but then I was like "wait that said ride for 2 arrêtes...", and chuckled.
They are still looking for translators if you have some time available. They are on codeberg
Omg why haven't I heard of that one before ???
Looks great but the lack of mobile app is a deal breaker :/
Thanks it sounds really good
Why the fuck did we ever start using links for places?? We already had a decent universal system: COORDINATES!
Is this web based only or is there a android app, can't seem to find it on any app store.
Web based. You can "install" the Web App, but it doesn't seem to allow for any additional features that I can tell.
For offline modes, CoMaps and OsmAnd+ are my go to.
If it meets your requirements, try Vela Maps which is a degoogled Google Maps.
" A degoogled maps & navigation client for Android - what NewPipe is to YouTube, for Google Maps. Open vector tiles for the basemap, the device itself scraping Google's public web endpoints (per-user, no backend) for the things only Google does well: POI quality, routing, and traffic-aware ETAs. Built to run on GrapheneOS and other no-GMS ROMs. "
I think it's a fairly new product and seems to be rapidly improving performance with quite a few updates lately. (I have discovered some glitches but they seem to be addressed as soon as the app updates the next time.)
It might meet your requirements because it's not Google Maps.
It might not meet your requirements if you want a truly no-Google product, because it uses a few Google things anonymously in the back end...
Super cool. had no idea that existed
This needs to be made a library so that someone can write an OsmAnd plugin for the POI search.
Openstreetmaps
Android app OSMAnd+
No android auto support though..
You can run android auto through graphene.
@duckshuffgoose
Android Auto work with the FDroid Version
Say what? Is that new? Maybe I used obtanium for it initially. thanks!
Funfact: it is one map - the data is universal. That's why it's called OpenStreetMap
Osmand is free on fdroid. Comaps is probably a better google maps substitute for most people though. Osmand has deep features but is comparitively a bit clunky.
Whats wrong with organic? I've used all of these and it felt almost identical to comaps
https://itsfoss.com/news/organic-maps-fork-comaps/
Which is why they forked CoMaps.
Oh wow, thanks for letting me know
If you listen to the CoMaps developers’ perspective, they’re naturally going to talk up their competitors at Organic Maps. In any case, Organic Maps another open-source map, free and open to everyone. And new features are added much faster than in CoMaps (public transportation, hiking style, alternative routing). Try both options and choose the one that works best for you.
Why are 100% of your comments shilling for Organic Maps? Just curious.
Maksim is a Russian name, Organic Maps creators are Russian and Belarussian. Could literally be a friend of theirs lol
Organic Maps is also technically committing tax fraud by paying the owners dividends but no salaries. They're making quite a bit off the donations too. All of which was pocketed.
Co-maps generally works good for me, bht the bjg disadvantage is it has no traffic data (I think this might be inherently incompatable with standard foss, would love to be wrong though). So my go to when driving is HERE wego, which works well and is up to date (and not evil as far as I know)
came here to say comaps. they are also wprking on live traffic
Ow that is super exciting, I figured it would be a festure not in line with theil way their map functions (as you need to download everything). Glad to be wrong.
CoMaps is good if you already know where to go.
I use it in conjunction with GMapsWV: look for a place, copy the coordinates with the share button and paste them into CoMaps.
Never missed an address and I use it quite a bit.
It's also better if you know how to get there, its directions are typically very poorly optimized (although you'll get there eventually).
That can be a good strategy, and please, if you can, once you find a place in GMapsWV that isn't on OSM, add it to OSM so the map becomes better for everyone and we soon won't need GMapsWV.
I contribute regularly with Street Complete
Trying to learn, what is the advantage of GMapsVW versus opening Google Maps in a mobile browser?
Quoting their github page
Thank you!
Thanks for the recommendation for GMapsWV. I didn't know about that, and have always felt very uncomfortable when using Google Maps to find restaurants and such that aren't always listed in OSM.
I had this talk with a friend the other week, but I can't recommend enough that if something OSM based isn't showing correctly, you can always add it in once you find the right answer. For example, if it doesn't have hours listed for a business, I'll go to their website and copy that data in, or if the address doesn't show up right, I'll edit the building with the correct address. I found the other day that the address for my apartment was listed over a garage up the street instead of my building and I just removed the one and added in the other.
I completely fixed my neighborhood of 800 homes. took me a week. I drew in the house shapes and the heights, turned the row home blocks into individual linked blocks with exact addresses and accurate sidewalks.
I've never added in height before. Does it just look for number of stories, or how did you find that info?
When you make an area->structure in osm, you can add it in the height meta in meters.
When an app uses the OSM data to draw a 3d structure, it can use your height data. (and most appear to)
I meant more how did you find the height of the structures? Is it listed in a property database somewhere or are all the houses roughly the size of yours so you just used that as a base?
I live in a neighborhood with 3 house styles; each has a fixed number of floors. The townhomes all have 8' ceilings, a basement, 1st, a second floor, and an attic or loft. All basements are walkout so i count them. I-joists are about 18 inches. So the townhomes are ~ 11 meters.
The single family are basement, 1st, and second, with 10" main floor and 8" second floor, then they have 16' attics, which puts them ~ 13m
The apartment complex has 5 fixed floors. It was trickier because I don't know the internal structure, nor the height of the decorative crowns, so I took a Google Earth look at the side of the building, drew a 45-degree line down from the top, and measured the bottom of the triangle
If OSM isn't good enough, make it better.
I spent an hour improving my hometown but that's not where I need a map. I need it in places where I don't know if it's right or wrong.
truth is OSM has proven to be more accurate in areas I frequent vs Gmaps. We've got into multiple "situations" because of Gmaps
Like what?
Not op but one i encountered was that gmaps kept sending people down a private road with a locked gate before someone submitted feedback and got it changed
like leading us the wrong way. Or completely ignoring existence oh our house.
I've never seen it get my home location incorrect... And the only wrong ways I've seen it involve are roadblocks.
consider yourself lucky then
Sure, let me just fly my drone over everywhere in the world...
Comaps works well for me. If it's not comprehensive enough, contribute! OSM is crowd-sourced.
I use both, but I use OSMAnd~ for mobile mapping, and CoMaps for navigation.
From my own recent tests, Maps.me is good for finding businesses, citymapper is good for public transport, and TomTom is good for driving directions with live trafic.
OSMAnd is amazing, customisable, can do everything (I use it for hiking, saving locations, and topography) but for things you'd use google for (finding businesses, driving, street view) google does those things much better.
And PSA for those who don't know, Waze is owned by google and maintained in Israel.
Gross thank you for that PSA, will swap.
Waze is my Achilles heel when it comes to degoogling. I use OSMAnd~ frequently and love it (even considering getting a lifetime license), but with the multitude of options it has it's missing a dedicated way for community driven police reports when driving. Absolutely essential feature in daily commutes for me. And not to mention I have to often find a location in GVmaps and manually input it to OSMAnd to be able to navigate to it since it's missing so many.
I was using organic until CoMaps forked it, now CoMaps is the way. It's open street map so you can sign up and fix whatever you want, pull down the next version and it's there.
I do miss street view,
voiced street names, and really miss cowdsourced hazards from waze but it's worth it if you're not on a long high speed trip.edit: turns out you can turn on tts street names
CoMaps, which uses OpenStreetMap. StreetComplete gamifies adding data to OpenStreetMap.
Sometimes Magic Earth.
The only time i use google is when i want street view.
good or better then google maps, no, they're are a trillion $ company with major resoirces
I use OSMAnd+ its a little bit shit but ot gets me by. I also edit a little bit of Open Street maps in my area to help
This right here; if I can ever manage to get my transmission fixed, I can start recording my DoorDash trips, again. OSM is painfully lacking info in my city.
Time to get some oil on your hands!
Err probably not. But what transmission and what are the issues you're having? Might be something much simpler than you think
It's primarily an issue of getting the necessary tools to be able to drop the bastich in the first place, and then figuring out when to do it, because now is absolutely not the time in the southeastern United States.
deflock Half joking
I wish there was a way to export a pre-calculated route from deflock to CoMaps though that would just be the bees knees
https://dontgetflocked.com/app/
Interesting, I've been using the actual deflock app, but it doesn't have android auto. I'm assuming this pulls data from OSM or deflock. Do you know how quick that syncs?
No clue
Doing God's work. I am sharing the fuck out of this.
Hmm. That doesn't seem to address what I'm after as it looks like just another app that doesn't let you export a route. Also I noticed that its routing algo is worse/doesn't allow fine grain control of the dodge distance. Also also absolutely proprietary. Ty tho!
I love Organic Maps. Works on Android and IOS. Fully offline (maps predownload at first run) and all route calculation is locally computed so it's especially good for hiking or where signal is poor.
Only thing I miss is live traffic updates but for me that's an acceptable tradeoff for the ultimate offline privacy as far as a digital map can do it.
The voice it uses is whatever's built into the phone's accessibility features so on some devices it sounds a bit janky, but on Android at least you can install different ones if that bothers you.
https://www.comaps.app/news/2025-04-16/1/?ref=itsfoss.com
Check out CoMaps! Essentially the same.
I use Here We Go when i need live traffic and comaps other times.
I've just started using MapQuest like many others since the lake ontario thing. It's been pretty good and I find it a lot more functional and accurate than the Foss options at the moment. It's not perfect but it's also not Google or apple.
More accurate how? It's still OSM underneath isn't it?
I found when I typed in locations by name or even lots of street addresses to OSM it would often give wrong results or just say cannot be found. Haven't run into that at all with MapQuest, every address I type in has come up on the map. Type in company/business names and they pop up. Had trouble with that when I tried osm
Osmand(Open Street Map))
Mapy.com
Comaps
OrganicMaps: https://f-droid.org/packages/app.organicmaps
I heard of issues* with OrganicMaps not being fully open source**, I switched to CoMaps instead. Still use OSM and seems to function pretty well
Edited spelling bc I was typing too fast and didn't proof read.
I don't understand your comment
Sorry, typed too fast and didn't proof read...
More context https://itsfoss.com/news/organic-maps-fork-comaps/
Np, my mobile keyboard sucked too, but it's slowly getting better, using futo keyboard swipe
I go between FUTO and Helioboard 😅
Suppose Isis is supposed to be issue, ai should be and
Great Open-source map. Fast and effective. I use it all the time
https://github.com/PimpinPumpkin/Vela
Holy shit im impressed by this project! Vela is degoogled gmaps, like newpipe is an alternative for youtube. Mighty impressive what they have done so far, seems like a new project, keeping my eyes on this one!
Edit: lts ofc entirely AI generated...
Yeah, but so far I haven't had to provide any information to it whatsoever other than location access. For finding businesses and stuff like that, great stuff.
If you use live traffic re-checks, it pings google every few minutes, providing your updated position. And when it's off, I think it still sends Google your initial position and route? But I'm not sure that can be turned off completely.
Yeah, it pings Google for almost all of it. But for a quick "where is X store" and traffic if, for example, going to the airport and my wife made us late (it never happens, it's just an example 😏), I'm not too concerned. I have been using OSMAnd+ exclusively for a few years now, but this is something very useful for my needs.
I'm guessing that, since I'm on GrapheneOS, there's not much, if anything at all, that they can tie to my person.
What's the difference between Openstreetmap and Graphene's geocoder? I have the later, i think it's the default.
And yeah, ditto for me, I've been using comaps until now, but being able to search shops without resorting to the full invasion of gmaps is neat indeed.
The GraoheneOS one is a reimplementation of the stock Google play service, while OSM is entirely community driven. I chose OSM in my phone for that, but in all honesty, you should be fine using GrapheneOS's all the same.
sorry man, this is my best guess. herewego has not much local business data and rating. comaps is only good for biking basicly. osmand has no traffic data.
my biggest problem with vela, that tge gmap links my gf sends, wont open on lineage.maybe it does on graphene, cause the project priority is that platform.
This is fucking gold. Thank you so much.
I tried it and it was terrible. Couldn't even figure out what street I was on and said left turn ahead when it was clearly a right turn. AI slop.
Here Wego is proprietary and corporate, BUT it's non-USA and it has live traffic
edit: to clarify, non-USA ownership, but usa roads and traffic data are available
I had been using them but just checked and they went MAGA recently. Looked up their history and... ofc they're owned by BMW/Mercedes. So No more Here WeGo.
MapQuest is a perfectly reasonable commercial alternative that has all of the things you'd expect - dynamically-loaded map tiles, turn-by-turn nav, etc. If you want to look at options that use OpenStreetMap data, I've found CoMaps to be very good. The biggest drawback is that you have to download maps (~100-300MB per geo area) all at once, which can be a problem if you're on the road and don't have great signal strength.
Magic Earth is good but it's proprietary and some features require a subscription. I also vote for CoMaps.
I wonder how magic earth is doing the traffic information. Are they extracting it from Google maps?
I use CoMaps for walking and for searching around, but Magic Earth's been better for driving. It's genuinely pretty good, but it sucks that it's closed source and proprietary, I'll gladly replace it with CoMaps or another FOSS alternative if one catches up.
for basic things openstreetmaps based ones (comaps organic maps), for anything else no.
I use HERE WeGo. I switched over a month ago and haven't had a problem yet.
I use that too! Kinda clunky but does the job. I prefer CoMaps - it seems smoother - but it doesn't have all the actual addresses for the little towns I pass through.
Well I've swapped over to CoMaps, so hopefully it'll all go well.
They recetnly went MAGA maps. Sad to say. But seeing that they're ownd by BMW I guess it makes sense. =(
Oh c'mon!!!
i know =(
Which map is good depends largely on your needs, I think. Do you need it for car navigation, walking, biking, or public transport? OSM maps are better for pedestrians and cyclists in many regions, while Google Maps is more designed for car drivers.
I use CoMaps and Vela Maps.
I can never find anything on OSM based maps by themselves. My current method is to search via the Apple Maps web beta then use geoshare to copy the location to CoMaps for turn-by-turn. I have magic earth installed as a fallback if I have problems with comaps.
Oh wow that's an excellent app, now I don't have to suffer when friends send me google links
Osmand+
Is there a difference between OsmAnd+ and OsmAnd~ ?
You get more map updates as it offline unless you are an OSM contributor. There's also some online services they offer for favourites and stuff
I have a standalone GPS like it's 2008, in addition to excellent offline navigation it also probably doesn't spy on me
No. Most aren't able to do basic navigation to addresses of people. I'd like it to be different but for me CoMaps and the other ones aren't useful (yet)
I've generally been able to with Organic Maps. If the street address won't get me exactly to them, I'll add a mark right at their place on the map and route to that. That almost always works.
Probably because the area youre in is not mapped out, however the routing engine is pretty much on par with the ones by Garmin and others
Roads work but I do prefer entering a destination instead of going to a city and then having to figure out where the street and streetnumber are.
Especially since I only use navigation if i don't already know where something is.
I use CoMaps when navigating: https://www.comaps.app/
I also recommend Obtainium for installing it: https://obtainium.imranr.dev/
Paper map?
Osmand is so good, Maps is a shittier alternative these days. I only use Osmand and occasiobaly "gmaps wv" wrapper for google maps from fdroid if I need traffic density.
The problem with Here Wego maps and MapQuest that they do contain outdated information, but in Osmand and CoMaps, you can just login and add this information yourself.
Vela Maps
I'm not sure how it stacks up with the rest, but for web: https://mapcarta.com/
"Explore the globe with Mapcarta—the open map that unites the world through the collective knowledge of OpenStreetMap, Wikipedia, Wikidata, and other open projects."
I've tried several over the past few weeks. There aren't any that can even do the basic job of mapping from point a to b consistently for some reason. Mapquest came the closest, but 3 issues.
I like the interface, it looks nice, but it's missing key map things, that should be the basics over things like a unicorn icon, which is cute, but useless.
I tried most of the ones mentioned here but they rarely include any ratings or additional features. For me what comes close enough to a Google/apple maps alternative is mapy.com . Its not Foss and some features are behind a subscription. But its European and 19€ a year is OK with me. Some features that might be interesting:
Apple has been fine but it is apple
I pay to use Sygic for turn by turn driving directions and it's been worth it. Can even pay through their website and bypass paying through Google Play, which I feel is a big blind spot for a lot of these services.
Also it's a euro based company, so data sovereignty is possible.
I use Comaps on my phone and OpenStreetMap data on a Garmin Nuvi I got from the thrift store for $8.
I've been using a few but mostly CoMaps. What I would love to see most in any google maps alternative is voice search, but not sure that is an option outside big tech.
Cartes
I love Osmand+. it's so much more than just google maps. it also has public transport, but it's in beta state right now.
No but I use comaps anyways
I just wanted to add here that Here WeGo is owned by BMW/Mercedes (according to wikipedia) and they just changed GUlf of Mexico to the trash. So ... no Here WeGo.
The foldable paper ones that you picked up at the gas station or tourist kiosk were the best and they were immune to name change updates.
They get outdated when names change, detours are required, anywhere they don't exist, lack public transit, don't have live traffic info, and don't even show you where you are.
Who cares? Most of that list is negligible and the rest is a specific real-time occurrence that may not even be updated in a timely manner on the tech side. The underlying geography and major routes don't change. Grab an old map and hit the road, you'll find it's mostly correct but you do need illumination if operating it in the dark.
I'm sure this is safe to do while driving
About as safe as staring at a fake road on your phone screen ? You’re not supposed to look at the directions for too long on your phone just cuz you can put it at eye level now, that’s still distracted driving. You remember what turns you take and if you can’t do that you either pull over and look or you have someone that can navigate
The map app reads the directions to you.
Yeah and for me it’s always too late, and most of them don’t have a solid plan, like you’ll need to be in this lane etc. That’s one of the biggest parts of navigation. If you pre plan your route you will know where to go and so on
@deathmetaldawgy
try Magic Earth
I really appreciate mapy.com. They are european (Czech) company. Outside of Czech Republic they base on OSM and have very pretty and useful rendering of "outdoor" map, especially with hiking trails and point of interests almost like on paper map.
They also have their own system of posting images and commenting and have some noticable community, yet much smaller than on google. You can also contribute to map content, yet I am not sure if they contribute upstream to OSM.
The killer-paid-feature for me is vector offline maps in the "outdoor" flavor, which saved me many times on trips with poor internet coverage.
I hope they survive long before someone buys and enshittifies them.
@InterestingUsername +1 for #CoMaps and #OSM . Also started using #NuNav as a replacement for Magic Earth for Car Navigation. It also uses Maps from #OpenStreetMap .
@stritt
Does it work with android car? Nunav I mean.
@InterestingUsername
@mfuhrmann @InterestingUsername Sorry, im on #GrapheneOS and I don't use any Google Services. So i could'nt test that.
It is a pity, that there is no open interface between cars and #AOSP based Smartphones...
@stritt
It does btw. I've just tested it.
Seems to do a good job. Some hiccups here and there. But minimal.
Do we know how much data they collect, track or sell 🙈?
@InterestingUsername
@stritt
The car and streetmeasure are the only reason i have Google added Ingo my graphene... 🙈
A good car phone stand/Mount could be an option... For the car problem at least
@InterestingUsername
@mfuhrmann yes, nunav works with android auto
@stritt @InterestingUsername #comaps works fine for navigation. But #nunav looks nice. It seems commercial, though?
@kallekn @InterestingUsername Yes, unfortunately... Maybe they resist enshittification?
I actually think Apple Maps has gotten pretty good. I think they are better than Google at directions, Google is better at discovery.
I know that’s probably not the alternative you’re looking for, but it’s something.
Not if you live more wild away from civilization.
Home assistant has a perfectly serviceable map in it I forget where it gets the data from
It's OSM, if you're talking about the built in map card.
This was fun to read, thanks! I hope you've already thrown away the device you've written this from.
I was wondering to pass to regular Navigator. There are many sold second hand . Why to use mobile for navigation? The only worry is the update of maps...