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CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

comaps.app

31–40 of 221 posts

Re: CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

#31
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest issue with OrganicMaps is that the search isn't very good. It really struggles to find my destination sometimes. That's the one thing I'm afraid Google will always be better at.

I have the same grippe. I was talking in deep in the weed OSM signal group and apparently its a split between the address data not being present, and OrganicMap / CoMap being bugged. The way to triage is asking nominatim, the geocoder from OSM. If it can resolve : its on the client side, if not, its a data problem. I'm just parroting here. Happy to learn more. This is THE only issue I have with those OSM client ( I d…

For good (server) search, one needs many layers (Photon, Pelias with OpenAdresses, Overpass, in-house pmtiles, etc.) using many DBs, each needing server ressources or expensive paid APIs.

It's obvioulsy expensive in terms of ops + dev, but also just to host.

It can't scale with only 0,0001 % of users donating to the app.

Fortunately, NLNet's there to fund work, but it's still nonethless only a tenth of what would be needed.

Plus map applications and general search engines don't talk to each other... I don't know why, but it is so. Maybe because all the well-known search engines are closed-source ?

Re: CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

#32
post #13

Does anyone know how fresh the business data is? like opening, closure, phone, address of businesses? i think one thing that's going for google is the network effects and what it's able to do.

Honestly in my experience is that in some parts of the world, or even particular neighborhoods even google maps is useless.

Even for routing google maps still fail with some one way streets directions.

Re: CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

#35
This is what I use in my main GrapheneOS profile. I still have a dedicated profile for Google Maps though as I still have not been able to give up their greater datasets (i.e. traffic) in all cases.

Decent app though. I saw someone here mention proprietary code but I wouldn't worry about it, just install the F-Droid version. That's why I use F-Droid - to guarantee I don't get proprietary blobs.

Re: CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

#36

This is what I use in my main GrapheneOS profile. I still have a dedicated profile for Google Maps though as I still have not been able to give up their greater datasets (i.e. traffic) in all cases. Decent app though. I saw someone here mention proprietary code but I wouldn't worry about it, just install the F-Droid version. That's why I use F-Droid - to guarantee I don't get proprietary blobs.

Magic Earth is fairly decent at traffic and dynamic routing. Worth the small subscription fee to keep them going, in my opinion.

Re: CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

#37
post #16

Anyone here has been using coMaps and care to share their experience, especially in comparison to OrganicMaps? My only complaint to OrganicMaps was the slowness to calculate a direction, which in part is certainly because the path is calculated locally instead of some cloud server but old garmin devices also weren't online and can calculate paths on far less powerful hardware. So I'm guessing there is room for improv…

Comaps and organic maps are very similar (they forked very recently). The only difference I can think of from the top of my mind is that organic maps is not fully open source (map files and generator are proprietary) and has some kayak sponsored suggestions/reviews

> organic maps is not fully open source

Organic Maps is a for-profit venture that accepts donations. That's sketchy. Management also seems to have prior Kremlin links. Which is sketchy.

Re: CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps

#40
post #13

Does anyone know how fresh the business data is? like opening, closure, phone, address of businesses? i think one thing that's going for google is the network effects and what it's able to do.

Depends a lot on where you live. My village is pretty fresh cuz I update it lol. My impression is that it's quite good in western Europe, might take a month in major US cities, and probably years old in most other places. I think Indonesia, Israel, and Japan are decent as well.

Agreed, same here. But I don't update shops I don't support, such as tobacco, big chains.
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