this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2025
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OpenStreetMap for the win, my peoples.
Specifically OSMAnd.
Works perfectly as long as you already know where you're going!
And the local community keeps locations up to date
Seen big cities that are great in mapping every flower pot, but have restaurants and shops that don't exist for over half a decade
Even when they are up to date the search blows.
I tried to find something the other day and just because it's funny here are the results. The business is called X's Y but in osm it's stored as Xs, no apostrophe.
So you tell me, if it can't find a restaurant for which it has existing data, why is it the users' fault for not collecting more data?
For me it works perfectly. Try out Organic Maps or one of its forks then?
That's comaps now that organic is persona non grata
I don't really know what happened but when your app only works with community support and the community hates you enough to hard fork the app, it's time to switch.
Might be worth looking deeper into it though, in why the forkers hate the dev.
I'm pretty sure they used the word shareholder value one too many times and people brought out the noose.
The only difference between these maps and their data is the effort by the community to update it. Google doesn't pay people to update places, they entice them with points and advertising. Google and Apple maps would be no different from OSM if no one updated them
sure. doesn't change the problem, though
(if more people used Street Complete, it would make the problem a lot better)
Google maps only ever knew where you were going because Ingress players and Google "local guides" filled in all the data for them.
Update the out of date data. Its not hard and the more people use it the more accurate the places data will be.
You can complain about why google works better if you want to, but it still does.
Your response also ignores the fundamental problem: even when the data is in open street maps, the search still sucks. No, I didn't mean any of 20 things in Italy, I meant the Italian restaurant a mile away.
I use OSMAnd and the search is a lot better, not sure what client you are using.
Oh I'm running osmand~ and comaps and magic earth.
And by running I mean I occasionally confirm its still not good enough yet
It is a trade off though.
I may not be able to see the "nearest restaurants with reviews of 4 stars that are open now with no wait times" BUT I have been so many places where google or apple had not updated the map yet and only OSM got me where I was going.
So maybe it is fine to open a commercial map or local review site, or blog, or web page, that is not tracking you for store discovery, then put the address in OSM to actually get there.
And take the time to use street complete when you can, it is really easy and fills in things like hours open, accessibility, etc.
This is a straw man. I have no interest in that, what I want is to be able to see points of interest more or less immediately after the business appears and I want search to work. The immediately problem could easily be resolved by lots of these restaurant vendors like door dash, slice, etc incorporated adding the restaurant to osm and it would basically cost them nothing.
And if I used a commercial map to find the place, why wouldn't I stay there? Google maps also has better directions because it has traffic data. Like I get we all hate google but the argument osm is good or even fine just doesn't make sense to me.
I don't think that is a straw man argument at all.
Traffic doesn't do me much good if the roads are not correct in the first place, and OSM is usually more up to date. I noticed traffic data is not as significant as people seem to think it is, and since everyone is rerouting it ends up being a wash most of the time anyways.
Search works fine for addresses, and you don't have to use maps, it could be anything: reviews, blog posts, nightlife calendars, whatever.
OSM works because YOU add data to the map. I agree that I would like vendors and even cities to update OSM so add data and make it more valuable for them to do so too.
I mean that's where this conversation started: osm works fine if you already know where you're going.
I don't know anything about where you live, but traffic is wildly variable where I am and so I need it. Note I'm not one of those people who uses their gps to go to the grocery store, we're talking journeys of 30+ minutes, usually 60+, on interstates. Yeah if you're going to trader joes the traffic doesn't matter, but I sincerely hope people aren't whipping out gps to drive 10 minutes to somewhere they've been hundreds of times.
I really don't why everyone is trying so fucking hard to convince me to switch. I have multiple osm apps installed to my phone at all times. They just don't work well in any of the places I've lived in the last decade.
You're also seemingly of the belief I haven't added data to the maps, which is wildly wrong. I still support osm, it's just not good.
Except in places where I know where I want to get to but don't know how to get there, OSM most of the time is better than Google. So many examples of this for me, over and over again. It is just more up to date.
Specifics too, things like trails, parking, alternative routes, all better.
The traffic is a thing I suppose but every where I have been like I said it rarely saves any time.
Maybe it is because I travel through a lot of different places and countries.
By the way, I forgot to mention that in traffic theory (yes I have a friend who works with Traffic as their job) they tell me that two studies are very interesting with gps traffic routed maps:
Up to 60 percent use and traffic flows better, but once adoption gets to 90% of people using apps the traffic gets worse for everyone.
StreetComplete to help fill in the gaps. GeoShare to translate google/apple maps locations to geocoordinates for OSM, and then adding the place in OSMAnd if you login with the OpenStreetMaps editor plugin. This is how those of us who adopted Google Maps early added so much of their data..
Right, so it works real well if you already know where you're going.