I imagine certain features like Google Maps’ different busyness indicators might be missing because otherwise that would require telemetry?
I imagine certain features like Google Maps’ different busyness indicators might be missing because otherwise that would require telemetry?
The FOSS ones suck in comparison honestly. There’s really just osmAnd that has a really ancient UI. As for other OSM(OpenStreetMaps), I find MAPS.ME to be the best, but it’s closed source with some crypto scam crap built in that you can’t disable.
I don’t really like OSM based maps because they miss tons of places where I’m at, when I specifically need building numbers and locations. Also the search on both apps is god awful and straight broken.
Google Maps is definitely miles ahead of the competition here. The other features like seeing how busy businesses are, reviews/images, menu and phone number/website. These are also icing on top of the cake that make it essential to have which none of the competition have, let alone any FOSS ones.
It really depends on where in the world. I’m in the Caribbean and Google maps is terrible here.
Even on the main road network there is places where a bridge is seen as an intersection on Google maps.
Open street maps is much better here.
The app I’m using for open street map is called Organic Maps.
Organic Maps is a great open source replacement for MAPS.ME and osmAND, but also with the same disadvantage of not having good public transport options and needing to download offline maps beforehand. Magic Earth, while not FOSS, at least does show public transport times (in my country at least).
Address based search works, but the data is largely lacking.
You can help by adding building numbers from within Organ Maps (tap a building and, then “edit place”).
The underlying OSM dataset supports building number interpolation, so even a few accurate entries could be very helpful.
Honestly, OsmAnd doesn’t have that bad of an ui these days. I’m perfectly happy with it, most of the time. Definitely prefer it to Google Maps while cycling.