We're using it for https://www.citymayor.co and it is getting expensive quite quickly (.5 for 1k page views), but the API is really good and the themes are really pretty as well. I've tried playing with open street map directly to create a theme and it was quite a mess.
How Mapbox Is Winning Over Developers to Challenge Google's Mapping Dominance
21–30 of 114 posts
Re: How Mapbox Is Winning Over Developers to Challenge Google's Mapping Dominance
#22I generally like Mapbox but I've had some problems with the quality of their geocoding and still would get better results from Google's geocoding. It was a pretty niche thing, though: mapbox doesn't have as many European postcodes, but Europeans in several countries don't really treat postcodes with much respect to begin with. In particular, mapbox has no Eircodes whatsoever.
Re: How Mapbox Is Winning Over Developers to Challenge Google's Mapping Dominance
#23"Every time you touch the map, the map is learning," Gundersen says. "It's that flywheel."
Curious quote. A flywheel stores energy. What does that have to do with a system learning as it's used? Also curious phrasing. "That flywheel"? Which flywheel?
Re: How Mapbox Is Winning Over Developers to Challenge Google's Mapping Dominance
#24Last I checked, MapBox's WebGL based vector tile renderer was a cut above the rest. For simple mapping, Google's stuff may cut it, but MapBox has the ability to draw complex vector polygons over a wide area that render/zoom/scroll fast and provide a nice experience. This is pretty important if you want to provide fine grained analysis of geographic areas. If you wanted this on GMaps, you were stuck rendering all your…
Mapzen, a now sadly defunct mapping startup, also had an awesome (if I say so myself - I used to work there, but not on that team) vector tile renderer for browser and mobile. Check it out at https://github.com/tangrams
Also, there was a great interactive style editor (https://github.com/tangrams/tangram-play), although it seems the demo site is broken now :-(
Re: How Mapbox Is Winning Over Developers to Challenge Google's Mapping Dominance
#25Re: How Mapbox Is Winning Over Developers to Challenge Google's Mapping Dominance
#26I have no evidence to support it, but this article feels like bought and paid for PR.
All media is bought and paid for PR. The only question is who's paying for it and why. That's not necessarily a bad thing, either. It's just the way it is.
Huh? Plenty of media is created and sold as a commodity. Your average movie is not PR. Nor is your average news story from a reputable news source.
Re: How Mapbox Is Winning Over Developers to Challenge Google's Mapping Dominance
#27Mapbox has some excellent software. And they're hiring. Sadly, they're moving away from remote work, which probably eliminates a lot of good talent who are also heavy map users.
Re: How Mapbox Is Winning Over Developers to Challenge Google's Mapping Dominance
#28What are the stumbling blocks to self-hosting Mapbox?
None. Start here: https://openmaptiles.com/server/
Re: How Mapbox Is Winning Over Developers to Challenge Google's Mapping Dominance
#29Am I crazy, I can't see a live demo page.
Re: How Mapbox Is Winning Over Developers to Challenge Google's Mapping Dominance
#30Speaking from the perspective of someone who did some amount of web stuff with maps.
Mapbox feels really good. API, docs and rendering performance all of this is really good. Although it's not an obvious choice if you are starting fresh. I personally find the pricing impossible to digest. Probably sounds reasonable for well-founded startups from developed countries. If your doing a bootstrapped product and can't pay 500$ it's not for you.
Google Maps. the v3 it's here for a while. The API feels good, but not great, Stack Overflow is your documentation. Rendering performance is bad, rendering performance with (many) markers without some hacks is terrible, rendering performance on mobile is even worse. I'm trying to figure out what new the pricing means for me.
Leaflet and OpenStreetMap look like a better choice for all hobby projects and small product from now on.