I love Comaps. I have it installed on my Android phone. I contribute to OpenStreet maps when I can.
But, I don’t think Comaps is a realistic replacement for Apple or Google maps.
One: OpenStreet maps is missing a toooon of locations, businesses and residential addresses. Two: having the enter the address in a non-standard way (for the US) City, Street, Building Number, makes finding things even harder. That’s gonna instantly turn away 99% of people.
I still begrudgingly have Google maps installed on my phone… :(
I also have HERE Maps installed on my phone. It’s way more usable than Comaps and it’s not Google. But, it’s not FOSS and still owned by a big corporation. But at least it’s not (entirely) owned by the US (Magic Earth is). For me, I think HERE maps is a decent step away from Google.
I’ll still keep contributing to OpenStreet maps, hoping one day I can switch to Comaps.
Two: having the enter the address in a non-standard way (for the US) City, Street, Building Number, makes finding things even harder.
THAT’S why i always struggled to look up buildings on Comaps! Hell, I wondered why the sesrch was so hard!
My main issue is the lack of traffic data. I wish I didn’t live in a car-centric society, but i do, so I need to know if the route I’m taking is going to be shit.
I read that the one of the differences between Organic Maps and CoMaps is that the server side code for CoMaps is FOSS, while some of the server side code for Organic Maps is not. I hope I understood that correctly. I have Organic Maps installed because it was in the GrapheneOS app store.
If CoMaps has open server-side code, could I create my own map tiles with the best bike routes in my area and self-host them for myself and my friends? I find that google, bing, OpenStreetMap, etc all suck at recognizing good bike routes in my area and hand-curated routes are much better. I’d prefer to hand-curate the best routes color coded based on perceived safety and whether they are daytime only routes or acceptable for nighttime travel. Is something like this doable with CoMaps?
I think at this point in my life I’ve added enough to my home town that I’m comfortable using it as my main map program, I also admit to having here maps as a backup, but I haven’t used it in a minute
Comaps, OSM And, and other apps use OpenStreet maps as their data source, sometimes as their only data source. So if the data isn’t in OpenStreet maps, it’s not gonna be in Comaps. Comaps is basically a frontend for OpenStreet map data.
I use OsmAnd which I think is also really good. I’ve heard nothing but good things about CoMaps too, like you said, which is a (seemingly well-justified) fork of Organic Maps.
If anyone’s curious about contributing to OpenStreetMap too to make the maps in your area better, I know a bit, and I’d be happy to answer questions, even if they’re just random curiosities. It’s a lot of fun.
Depends heavily on the editor you’re using. Editor-agnostic, however, is that under the hood, everything uses “tags”, which are effectively key–value pairs that the broader editing community has agreed mean something.
In most editors, you’ll draw the area in a sort of free-form connect-the-dots, and you’ll have a created a blank area once you close the loop (under the hood, this is defined by the placeholder area=yes tag, but seriously don’t worry about directly changing tags unless you’re experienced; just let the editor give you a list of items to choose from).
Next, select the area, and your editor should present you with some way to search for what you want. Once you click that, the editor will apply the corresponding tags under the hood and will likely give you a list of properties you can change (for example, if you create a fast food restaurant, it might let you decide if it has a drive thru or not).
I’ll be able to give something a lot more specific once I know the editor, since UIs vary heavily. (Note which I didn’t know at first myself: if you went to OpenStreetMap’s website, made an account, and clicked “Edit”, then you’re using the iD editor.)
I thought this was a joke ad for a dev convention. Come on over and build something great at Comap(p)s 2026! We have a friendly competition where the team who builds the most feature-rich app all get programmer socks!
There’s room for you at Comaps! It’s nice and it works on iOS, FOSS
I love Comaps. I have it installed on my Android phone. I contribute to OpenStreet maps when I can.
But, I don’t think Comaps is a realistic replacement for Apple or Google maps.
One: OpenStreet maps is missing a toooon of locations, businesses and residential addresses. Two: having the enter the address in a non-standard way (for the US) City, Street, Building Number, makes finding things even harder. That’s gonna instantly turn away 99% of people.
I still begrudgingly have Google maps installed on my phone… :(
I also have HERE Maps installed on my phone. It’s way more usable than Comaps and it’s not Google. But, it’s not FOSS and still owned by a big corporation. But at least it’s not (entirely) owned by the US (Magic Earth is). For me, I think HERE maps is a decent step away from Google.
I’ll still keep contributing to OpenStreet maps, hoping one day I can switch to Comaps.
Guess its just better in Europe, everything is more dense including the number of OpenStreetMap contributors.
THAT’S why i always struggled to look up buildings on Comaps! Hell, I wondered why the sesrch was so hard!
My main issue is the lack of traffic data. I wish I didn’t live in a car-centric society, but i do, so I need to know if the route I’m taking is going to be shit.
I read that the one of the differences between Organic Maps and CoMaps is that the server side code for CoMaps is FOSS, while some of the server side code for Organic Maps is not. I hope I understood that correctly. I have Organic Maps installed because it was in the GrapheneOS app store.
If CoMaps has open server-side code, could I create my own map tiles with the best bike routes in my area and self-host them for myself and my friends? I find that google, bing, OpenStreetMap, etc all suck at recognizing good bike routes in my area and hand-curated routes are much better. I’d prefer to hand-curate the best routes color coded based on perceived safety and whether they are daytime only routes or acceptable for nighttime travel. Is something like this doable with CoMaps?
I think at this point in my life I’ve added enough to my home town that I’m comfortable using it as my main map program, I also admit to having here maps as a backup, but I haven’t used it in a minute
are the two related?
Open street maps is the back end for comaps and most open source mapping programs
Comaps, OSM And, and other apps use OpenStreet maps as their data source, sometimes as their only data source. So if the data isn’t in OpenStreet maps, it’s not gonna be in Comaps. Comaps is basically a frontend for OpenStreet map data.
thank you. why would I go for comaps instead of open street maps then?
OpenStreet maps is primarily a data source. I guess you could use the website: https://www.openstreetmap.org/
But they don’t have mobile apps.
Holy wah… #2 is a deal breaker for sure. So sad.
I use OsmAnd which I think is also really good. I’ve heard nothing but good things about CoMaps too, like you said, which is a (seemingly well-justified) fork of Organic Maps.
If anyone’s curious about contributing to OpenStreetMap too to make the maps in your area better, I know a bit, and I’d be happy to answer questions, even if they’re just random curiosities. It’s a lot of fun.
How does one define and name an area?
Depends heavily on the editor you’re using. Editor-agnostic, however, is that under the hood, everything uses “tags”, which are effectively key–value pairs that the broader editing community has agreed mean something.
In most editors, you’ll draw the area in a sort of free-form connect-the-dots, and you’ll have a created a blank area once you close the loop (under the hood, this is defined by the placeholder
area=yestag, but seriously don’t worry about directly changing tags unless you’re experienced; just let the editor give you a list of items to choose from).Next, select the area, and your editor should present you with some way to search for what you want. Once you click that, the editor will apply the corresponding tags under the hood and will likely give you a list of properties you can change (for example, if you create a fast food restaurant, it might let you decide if it has a drive thru or not).
I’ll be able to give something a lot more specific once I know the editor, since UIs vary heavily. (Note which I didn’t know at first myself: if you went to OpenStreetMap’s website, made an account, and clicked “Edit”, then you’re using the iD editor.)
!CoMaps@sopuli.xyz
It’s my back up for when I have no cell service
I thought this was a joke ad for a dev convention. Come on over and build something great at Comap(p)s 2026! We have a friendly competition where the team who builds the most feature-rich app all get programmer socks!
Are the paths reversed ?