CoMaps: New OSM based navigation app | Hacker News Reader

CoMaps: New OSM based navigation app

comaps.app

Their repository description:

> The main code repository of CoMaps, a community-led fork of Organic Maps. Reinforced with commitment to transparency, privacy and being not-for-profit.

Previous HN discussion for context: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43961908

Thanks! Macroexpanded:

A community-led fork of Organic Maps - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43961908 - May 2025 (206 comments)

Does it have some other "actual" featuges compared to OrganicMaps?

No “Donate!” buttons at all.

I just installed comaps from f-droid and see exactly the same amount of donate buttons - one.

Sure! Check here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44455300

Coming from OsmAnd, I'm always impressed by the performance of the maps.me forks, but I find their feature set rather limiting. The route planning in particular seems rather naïve, at least from what I can tell when planning routes I know well. This would send me straight into traffic light-laden roads (that, on paper, if I were the only driver, would be the shortest distance).

That said, if you're just looking for a simple maps app, I suppose OsmAnd could be quite overwhelming and this would probably be a lot better.

I never really got what the Organic Maps drama was about, but as long as the two can peacefully coexist I hope they'll work together to make their apps as good as they can be.

Are there any sources that open source apps can use to get traffic information?

There are government databases and various public-private partnerships, but the most common method of traffic information is by collecting users' information while driving. There are companies that resell access to that data too: https://www.mapbox.com/traffic-data

OpenStreetMap doesn't even seem interested in things like "this street is closed next week Tuesday", but maybe there's another open project that collects this information for maps apps. I don't know any, though.

> OpenStreetMap doesn't even seem interested in things like "this street is closed next week Tuesday"

OpenStreetMap data consumers can have much longer update cycles than "next week", so it makes sense to have such information outside of the map data if you are implementing a router.

I feel the same. I just installed it and there are almost no features besides the map of course. I am super happy with osmand.

> That said, if you're just looking for a simple maps app, I suppose OsmAnd could be quite overwhelming and this would probably be a lot better.

That's the main draw of CoMaps to me. I also have OsmAnd installed and it's useful for more complex uses, but for a quick lookup CoMaps works a lot better for me. OsmAnd is more the swiss army knife of navigation tools, with all the complexity that means.

Organic maps is my go to for those reasons.

I'm looking forward to seeing this succeed.

A question: given that common pattern of forks of this codebase over time which seem to have a common theme of confused/transferred/disputed ownership, are there plans for an actual neutral foundation (or joining an existing one) or some governance which will guarantee that this avoids those problems?

From the outside it's getting embarrassing constantly telling my friends and family "actually you need to install this new fork instead" for the fourth time. I've seen norming in the wild with maps.me or MapsWithMe installed on their phones in the past, and I can't believe that they're following along the journey and we really can't go though this again.

Creating an org or joining a fiscal host are two things the community is currently exploring to avoid exactly those issues, you can find the Governance discussions and decisions on their Codeberg repo here: https://codeberg.org/comaps/Governance/

Perfect. It looks like it's moving in a very good direction.

People asking if there's differences to Organic Maps, yes there are

E.g., on iOS CoMaps has fixed several bugs present in OM like: * CarPlay Interface not resetting upon arrival at destination * Search Results still highlighted after route creation * Button overlaying during routing on small iPhone

I have improved the consistency of paths and footway rendering

Talking about the app features, here are some of the bigger / easier to notice differences:

- added automatic backups for bookmarks and tracks

- added 100m-step altitude isolines to all regions that had worse or no isolines

- a big rework of the map colors - lighter, warmer, friendlier

- add a setting to customize the leftmost button or hide it

- removed semi-transparent background in Subway layer

And there is a bunch of smaller changes, for details check the release notes: https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/releases

Why all of these features weren't contributed to Organic Maps instead of creating a fork?

You can read the reasons for the fork here: https://www.comaps.app/news/2025-04-16/1/

https://news.itsfoss.com/organic-maps-fork-comaps/

Me personally, the CoMaps people seem more open to other contributors

Oh man, if automatic dark mode (dependent on whether dark theme is engaged on phone) is added, I would switch immediately.

The features here (and listed below) are good features, but I wonder if this isn't just "different features". In the same time, has Organic Maps added different features that you don't have? Or have they made fewer features because developer energy has shifted to CoMaps?

I.e. is it that Organic Maps just have different priorities than you do? Or is it that Organic Maps have been holding back these good features for no good reason?

CoMaps cherry-picks changes from Organic Maps regularly. OM is also free to pick from CoMaps, but so far they haven't been doing so.

And yes, amount of work done on OM has reduced significantly, as many contribturos have moved to CoMaps.

Still, features-wise priorities of both projects are quite similar. E.g. being easy to use and simple , offline-focused, etc.

I would say CoMaps is a bit more serious about privacy and is also more open to customization by users (to a reasonable extent).

As CoMaps is a community-driven project then it's possible that with time the growing community would change the direction of the project somewhat.

But the biggest differences that actually were the reason for forking - are in the way the project is run - CoMaps is truly community-driven, open and transparent, which includes project's finances and decision-making.

Does it play well with Android Auto? My OSM app doesn't display on the car screen unless I keep the app open and make sure the phone screen doesn't go dark. It's nice when it works, but its harder than it should be to get it going.

It should work.

But make sure that the app is installed from Google Play. Google prohibits use of navigation apps in AA from other sources.

Hopefully they will fix my biggest pet peeve with Organic Maps - jerky navigation movement (to the point of it being actively distracting and problematic in a car).

It happens because they don't apply any movement filters/momentum to the navigation, which means that the navigation marker jerks from one GPS update to the other and is constantly behind the actual location of the vehicle. Which makes it extremely easy to miss a turn.

The authors of Organic keep rejecting implementation of a filter/momentum (just like any other nav app) with "it's less accurate"... which is kind of ridiculous if you think about it.

They should take your velocity vector into account, or something along those lines, to minimize rotations, even when not following a route. It just leads to a ton of unnecessary screen redraws and jerky movement.

Furthermore, as I've been driving in a region with a lot of tunnels, I wish they implemented a better system for when you pass through one while following a route. It animated the arrow for a bit but then stops and only jumps forward when you get out. I wish it would keep going with a speed based on your entry speed (and maybe the tunnel's speed limit, if available), taking the routed exit if there are any forks inside. This would make the happy path much better and would not really worsen accuracy, since it isn't accurate in any way as is right now. You could tweak the arrow's color/shape to indicate it is showing a predicted route.

The biggest thing keeping me from using any open source routing or even Google Maps is that here in Israel there are roads that are illegal to drive on either because they're access to PA territory or they're bus/taxi only. No application other than Waze avoids these, so I'm stuck using Waze. I just checked this, and to get to a building down the street from me, it wants me to YOLO myself through the bus lanes.

Openstreetmaps is notorious for having ultra-granular information, down to flags for whether a post in the street is metal or floppy, retractable or fixed.

For bus lanes, I just checked and they're all correctly marked in my city. Seems they are missing in yours, sadly.

>> For bus lanes, I just checked and they're all correctly marked in my city. Seems they are missing in yours, sadly.

Fortunately OSM can be edited by users. Updating the lanes in your city is something you can do. I'm not saying it's easy, just that it's possible.

I tried to get into OSM a few years ago, and the barrier to entry seemed a bit high. Maybe I'll try again. For all I know, the lanes are properly marked, it's just a routing issue. In Israel, the bus lanes are a bit odd. A lane can be a turn-only lane for cars and straight-only for busses. So, it's a bit complicated. Even Google Maps can't handle it.

> A lane can be a turn-only lane for cars and straight-only for busses.

That seems pretty normal, there's lots of this around Europe. Apparently overlooked by navi/maps designers overall.

You can get in touch with the Israeli community here, maybe they know an app that works, or if there's something that can be done with the current tagging: https://community.openstreetmap.org/c/communities/il/50

Maybe the bug you're seeing is this? https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/issues/510

this can definitely be mapped in OSM. as far as a high barrier to entry, I'd say that there is a low barrier to mere entry. StreetComplete provides extremely easy OSM editing. Unfortunately, dong something complicated like mapping the turn lanes and what bus restrictions exist on turn lanes is not easy

Thanks for sharing StreetComplete. I hadn't seen that. My interests are usually around K8s, Linux, containerization, IoC, etc, so I honestly hadn't looked as deeply into OSM recently as I should. This looks like a fun way to contribute back a bit.

> is that here in Israel there are roads that are illegal to drive on either because they're access to PA territory or they're bus/taxi only.

You can fix those aspects yourself in OpenStreetMap (OSM), with the result that once your updates flow into the routers/apps that use OSM (OsmAnd, maps.me, etc.) that those tools should stop attempting to route you over those roads.

Is Garmin City Navigator reliable there? You can delete stuff and export your own maps in Basecamp.

I'm not familiar with it. Waze is such a standard that I've just gotten used to it, but I'm down to clown with anything new as long as I'm on familiar roads and routes.

Oh, finally the iOS build. Ok. If this lifts off well I'll start donating.

https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/src/branch/main "also usable on Linux phones" f... yeah!

I was lamenting the other day how stagnant the whole navigation app space has become. It seemed like Waze was the last innovative one, and that was quenched after they were acquired by Google. It’s nice to see a new entrant in the category.

Is there any difference from Organic Maps? What's up with the forks?

Someone asked it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44453962

I've answered here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44455300

I haven't followed whats going on with Organic Maps but I continue to use it and have donated to it in the past. Why the fork?

Here’s the open letter about it:

https://openletter.earth/open-letter-to-organic-maps-shareho...

Previously discussed on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43961908

Original letter regarding the dispute with Organic Map is here: https://openletter.earth/open-letter-to-organic-maps-shareho...

What does this Organic Maps fork bring new to us?

First of all its about truly community-driven, open and transparent governace and project's finances. And living by the FOSS and non-profit values.

But if your question is more about app features, then see my reply here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44455300

Note that being Estonian OÜ (LLC) brings convenience of both having fully electronic communication towards any state affairs and also super easy to get (no even registration needed) yearly financial reports. Actually more-less the only touchpoint with state is the yearly report, no taxes until you have salaries, apply for VAT, deal with licensed area or really cash out the profits. Also you can be foreign, "e-resident" to use such OÜ.

The official company reporting source is https://ariregister.rik.ee/eng/company/16225385/Organic-Maps... . Yearly PDF reports are in Estonian language, but your favorite AI should help. The numbers are in actual EUR (not housands), so they seem to have 33KEUR profits, IMHO no huge piles of money to worry too much for.

Launched for iOS and Android today

site doesn't doesn't even properly render in safari

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