4.7 KiB
What is OpenFreeMap?
OpenFreeMap allows you to display custom maps on your website and apps.
It's truly free: there are no limits on the number of map views or requests you can make, nor on how you use your map. There is no registration page, user database, API keys, or cookies.
It's truly open-source: everything, including the full production setup, is on GitHub. Map data is from OpenStreetMap.
How can I use it?
How can I donate or support this project?
If this project helps you save on your map hosting costs, please subscribe to one of our support plans.
When subscribing to a support plan, you receive a business invoice for each of your payments.
On Gold level and above, we offer personalised technical support by email.
If we ever receive a Diamond level supporter, we'll put their logo on this page.
Note: if you want to make a single donation, feel free to cancel after the first payment. However, please understand that the nature of this project needs recurring donations to cover the server costs.
Is commercial usage allowed?
Yes.
Who is behind this project?
I'm Zsolt Ero (twitter, blog). I built MapHub and have been running map hosting in production for 8 years.
Why did you make this project?
OpenStreetMap is one of the most important collective projects in history. It started almost 20 years ago, and today 3 million edits are made each day!
Unfortunately, when you want to use the map on your website or app, you need to look for a commercial map tile provider and hope your site doesn't become too popular. Otherwise, you might end up with a $10,000 bill in a single day, like Hoodmaps did *
You can try self-hosting, but it requires a big server and a lot of time to get it right.
I waited for years for someone to offer this service but realized no one was going to make it. So, I thought I might use my map hosting experience and do it myself.
I'll share more about the reasons in a future blog post, feel free to subscribe.
How can this work? How can a one-person project offer unlimited map hosting for free?
There is no technical reason why vector tile hosting should cost as much as it does today. Vector tiles are just static files. OK, serving 300 million files is not easy, but at the end of the day, they are just files.
Financially, the plan is to keep renting servers until they cover the bandwidth. I believe it can be self-sustainable if enough people subscribe to the support plans.
If this project helps you save on your map hosting costs, please consider subscribing to a support plan.
How can I follow this project?
twitter: hyperknot (more details) and OpenFreeMapOrg (announcements)
GitHub: openfreemap and openfreemap-styles
What is the tech stack?
The map schema is OpenMapTiles.
The tiles are generated by Planetiler.
There is no tile server running, only BTRFS partition images with 300 million hard-linked files. This is one innovative aspect of this project.
The server is nginx on Ubuntu.
There is no cloud, just dedicated servers.
Currently, it is behind Cloudflare, but it has been designed so that this can be changed at any time.
Moreover, a lot of effort is being put into standardizing the styles.
What about PMTiles?
I would have loved to use PMTiles; they are a brilliant idea!
Unfortunately, making range requests in 80 GB files just doesn't work in production. It is fine for files smaller than 500 MB, but it has terrible latency and caching issues for full planet datasets.
Attribution
If you are using MapLibre, attributions are automatically added.
If you are using this in printed media or video, please attribute:
OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles Data from OpenStreetMap
You do not need to display the OpenFreeMap part, but it is nice if you do.
License
The license of this project is MIT. Map data is from OpenStreetMap. The licenses for included projects are listed in LICENSE.md.