Organic Maps is great in many ways. It uses OSM for its mapping. As someone who regularly contributes to OSM, I appreciate that a lot.
But it doesn't do traffic, which is literally the only reason I want a navigation app.
this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2025
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Organic Maps (Unofficial)
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Overview:
Organic Maps is a free open-source Android & iOS offline maps app for travelers, tourists, hikers, and cyclists based on top of crowd-sourced OpenStreetMap data and curated with love by MapsWithMe (Maps.Me) founders back from 2021.
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It isn't open source, which makes it's hard to verify their claims, but Magic Earth uses OSM data and has traffic data in some countries. It has worked really well for me in the UK with arrival times being quite accurate to within a couple of minutes for 3-4 hour drives. They claim not to gather/sell any of your data, as they make their money through corporate customers.
fwiw I'm pretty sure in several countries it would be illegal for them to gather/sell your data if they've explicitly said they don't do that. I might actually trust that fact more than I'd trust the code, since they could easily build from a slightly different code base than the one shared online, if they wanted.
Organic Maps is a frontend for open street map. IMO OsmAnd~ is way better
I use both. On a daily basis I prefer Organic Maps.
I use both, OSMand is way better but slow and not simple - if I was going to recommend an app I would recommend organic as OSMand would probably be too much for most, and too confusing.
And is way slower.
Someone suggested Organic Maps to me some time ago and I really love it. Their map data is not that old (just a few days up to a month behind OSM edits), it doesn't annoy me with stupid features, it allows routing, and can fully operate offline.
Meanwhile at MapQuest: https://gulfof.mapquest.com/
God, I remember printing out MapQuest directions when I needed to get somewhere.
Also available on Linux, and with the magic of Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) it works on Windows too. Basically, export your mobile data to a sync service and import on other devices.
Far better than Google Maps in many regions and works perfectly offline.
Still using Waze (Google) for traffic though.
I’ll use Organic Apps as soon as public transport integration is working in my city. ATM it seems to be a build time feature-flag, which is no use for my phone.
Love Organic, but if you want public transport, maybe have a look at Here We Go, the map app from Here aka Nokia Maps?
For public transit on OSM data, there's also OsmAnd
OSMAnd rules but fair warning to anyone who tries it: information overload is absolutely going to happen, go into filters and get picky with them because their default choices are.... Interesting
OsmAnd's Android Auto implementation is trash. Magic Earth is the best I've used but I know it's not FOSS
The main use I have for navigation apps is traffic and bypassing it where possible. OSMand and Organic Maps, as well as every other app using OpenStreetMaps I’ve tried over the last 5-10 years, do not do traffic.
Currently using Here WeGo, the maps are great, the business information is up to date (at least in my area of the world) and it does traffic.
As a benefit, it’s also not renamed to Gulf of America
Man I would love to switch from corporate alternatives, however the review system is necessary for that.
And if you want Organic maps let you rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
HERE WeGo still has Gulf of Mexico, at least for non US folks. Can anyone from US of A confirm it's the same for you?
Affirmative on Android
When will Organic Maps use proper street addresses in the correct suburb? Something is lost in the translation from OSM.
I love organic maps, but live traffic is something I miss. Is there a way to get that on organic maps?
No since it doesn't track you. Magic Earth uses the same map as Organic Maps (osm) and has live traffic data, but it is proprietary, not open source
Does it work with Android Auto?
Only if you install via the Google play store.
I can't get it working, but I'm using graphene os, so that's probably why.
My city doesn't have home addresses listed on OSM. Can I just sorta copy/paste them from Google maps, or do I have to like physically walk around to get addresses so I'm not using copyrighted material?
You cannot copy anything from Google Maps. You seed to source data either from public sources or colle~~l~~ct it first-hand.
It's kind of like Wikipedia, you have to cite the original source (State or council maps) rather than a 3rd party source.
The map data for my suburb is all kinds of wrong on Google Maps, there's a park around the corner from me which is marked as a house for starters, blindly copying that into OSM would be a disservice.
Not necessarily original source - you can use aerial imagery from Bing, for example.
The actual requirement is actually a legal one. The data must be public domain or otherwise compatible with their license.
I also encourage everyone to start updating their local areas with businesses and poi's to help OSM grow. I do it and it's super fun. :)
I'd encourage use of StreetComplete, you can walk around your local area and get lots of points to survey with data on street widths or businesses' opening times. Imagine if all the people who were busy with Pokemon Go used that, OpenStreetMap would be nigh perfect in terms of data.
Are there any iOS equivalents to StreetComplete?
there is Every Door on iOS, as well as MapComplete and MapContrib which are websites so they should work on iOS
idk if any of these are as good as StreetComplete tho
Amusingly, it's widely believed that improving location information is a big part of the reason Niantic (at the time a subsidiary of Google) created Ingress (their game before Pokemon Go—and a much better-designed game, IMO) in the first place.
Yes!! I love that app!
I just recently put in a Note for a fix in my local area (not a business, but an incorrectly placed toll road), but looking around the area I see a bunch of other Notes that are months old that don't seem to have been actioned. So I don't have a lot of hope that my feedback will be fixed any time soon.
You don't have to just leave a note, you can fix it yourself
From what I could tell, not without creating an account. And because this is something relatively unusual (not as simple as changing a business's opening hours or something like that), I'm not even sure I'd be able to figure out how to do it in a reasonable amount of time. I'm not willing to put in the effort to do all that before I've ever gotten value from the app (since this was a problem I noticed the first time I ever tried actually navigating anywhere).
Google and Apple also have account requirements.
Not sure you read what I said, because this reply doesn't address it.
Can you link your note here? I might look over the area and do some of the notes. There probably isn't any mappers ever looking at the area if there's a bunch of really old notes.
I've always been curious about how to do this. Know any good resources?
You can download an app called StreetComplete that makes it very easy to do little edits such as marking whether a bus stop has a bench and what material the sidewalk is made of. It's also available on FDroid!
JOSM and Every Door are great resources!
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