this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2024
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It's a long shot, but a viable alternative to Google Maps or other proprietary mapping websites (and no, OpenStreetMap is not a viable Google Maps alternative).
EDIT: Not sure why downvotes, OpenStreetMap doesn't even have directions as far as I can tell.
You are supposed to use an app and not the website for navigation and generally looking 1t the map.
On android the best two IMHO are Osmand and Organic Maps but depending on what you what there are others. Many on F-Droid. Osmand also has an ios app.
What if I want to look at the map in my browser though? I like to plan ahead on my desktop before leaving.
As far as I know there is unfortunately no good webapp using OSM.
I guess graphopper is probably the best but I don't personally like it that much. You can create a route with it 1nd send the gpx file to your phone and open it Osmand and then follow that. It's nothing like using the Google maps feature send to phone or email because you can't really modify it then.
That sounds much too complicated yea
The thing is, OSM is not comparable with GoogleMaps. OSM is just a (gigantic) database and is in many cases way more complete than GoogleMaps. What people usually associate with OSM is a rendered version of the database focused on what ever the renderer decided: bike lanes, waterways, hiking trails, etc. Many other apps actually use their database: OrganicMaps, Komoot, etc. And even more their rendered tiles. Now there are so many functionalities that this database doesn't do like geocoding (searching for adresses), reverse geocoding (getting the adress of a point) or route planning, but there are tools for it build on OSM data. e.g. Nominatim does geocoding and graphhopper does routing.
And to be honest, if you're travelling by bike graphhopper does a way better job at routing than google. An other plus, you can download the complete data for offline usage. All of Europe is only around 60GB.
I mean... Yes that's literally what I said. I don't know if there is any of these apps that really provide all that Google Maps provides. But I'd be interested if they do.
They will never do, because they are not trying to. AFAIK no one is trying to build FOSS reviews of restaurants/stores, no one is building street view and no one is saving where you live to make the one click from work to home route planning. For me, those are not functions that I need (or want). I need a map that works offline, does route planning (offline) and allows me to display multiple GPX files at the same time.
Does OSMAnd have all that? It does, so for me it's an alternative. What use case do you have?
Osmand does have a plugin for open reviews or something and I think I saw there were plans to use another source too. I guess, on top of photos from Wikimedia and mapillary it is trying to become a bit like Google Maps in a way...
There is also a plugin for mapillary street view that doesn't work too bad.
Only missing a Web app for desktop.
Directions using public transit for instance.
Public transit navigation is possible in Osmand but there will not times just the routes and only if the data is present in Openstreetmap and that pretty rare, really depends where you live.
OSM is not that user friendly as Google Maps for sure, but if you really want you really can replace GMaps. It probably heavily depends on your country and if the OSM community is active there, but for example here in Germany the mapping information is basically on par with GMaps
How do I get directions with OSM?
Visit openstreetmap.org or osm.org for short and where you can search for a place there's an icon with arrows beside it. Hit that and then you can put in the From and To. You can pick car routing or bike routing or walking.
But no public transit?
AFAIK someone is working on it. But the problem is the high dynamics of public transport. Routes and schedules get changed quite often, schedules might be quite irregular (think only Sunday at 3:14). And all that data has to be stored offline. Stops might be changed do to construction work for a week. And that is in the optimal case: In some countries the bus comes when it comes, and stops if it wants to stop.
Currently you can see where the lines of a bus or the metro go, but that's about it, I think.
I use brouter to route on OSM.
You have to use an app for that. OSM is mostly a big database with an API access to it. There are a lot of them out there with a lot of different focusses. For navigating with a car OSMand is pretty good. They are on fdroid.
There are many APPs build on top of OSM that can do directions in a user friendly way. Personally I use MagicEarth, which uses OSM but isn't itself open source. They include live traffic from some other nav provider.
My goal was to degoogle my phone and MagicEarth was the app which came closest, but I bet you can find all sorts of webapps or fully open source ways to get directions if you don't care for live traffic.
Is there no browser version? Do I have to get the app?
MagicEarth is only an app.
If you want web based OSM routing you have to look at other services which there are many of. Here are some examples:
https://www.openstreetmap.org/directions
https://routing.openstreetmap.de/
https://maps.openrouteservice.org
On the wiki you can find a lot more:
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Routing#End_users:_routing_software
Gotta look at that. Live traffic info is one of those things, that OSM lacks...
Organic Maps honestly hasn't been that bad for me, but searching addresses is appalling and I do need to rely on Google Maps in many instances still. However, it has made it much easier for me to contribute to OSM and have a better user experience. A step in the right direction at least
Is Organic Maps only on the mobile apps? Is there no way to view it in a desktop browser? The website seems to just lead me to the apps.
It's just an app, yeah.
OpenStreetMaps is amazing, but it is a map, not a whole ecosystem like Google Maps is. As a map I find it's often better than Google Maps, but what is still lacking are good front-ends implementing a wide range of functionality in a user friendly way.
On desktop I often use GNOME Maps, but it leaves a lot to be desired still and is obviously intended for Linux users running GNOME.
I don't know why it isn't mentioned anywhere on their website. But Organic Maps does have a desktop app. At least on Linux there is the Flatpak. I don't know about other platforms.
I use Organic Maps to find places by name and OSMand to find places by address. Both can only the do one of the two things good, but it is doable.