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?

[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

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.

Relevant thread from yesterday's thread on the original project this was forked from

https://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.

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.

What FOSS maps need is user generated content. For example, having "swimming spot" on my map is not really that useful - it needs photos, some description, additional information of what it actually is and how to reach it as bare minimum to be actually competitive.

OSM argues that it's a "map database" but it stores labels like "opening hours" and "social media links" - why stop there? The UGC vs non-UGC debate has been the biggest crutch of all open map projects and no one managed to solve it yet.

Sorry for the slight off-topic:

Is there any standard protocol/format for "layers" that could be added to such Map apps?

Let's say I want to write a plugin to add my own kind of data, and then I want to export this new kind of data so that someone can import them.

Or I want to create a website with my own data on top of existing one.

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.

Probably posted because of related recent discussion on OrganicMaps https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48794446

Seems like a minimal OsmAnd.

Map rendering is nice, and crisp.

Functionality really is bare-bones, though.

So for example there is a metro layer - but it's subway only.

No trams. I kinda need trams where I am - they're a major part of the public transport system, more so even than the metro.

Problem is of course a lot of people need a lot of different things, maybe you end up looking like OsmAnd, which much as it is irreplaceable, the config/setup is a bit of an upturned spaghetti bowl.

This is the only app that allows you to easily add stops and permanently save paths for biking. Honestly a life changer.

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.

CoMaps is great!

I'm still mostly using Organic Maps though, and from time to time I switch to Comaps to see the differences.

In general I like the colors of CoMaps more than OrganicMaps (light theme, dark is so-so), but I still use OM because:

- OM shows colors for marked trails. Pretty recent feature and not as good as in Mapy.com, but at least I don't need to switch to Mapy.com just for this feature.

- recently OM added public transport routes. UX is quite bad, but it's much better that having nothing! It was quite useful at my last trip.

The nicest feature that CoMaps added recently are map updates that are independent to an app update, and they try to update maps like once a week. So it's much more probable that you will have more up to date data there than on OM. So I started using it more too :)

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.

Tried it today. Works fine for navigation. I am missing live traffic info. This is the one thing keeping me in Google Maps the past years.

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.

CoMaps starts maximally zoomed out (showing the whole world). Organic Map starts showing my neighbourhood.

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).

How does this compare with the F-Droid version of OsmAnd?

[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!]

CoMaps is my daily. From time to time I also use it's share my location, add place or record track functionality.

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.

Just used it the other day while I was back-country hiking. Set some markers for some landmarks and calculated hiking distance/duration between them. CoMaps is awesome! It's also the reason I contributed to OpenStreetMaps for the first time a while ago, contributing the name of a landmark/structure up in a local mountain.

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!

Does anyone know how fresh the business data is? like opening, closure, phone, address of businesses?

i think one thing that's going for google is the network effects and what it's able to do.

CoMaps project celebrated its first birthday recently!

https://www.comaps.app/news/2026-05-12/celebrating-the-first...

Does it work on iOS app integration and does it has support for building application layer stuff like how MapBox sdk enables?

Very good for trails

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.

Does anybody know of a feasible alternative to Google Timeline?

Do CoMaps somehow support overlays, like bus routes? OSMAnd does that, but I see no such option in CoMaps anywhere (a map layer, a separate map, etc).

I understand this is an Organic Maps fork without the PE rugpull.

OSM is great as a map, but the biggest thing keeping me from switching from Google Maps to any OSM solution is the "white pages". My most common use case for a maps app is location-based search.

Having a complete and updated registry of businesses with operating hours is the bare minimum, and OSM apps already struggle with that. I also want pictures of the establishment, pictures of the menu for restaurants, and price estimates for fuel and hotels.

I understand the cost of hosting and moderating that stuff is enormous, but that's what it will take for me to finally convert.

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

How is this different from OpenStreetMaps? Or does it just use OSM as its underlying engine?

Great for hiking and sharing path.

So nice to be able to do that locally and just send a .gpx file

Tried today, I like the record track feature

I would love to switch to this, but the dark map is basically unusable due to the lack of contrast.

Would love to see a Windows desktop version.

protomaps is also great for that. open source and straightforward