OSMAnd vs. Organic Maps
blog.firedrake.org
OSMAnd vs. Organic Maps
1–10 of 86 posts
Re: OSMAnd vs. Organic Maps
#2It calls Organic Maps new (and the article is recent) but Organic Maps has been around for a while now?
FWIW I prefer Organic Maps for casual usage - I think OSMAnd is very featureful but the UI is less intuitive IMO.
Re: OSMAnd vs. Organic Maps
#3And now we have CoMaps [1], an Organic Maps fork.
I have both OSMAnd and CoMaps installed and started with OSMand, but I see myself reaching for CoMaps exclusively now.
Both apps are very good.
Re: OSMAnd vs. Organic Maps
#4Recent HN thread on the fork of CoMaps from Organic Maps:
Re: OSMAnd vs. Organic Maps
#5One of the best map apps I saw is Mapy.com -- same OSM database, but works way smoother and looks better than OsmAnd. Less features, of course, but 99% of time I just need to see the map.
Re: OSMAnd vs. Organic Maps
#6It calls Organic Maps new (and the article is recent) but Organic Maps has been around for a while now? FWIW I prefer Organic Maps for casual usage - I think OSMAnd is very featureful but the UI is less intuitive IMO.
It's been around for some time and is a fork of Maps.me, which was called MapWithMe before this.
Re: OSMAnd vs. Organic Maps
#7An important thing to mention is that OSMAnd has multiple (somewhat confusing) paid tiers.
Since its FOSS you can presumably just compile it yourself if you wanted to bypass the paywall (the ethics of this are left as an exercise for the reader). However, Android Auto support is behind the paywall and Android Auto only works with apps downloaded from the play store.
OSMAnd definitely has more features (especially with the paid tiers) but, personally, I just wanted to get from A to B and I actually struggled to work out how to do that in OSMAnd which didn't give me a great impression of it.
I have both installed since I can imagine OSMAnd being better if I was planning a hike or something, but for day to day navigation CoMaps (Organic Maps fork with better governance)
Re: OSMAnd vs. Organic Maps
#8I have used osmand for a long time, but one thing that really broke it for me is when Android removed the ability for apps to read other apps data, thus making it impossible to backup track records with folder sync
I think it can be fixed by configuring where to save these. But I find it interesting that one os change in the api can have a somewhat remote impact on feature use.
Re: OSMAnd vs. Organic Maps
#9I've been trying really hard to get off Google Maps and almost managed to do it, but one thing that Google Maps offers and the others are not even close (at least for me) is discoverability.
For example if I am out riding some trails and then I want to pop out of the wilderness to grab a bite only Google has been able to provide good information of whats nearby (reviews help a lot as well).
Other than that I've been switching between OsmAnd and Gaia GPS (and Garmin built in device maps).
Re: OSMAnd vs. Organic Maps
#10And now we have CoMaps [1], an Organic Maps fork. I have both OSMAnd and CoMaps installed and started with OSMand, but I see myself reaching for CoMaps exclusively now. Both apps are very good. [1] https://www.comaps.app/
There's some backstory to the CoMaps fork that is detailed here: https://openletter.earth/open-letter-to-organic-maps-shareho...
Disclaimer: I don't know anything about this other than having seen the above link mentioned in a comment elsewhere as to why people should switch to CoMaps.