CoMaps integration with the wider FLOSS ecosystem | Hacker News Reader

CoMaps integration with the wider FLOSS ecosystem

comaps.app

142 pointsjanandonly40 comments

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Yess!

Please make an effort to improve underlying OpenStreetMap dataset:

https://streetcomplete.app - basic task-based, on-the-ground, app for Android

https://every-door.app - intermediate on-the-ground app for smartphones

https://rapideditor.org - AI-assisted mapping in browser

https://www.hotosm.org - task-based mapping in browser

https://josm.openstreetmap.de - advanced editor for desktop

You can also improve the map through CoMaps itself! It allows you to add and edit businesses and points of interest, as well as addresses and some other info.

So whenever you're at some business, you can take a minute to quickly add it to the map, or just update details like opening times, etc.

Two things I would love to see in the FLOSS mapping ecosystem:

1. A POI/favorites app that maintains a local database with an API for other apps to access it. Apps could then store markers there instead of in their own private db, so that points added on one map app can be instantly available in other apps.

2. A shared traffic data service. Any OSM map app could contribute to the same data, helping reduce Google's advantage in live traffic data.

Obviously, both of these would need privacy protections and be subject to user choice. And there should also be some requirement that both reading and writing be supported, to ensure apps reading POI data don't lock in new data, and to prevent apps reading traffic data from freeloading.

> 1. A POI/favorites app that maintains a local database with an API for other apps to access it. Apps could then store markers there instead of in their own private db, so that points added on one map app can be instantly available in other apps.

Would an AT Protocol app or extension meet this need and requirements? By being stored in a PDS, the data can be permissioned, owned by the user, and easily migrated and/or shared.

https://atproto.com/blog/atproto-spaces-alpha

ATProto spaces: A new extension to ATProto that enables non-public data - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49379732 - August 2026

No, it should be local-first. Private and offline by default. There could certainly be sync integrations using AT, Dropbox, iCloud, etc. Those could even be separate apps, using the same API to access the data. But that sort of thing should be secondary and optional.

Do you have any thoughts on data structure for local storage?

Not really. I imagine a sqlite db, but I haven't thought about any particular schema.

We already do local bookmark backup, and use KML natively I think. It just doesn't sync, resolving sync conflicts is hard.

OsmAnd already can store an unlimited amount of POIs locally. With text, icon, color, coordinates of corse.

As technologists I think we should all be wary of "when all you have is a hammer" fallacy a little bit more.

I certainly support local first, but if it is trivial to enable sharing of map favorites and POIs on open social rails, your risk is limited to "personal to you" locations being shared. JSON or Sqlite is fine for local storage of course. It is after all most likely simply a list of POI UUIDs/GUIDs identifiers and/or latitude/longitude coordinates with attribute fields. Foursquare and other social geo checkins long predate this, but I would agree good opsec should be the default, while still enabling open sharing with your data prevented from being captured and held hostage by Big Tech, imho.

I have many custom Google Maps lists I would love to share publicly on AT Protocol (mostly from collecting places in locations I've traveled to others would want to visit), for example, but would want some labels of places to remain private (homes of friends).

Export Google Maps List to CSV, KML and GPX - https://www.takeout-tools.com/blog/export-google-maps-list-c...

How to Turn Any List Into Google My Maps - https://www.lekoarts.de/how-to-turn-any-list-into-google-my-...

Google Maps Create a list of places - https://support.google.com/maps/answer/7280933

Example list:

   Title,Address,Notes,Latitude,Longitude
   "Golden Gate Bridge","San Francisco, CA","",37.8199,-122.4783
   "Fisherman's Wharf","San Francisco, CA","Best chowder",37.8080,-122.4177

Yeah, there are all kinds of interesting things that can be done with shared data like this. But the first step is to have some standard ContentProvider to let apps share the data locally on a single device, similar to how other user data is handled. Because I'm tired of having several map apps installed for various reasons that all have separate favorites.

Once that is in place, people can create apps that build on it in lots of different ways.

Waze got hugely popular by gaming their maps; people would install it just to get a high score. I wish the FLOSS mapping ecosystem would do similar.

The problem with gamification is it implies tracking and moderation so it's often a thin "fun" veneer over pervasive corporate tracking/surveillance

StreetComplete has a but of gamification. Only internal, for you. But still.

It works by giving you points and achievements. And as you progress, the achievement give you popups with links to interesing OSM-data-using size. Or to add one more category to the things you can complete.

A huge usabilitiy step would be the operating systems (and apps) just supporting geo links.

Geo links are from a RFC and are plain simple: geo:52.512974,13.420131

Clicking this link should open your chosen local map app at this position.

But it does not, actively sabotaged by big map app players who want only links to their app.

I wish we had a system where companies are incentivized to enable interoperability

There's an app for that!

I use GeoShare, and configured Android to open links to Google Maps, Waze, etc. in GeoShare, and it translates them into geo: links that I can open in CoMaps

On Android an application can register a custom URL scheme. And the OS has a way for you to select which app should work with a clicked custom URL if several of them registered to e.g. "geo:"

#1 is a common request and possible future improvement, #2 is coming soon with TraffXML (taking in live traffic, not necessarily contributing it back)

Nice to learn about Traffxml, but that allows taking in traffic data from where? Seems like there would need to be some service consolidating traffic reports from users of various map apps.

for 2: https://opentrafficmap.org/

it works by collecting C-ITS (Cooperative Intelligent Transport System) data, which many vehicles now send out.

https://wiki.opentrafficmap.org/en:c-its:start

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_transportation_sys...

So it is in principle similar to the many maps that show data from ADS-B (beacons the planes send). Or to aprs.fi that display beacons ham radio enthusiasts send.

Unfortunately, the vehicles sending C-ITS send them not from very high (like planes) or with considerable transmit power (like ham radio operations). And also in challenging areas. So an C-ITS receiver (e.g. based on a ESP32-C5) has a rather short receiving range.

So for a truly open traffic map we'd need millions of receivers!

I would also like to see manageable amounts of update traffic. In the old days I had De Lorme street maps of the whole US. It was sold on a CD-ROM so the whole dataset was at most 700MB. It didn't have updates. I also have paper maps (Thomas Guide) of my local region in my car, from the 1990s, and they're still perfectly good in most places. Roads don't move around THAT often. But I have Organic Maps (predecessor of Comaps, maybe I should switch) for just some parts of California and that by itself is more than 1GB of updates EVERY MONTH.

Really seriously, if I go to someplace out of my area I might download that place's map of 500MB or whatever, but then I probably want to just leave it on my phone in case I go there again, no updates needed. I'd like an install for the entire US to be no bigger than say 100GB (my phone "only" has 256GB of storage), and maybe I want monthly updates for my local region of 200MB/month, then perhaps annual updates for everything else unless marked as being of special interest. Plus manual update on demand for wherever if I think I might travel there.

Well, California is 423'970 km². And Germany is 357' 684 km². I only use OsmAnd, not CoMaps. So almost the same size. The street card of Germany is 2848 MB, so even larger than the number you gave.

We also have cards for the places we live, e.g. I have the "full" map (not just streets) of Hessen, one of the 16 federal states. And that is only 485 MB. If that would be too much for me, I could also only download the governmental areas of Darmstadt, Gießen or Kassel (roughtly southern Hessen, middle Hessen, northern Hessen). But that is, in the OsmAnd case, also the case for California. You can download all of it, or or several of 16 parts.

Also: you can't compare OpenStreetMap with the detail of this old CD-ROM or printed maps. It contains WAY more data. Are you old enough to know the times where you bought a city plan if you visited some city? Well, this OsmAnd/CoMaps data set has a very details city map of all cities. And of all villages. And of about any dwelling. In OsmAnd, you cans search for almost everything, even esoteric things. Example: if you search for "Kneipp treading pool" you find them. And usually they are nice picknick areas, too. Try that with a printed map.

I personally experience you "EVERY MONTH" issue. My map of "Hessen" was last downloaded half a year ago --- I do this manually, and only every so often. OsmAnd allows that.

And if I would experience it ... I'd rather care. We have high speed DSL and glass fiber with 1000 MB/s in Germany, so 2 MB is almost nothing these days.

Still I would not recommend OsmAnd to everyone, e.g. not to "Aunt Mary". It has a clunkier, more techy UI. It isn't for everyone.

Related your point 1:

I even want local notes. Once I walked around with SCEE or Streetcomplete ... and I added a note. And then the note was public on OpenStreetMap. I meant it as a note to me, so that I later could fix the thing at my desktop computer with JOSM --- which is, for some things, way better than doing it on-the-walk with a smartphone, no mouse, no real keyboard.

Also workaround for 1: In OsmAND you can define your POIs, they are then stored in on the devices. And then you can use things like SyncThing to share them.

Cool. In July, ESRI and Google teamed up to lock down road closure data on their “community maps” program. The community appears to be governments feeding their data to Google and ESRI who then look after it for us, entirely for our benefit.

I really think there needs to be an effort to get drivers to use real community software and provide this data as a public good.

https://www.esri.com/about/newsroom/announcements/esri-helps...

Related. Others?

CoMaps: The Offline App That Guided Rescuers Without a Signal in Venezuela - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49452671 - Aug 2026 (80 comments)

CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48808928 - July 2026 (214 comments)

CoMaps emerges as an Organic Maps fork - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45899836 - Nov 2025 (15 comments)

CoMaps: New OSM based navigation app - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44453888 - July 2025 (55 comments)

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

Does this work better than OsmAnd in any way? The latter has been around for a long time and just works. Perhaps the best feature is that maps can be downloaded and used completely offline. It's the natural map app on a degoogled Android system like Graphene.

The main downside relative to commercial apps like Google Maps is that you often need to input a full address instead of entering a business name or something like "Burger King near me."

OsmAnd is painfully slow, I keep it around just for unique features like transport routes and surface quality.

CoMaps rendering is almost instant and map palette is easier on the eyes.

CoMaps has been around for about just as long, as it is ultimately a fork of Maps.me.

OSMAnd is great for nerds but scares normies. I'm active in a travel subculture highly reliant on OpenStreetMap data, and I have only pissed my peers off by recommending OSMAnd; I eventually learned my lesson and would suggest CoMaps now.

Unless you’re already familiar with it, OsmAnd’s interface is a complex and confusing mess. It does not “just work”.

CoMaps (and Organic Maps) aim to be much easier to use.

Neat, I was not aware of this mechanism. Is there any way to get map (tile) data from CoMaps into another app?

There are converters between different OSM formats and other formats (Garmin comes to mind). It depends on the target. E.g. here: https://www.mapfileconverter.com/free-gis-conversion-tools

Thanks, but I was interested more in the cross-app communication aspect rather than the data formats ( https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/wiki/Content-Provider ).

I once looked into building an app which piggybacked on CoMaps/OSMAnd's data (saving the user from having two copies of their maps, and me from having to duplicate the UI to manage them), but found that in modern Android it was basically impossible for even the user to access data/files that "belong" to an app, without rooting the device.

Thanks for the reminder that ContentProvider is the Android term I couldn't remember when I wrote my other comment here.

And the reminder that I should have added this to my list:

3. A ContentProvider app for OSM map data, so that apps can share the same offline map data.

The issue is that we change our map file "format" with nearly every release, and handling that without crashing is already a job. For example if we add, say, bomb shelters to the map, an older app using that newer data will have access to it but no idea how to render it, which can cause problems (crashing, errors, blanks, etc.) So we have very specific versioning on a per-map-release / app-release basis, and that's just our project. We've already diverged from Organic Maps and even moreso from the (corporate, closed) Maps.me and living on a totally different data format planet from OsmAnd and Magic Earth. So it's a nice idea but extremely hard in practice.

Could the comaps vs organic maps situation be explained please? tx

Comaps is a fork of Organic maps, because community members didn't like the direction organic maps was moving in. Organic maps was becoming more profit-focused and the governance structure was not democratic.

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

Seems like the fork was largely successful.

A wzsabre(https://wzsabre.rocks) integration would be helpful in jurisdictions where that's legal

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