I used to use wikiloc, but most of the things that offer which were the most interesting things were by paying, so I think that it could be some opportunity for using these maps and vibe coding for creating something spectacular!
> Despite being advertised as a community-driven project, key decisions, including financial management, partnerships (with Kayak, for instance), and the inclusion of proprietary components in the code were made by a small group of shareholders, often without input from the broader contributor community.
To clarify - this quote pertains to the Organic Maps situation
> Despite being advertised as a community-driven project, key decisions, including financial management, partnerships (with Kayak, for instance), and the inclusion of proprietary components in the code were made by a small group of shareholders, often without input from the broader contributor community.
CoMaps had been started because Organic Maps shareholders were not interested fixing those governance and transparency issues.
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 improvement on that part.
I used to use OrganicMaps. When coMaps forked, I changed to it. From my perspective there were no negatives. If anything, coMaps looked to be under more active development.
Been using Comaps for a while, mainly for cycling, and it works very well. Before that I used also organicmaps and it was fine as well but I think made a few more mistakes in routing. That said, obviously this is not a parallel test but rather successive. Of course the split happened with drama, but I just like the Comaps vibe and am happy with it.
I prefer CoMaps' tile styling, they did a bunch of updates to it early on to differentiate it from OrganicMaps, IMO it's much nicer.
CoMaps also has a better system for distributing map data now which isn't bound to app updates. Not sure if this has made its way back to the other app, but it's quite nice.
While I do use mapping programs for directions, I more often use them for a more accurate estimate of time and traffic density. I haven't looked very hard, but I haven't seen any OpenStreetMap data or equivalent that shows "Real" travel times and traffic density.
I use CoMaps, it works great. You get notified in the app to download the updated maps you selected every 2 weeks or so. Could be wildly different than that, just what I notice.
It's timing estimates are often 5-15 minutes off Apple Maps, which I find accurate, on ~two hour drives, but I imagine it depends on the traffic.
To improve OpenStreetMap, which CoMaps uses as the data source, I use StreetComplete[1]–it puts quests around your location which ask you questions, it's user-friendly. A thoughtful feature is that it lets you download data in a location on wifi, in case you didn't want to use cellular.
OpenStreetMap is like Wikipedia for mapping, anyone can contribute and improve the map, and StreetComplete is like Pokemon Go in the sense that you walk around and complete quests, except StreetComplete helps humanity, while Pokemon Go[2]....
I should check to see if I can notice my StreetComplete edits getting onto CoMaps. Might be hard because they're often about accessibility at crosswalks. I've seen quests asking the number of stairs in a staircase. Seriously, is there anything they don't collect?
Tangential, but does anyone know if an app exists that that the video feed of your phone with the GPS loc and reads the signs from the road and compare it to OSM to update it if necessary?
Let’s be clear, in the end I use Waze for routing due to the traffic updates, but I see sometimes outdated speed limits and know OSM is one of its sources.
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.
perfect timing. i was using OpenStreetMap for my ios running app and I found out that there is a cap so I ended up switching to a paid solution and have been trying to build something like comaps by downloading all the tiles
Is it possible to change the maps' colors and contrasts now? Last time I checked I thought the lower contrast and washed-out colors compared to Organic Maps were a poor choice so I switched back to OM.
One of the main things that keeps me from using essentially all OSM-based mapping apps as my primary is that search seems incredibly bad. I can't blend city and name, road and category, can't usually filter by features or open time, and results are almost always something like:
- a result 500 feet away that sounds nothing like what you searched for
- a result 23 miles away that shares one word but nothing else
- a result 572 miles away that has a business name that contains exactly what was searched
- ... nowhere is there an exact full-name match that is 1.3 miles away, which can easily be found by exploring the map
Are there any apps that do this better? Android and desktop (e.g. linux) ideally. I'd love to use them more, but I've had endless problems using them. Good map data is kinda useless if it can't be retrieved, and trying to work around it by panning around and manually saving a hundred or so favorites really kinda sucks.
I can't find anything more recent or for CoMaps specifically, other than auto-created "alternatives" pages. I would absolutely love to hear from anybody who has tried both!]
I use CoMaps, it works like a charm on GrapheneOS + Android Auto.
I have also contributed to the OpenStreetMap by adding POI and requesting logic to be changed.
The only major issue which I got used to but sucks, is the search when it does not involved famous places or streets or both.
Streets will be shown as minor or major and alike, I do need to use Google Maps Browser version to find the place, and the on CoMaps manually navigate to said place.
But the fact that I get a map update a week, sometimes two maps update a week which other apps will take months and subscription, that alone is worth hustle.
I've read both Organic Maps thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48794446 (as it's my favorite map app I use for years around the world, and I'm an active OSM contributor as well) which quickly became overrun with CoMaps followers trash-talking about OM, now this thread appears.
What I find interesting to see, and I think it's not just me who can see this - that basically every mention of CoMaps and why it is good and Organic is bad is it not only seems to be mostly written not by a regular users, but by people who contribute to CoMaps (!) - they all fail to show why exactly anybody should migrate from established app with authors who have years of experience of making Maps.Me and OM - to a basically a no-name (based on downloads) clone who is made by... "community"? We don't even know who that is, original developers and people with experience are not involved.
All the talk is not about functionality of the app or anything which is actually important to users - it's all basically complaints about some kind of _internal drama_, add some misleading stuff about "dying project" or "lost community" from some commenters. So many cries about "ads" which are not actually ads but affiliate links in hotels POI which nobody clicks anyway, it's so mild it's just weird to lament about, at least I as a long time user see no issue at all.
I can advise CoMaps community to focus on developing the app which can actually make real users migrate and use because of functionality, speed or other things that matter, instead of making your community look toxic because of this trash-talk. Show real improvements in comparison with OM - make live maps updates like OSMAnd, make bookmark folders with specific colors tied to it, make app barely eat any battery, make convenient and powerful interface to add data to the map - then people will move. But for now Organic Maps is totally fine and many people like me see no reason to move from it anywhere.
57 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 60.1 ms ] threadhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48794575
https://itsfoss.com/news/organic-maps-fork-comaps/
> Despite being advertised as a community-driven project, key decisions, including financial management, partnerships (with Kayak, for instance), and the inclusion of proprietary components in the code were made by a small group of shareholders, often without input from the broader contributor community.
> Despite being advertised as a community-driven project, key decisions, including financial management, partnerships (with Kayak, for instance), and the inclusion of proprietary components in the code were made by a small group of shareholders, often without input from the broader contributor community.
CoMaps had been started because Organic Maps shareholders were not interested fixing those governance and transparency issues.
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 improvement on that part.
CoMaps also has a better system for distributing map data now which isn't bound to app updates. Not sure if this has made its way back to the other app, but it's quite nice.
It's timing estimates are often 5-15 minutes off Apple Maps, which I find accurate, on ~two hour drives, but I imagine it depends on the traffic.
To improve OpenStreetMap, which CoMaps uses as the data source, I use StreetComplete[1]–it puts quests around your location which ask you questions, it's user-friendly. A thoughtful feature is that it lets you download data in a location on wifi, in case you didn't want to use cellular.
OpenStreetMap is like Wikipedia for mapping, anyone can contribute and improve the map, and StreetComplete is like Pokemon Go in the sense that you walk around and complete quests, except StreetComplete helps humanity, while Pokemon Go[2]....
I should check to see if I can notice my StreetComplete edits getting onto CoMaps. Might be hard because they're often about accessibility at crosswalks. I've seen quests asking the number of stairs in a staircase. Seriously, is there anything they don't collect?
[1] https://streetcomplete.app/
[2] Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48487029 26 days ago 317 comments
Open source software often moves comparatively slowly, of course, but I believe they're making decent progress.
i think one thing that's going for google is the network effects and what it's able to do.
Even for routing google maps still fail with some one way streets directions.
So nice to be able to do that locally and just send a .gpx file
Let’s be clear, in the end I use Waze for routing due to the traffic updates, but I see sometimes outdated speed limits and know OSM is one of its sources.
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.
https://www.comaps.app/news/2026-05-12/celebrating-the-first...
[Edit: To answer my own question a little bit, I found a post from September 2025 that compares OsmAnd and Organic Maps (which this project forked from): https://blog.firedrake.org/archive/2025/09/OSMAnd_vs_Organic... .
I can't find anything more recent or for CoMaps specifically, other than auto-created "alternatives" pages. I would absolutely love to hear from anybody who has tried both!]
That‘s the simple reason I‘m using Organic Maps and not taking a fifth look at CoMaps (and I downloaded CoMaps yesterday after the HN thread).
I have also contributed to the OpenStreetMap by adding POI and requesting logic to be changed.
The only major issue which I got used to but sucks, is the search when it does not involved famous places or streets or both.
Streets will be shown as minor or major and alike, I do need to use Google Maps Browser version to find the place, and the on CoMaps manually navigate to said place.
But the fact that I get a map update a week, sometimes two maps update a week which other apps will take months and subscription, that alone is worth hustle.
What I find interesting to see, and I think it's not just me who can see this - that basically every mention of CoMaps and why it is good and Organic is bad is it not only seems to be mostly written not by a regular users, but by people who contribute to CoMaps (!) - they all fail to show why exactly anybody should migrate from established app with authors who have years of experience of making Maps.Me and OM - to a basically a no-name (based on downloads) clone who is made by... "community"? We don't even know who that is, original developers and people with experience are not involved.
All the talk is not about functionality of the app or anything which is actually important to users - it's all basically complaints about some kind of _internal drama_, add some misleading stuff about "dying project" or "lost community" from some commenters. So many cries about "ads" which are not actually ads but affiliate links in hotels POI which nobody clicks anyway, it's so mild it's just weird to lament about, at least I as a long time user see no issue at all.
I can advise CoMaps community to focus on developing the app which can actually make real users migrate and use because of functionality, speed or other things that matter, instead of making your community look toxic because of this trash-talk. Show real improvements in comparison with OM - make live maps updates like OSMAnd, make bookmark folders with specific colors tied to it, make app barely eat any battery, make convenient and powerful interface to add data to the map - then people will move. But for now Organic Maps is totally fine and many people like me see no reason to move from it anywhere.