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Google Maps Platform

cloud.google.com

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Re: Google Maps Platform

#171

Post by lucb1e »

jakecopp wrote: post #100
NelsonMinar wrote: post #71

Mapbox has an excellent alternative map platform based largely but not entirely on OpenStreetMap data. Mapbox GL JS in particular is a joy to work with and extend. https://www.mapbox.com/ It's not free, but it's very easy to use and the pricing is roughly 1/10th of Google's when you get past the free tier: https://www.mapbox.com/pricing/ Mapzen used to be an alternative but sadly they shut down. However many of their…

Mapbox's maps look great, though I wish they had a generic product like Google Maps that I could use. Does any such general navigation app using Mapbox exist? Basically a vector OpenStreetMap with good search and routing.

OsmAnd can do this. It's generally recommended as the OpenStreetMap app, but almost everyone uses it with offline maps. If you click past that and enable the built-in online tiles addon, you can have tiles. Search and navigation, I don't remember seeing it in recent versions but there are so many options, I'm almost certain it must be in there somewhere. Search for custom or online navigation provider in OsmAnd and you should be able to find it.

As you see, it's not exactly built for this type of usage, but it is supported and the app is generally considered as the best alternative out there, so it might be worth a try!

Re: Google Maps Platform

#172

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

There's (justifiably) a lot of love for Mapbox in this thread as an alternative, but as remarked, their pricing isn't particularly cheap (why should it be, they sell on the quality of the product).

So the other option is to self-host tools using OpenStreetMap data. Some pointers:

* Raster tiled maps: the canonical instructions are at switch2osm.org; put it on commodity hardware such as Hetzner/OVH.

* Vector maps: a lot of development in this area at the moment and you could happily lose yourself for days among all the emerging solutions, but probably the easiest out-of-the-box solution is openmaptiles.org.

* Geocoding: Photon (https://github.com/komoot/photon) is the easiest to set up because it comes with precompiled indexes - no need to generate your own. Based on ElasticSearch, needs SSD for reasonable performance.

* Routing: OSRM (Mapbox's routing engine) and Graphhopper are both self-hostable. OSRM is very RAM-hungry, but blazingly fast.

This is just a start - there are many more options available, not least the whole stack developed by Mapzen before they shut down. The raw OSM data is downloadable from planet.openstreetmap.org (full dump) or http://download.geofabrik.de/ (regional extracts).

Worth noting as well that there are a few well-established and competitively priced indie providers based on OSM: Thunderforest (http://thunderforest.com/), Geofabrik (http://geofabrik.de/), Graphhopper (https://www.graphhopper.com/).

Re: Google Maps Platform

#173

Post by lucb1e »

jstandard wrote: post #90
tmcw wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supply is expensive, and running a 'maps offering' is more of a data-collection and data-maintenance challenge than a logistical challenge. Of course AWS probably will offer such a service eventually, simply to complete their Gotta Catch Them All product strategy, but for now they've seemed to focus on things where their value is in software and infrastructure, not in having a 500 person staff of people with the back…

Been eyeing Mapbox myself. How do you think OSM/Mapbox can deal with the constant burden of meta-data gathering? From some basic OSM v Google tests, OSM coverage was much lower for things like place names or speed limits. As you say, the infrastructure requirements for this seem massive, though perhaps getting better as GIS info become easier to gather.

> From some basic OSM v Google tests, OSM coverage was much lower for things like place names or speed limits.

In which region did you test? The local mapping community can make a night and day difference.

In Africa there are places almost in unmapped on Google that are extensively mapped on OSM (Google doesn't give a damn if there isn't money to be made). In western Europe it's pretty good, especially in the Netherlands and Germany (that I know of at least, perhaps other countries too). America, from what I've seen (I've never been there so never needed to use it) it can be either reasonably comprehensive or a total mess depending on the city or state or something.

Re: Google Maps Platform

#174

Post by [deleted] »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #71

Mapbox has an excellent alternative map platform based largely but not entirely on OpenStreetMap data. Mapbox GL JS in particular is a joy to work with and extend. https://www.mapbox.com/ It's not free, but it's very easy to use and the pricing is roughly 1/10th of Google's when you get past the free tier: https://www.mapbox.com/pricing/ Mapzen used to be an alternative but sadly they shut down. However many of their…

[deleted]

Re: Google Maps Platform

#175

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

zylepe wrote: post #126

I run https://onthegomap.com which uses Google Maps API. Last month it cost about $500 (for direction requests). Under the new pricing model it will cost $30,000 per month: $2,500 for page views, $27,000 for direction requests, and $1,000 for elevation request. It makes $300-500 per month in ad revenue. Time to shut down?

You can host your own OSM-based mapping for a fraction of your current cost, or move to Mapbox or similar. Drop in on https://help.osm.org/ or the #osm IRC channel on OFTC if you need any help.

Re: Google Maps Platform

#176

Post by coldtea »

dmortin wrote: post #39
theDoug wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a couple points below that mention, which I think answers both parts of your question: > your first $200 of monthly usage is free, and you can set usage caps to ensure you don’t go over this amount.

What if one has multiple maps projects? Is this $200 per project or is it for the whole account (all projects combined)?

Obviously the whole account -- they're concerned with charging for usage, not how one splits it.

Re: Google Maps Platform

#177

Post by Foremost »

jasonHav wrote: post #31

As someone who's only every used Google Maps, can anyone suggest a solid alternative? Geocoding and directions would be the minimum I'd need - with solid data in Australia.

For professional maps, routing, places and traffic, you can try TomTom Maps (ndlr I work there). developer.tomtom.com

Free evaluations and the pricing is pretty straightforward, no subscriptions, no limits, no ads.

Re: Google Maps Platform

#178

Post by Foremost »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #148

Does anyone offer a competitive service that computes directions with time-of-day travel times? I built a tool awhile back to visualize commute ranges. It’d be nice to move this off Google Maps API. https://blog.forrestthewoods.com/visualizing-commute-times-3...

The TomTom Routing API offers directions based on real-time and predictive traffic. You can check it out for free: https://developer.tomtom.com/online-routing

Note: I work for TomTom

Re: Google Maps Platform

#179

Post by Foremost »

forcer wrote: post #158

does anyone has experience with here.com ? I did not use yet but was engaged with the sales team (not great). it seems their pricing is quite comparable with mapbox. more here : https://developer.here.com/plans

You should evaluate the TomTom offering too. https://developer.tomtom.com/store/maps-api

Re: Google Maps Platform

#180

Post by zylepe »

tj89 wrote: post #132
zylepe wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://console.cloud.google.com/apis/dashboard - at first I thought I was in the clear, then I realized I had 1 day selected.

I don't think that's specific enough. For example all the places API calls are grouped together but there are 13 types at different prices. I don't see any way to figure out how much we'll be paying. For me looks like I went from basically free to $600/mo just for map views. I have no idea how much more I'll have to pay for API calls because they completely obfuscate the data. Now we have 30 days to figure out how to…

I got pricing info from https://cloud.google.com/maps-platform/pricing/sheet/ and attempted to map existing api calls to the new names. What APIs do you use?
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