Best open-source alternatives to Google Maps

Organic Maps is an open-source mobile maps and GPS application aimed at travelers, tourists, hikers, cyclists, and drivers who want navigation without ads, tracking, or mandatory registration. It emphasizes privacy and offline use, positioning itself as an alternative to mainstream map apps while relying on OpenStreetMap data. The app provides detailed offline maps, route guidance for walking, cycling, and driving, elevation and contour information, subway and public transport layers, and offline search. It also supports importing and exporting bookmarks and tracks in common geospatial formats. The README points users to installation and contribution documentation, beta programs, issue reporting, and community channels, indicating an actively maintained community project.

Open Source Routing Machine (OSRM) is a high-performance routing engine built in C++ for working with OpenStreetMap data. It is intended for developers and operators who need routing, navigation, and map-matching capabilities exposed through an HTTP service, a native C++ library, or Node.js bindings. The project provides several routing-related services including point snapping, route calculation, route matrices, trace matching, trip optimization, and vector tile generation. The README emphasizes quick self-hosted deployment, especially via Docker images, while also documenting source builds and Node.js package installation. OSRM also includes hosted documentation, an online demo server, and a separate frontend repository for a user-friendly map interface.

GraphHopper is an open-source routing engine aimed at developers and teams building map-based navigation or route-planning features. It can run as a Java library or as a standalone web server, making it suitable both for embedding into applications and for self-hosted deployments. The project supports core routing use cases such as A-to-B route calculation, turn-by-turn guidance, road attribute queries, snapping points to roads, and isochrone generation. It uses OpenStreetMap and GTFS data by default, can import other data sources, and provides a Maps UI for local use through its web service setup. The README also points users to detailed documentation, deployment guidance, and Docker images maintained by the community.

TileServer GL is a map tile server for serving vector and raster maps with GL styles. It is aimed at developers and GIS users who need to host map tiles for clients such as MapLibre GL JS, Android, iOS, Leaflet, OpenLayers, and WMTS-capable GIS software. The project can be run with Node.js or in Docker, and it supports loading either an MBTiles file or a configuration with style and tile data. It also provides a lighter npm/Docker variant that avoids native dependencies, while the main package offers server-side raster rendering through MapLibre GL Native.

Nominatim is an OpenStreetMap-based geocoding service used to search for places by name and address and to perform reverse geocoding from coordinates back to synthetic addresses. It is intended for self-hosted deployments as well as for users who want to run their own search service over OSM data. The README also notes that Nominatim powers the search box on the OpenStreetMap home page. The project is installed from source by cloning the repository, preparing a Python virtual environment, downloading country grid data, importing OSM planet data, and then starting a web server. The README points users to the project documentation for detailed installation and troubleshooting guidance, and mentions community support through forums and GitHub discussions.

Openrouteservice is a self-hostable routing and geospatial API service built in Java. It is designed for users who need turn-by-turn routing, travel-time isochrones, distance matrices, coordinate snapping, and graph export based on OpenStreetMap data. The project can be run locally or on a server, with the README recommending Docker and Docker Compose for installation. It exposes HTTP endpoints on port 8080 and includes documentation for using Swagger UI and an API Playground against local instances, making it suitable for developers integrating routing capabilities into other applications or deploying their own routing backend.

openstreetmap-website is the web application and API behind OpenStreetMap. It provides the public site users interact with, including account management, diaries, private messaging, map browsing, and GPX-related features. The project is intended for developers and operators who want to run or contribute to the OpenStreetMap website stack. It is built with Ruby on Rails and relies on PostgreSQL plus additional external services such as tile servers and geocoding providers, so a complete deployment is more than just the repository itself. The README also points readers to installation and contribution documentation for fuller setup details.