All my latest private map initiatives (Backdrop, World Stage Zero, Guess This Metropolis) can be found at no cost on-line. Nonetheless, as a result of I make zero cash from my maps, I can’t afford to host them myself or pay a supplier for the map tiles that they use. This implies I’ve to be somewhat artistic in publishing my maps on-line.
Because of the wonderful Glitch and the generosity of TripGeo I’m able to host my maps on-line price free.
Map tiles, nonetheless, are somewhat harder. I can’t afford to pay Google, Mapbox, Esri or any of the opposite map tile suppliers for map tiles. That’s the reason I usually discover myself looking the Leaflet Supplier Demo map. This map is a implausible supply for map tile layers which aren’t password or key protected.
Nonetheless, simply because these map tiles are usually not password or key protected doesn’t strictly imply that you’re free to make use of these map tiles in your individual maps with out paying for the privilege. Should you use these map tiles in your maps with out paying, then the suppliers will incur the internet hosting prices. Meaning I attempt to not rely too closely on these unprotected map tile companies simply because they’re unprotected. The identical goes for hot-linking to the OpenStreetMap map tiles and passing in your map tile prices to OSM.
I’m, due to this fact, delighted to report that there’s now a brand new free map supplier available on the market. OpenFreeMap supplies …
“free map internet hosting so you possibly can show customized maps in your web site and apps.
It’s actually free: there are not any limits on the variety of map views or requests you can also make, nor on how you employ your map. There is no such thing as a registration web page, no consumer database, no API keys, nor cookies.”
The OpenFreeMap map tiles are vector tiles, which signifies that they’re good to be used with the open-source MapLibre map library. Actually, the instance given within the Fast Begin Information reveals you use the tiles with MapLibre. The information additionally says {that a} Leaflet primarily based instance is coming quickly. If you’re already aware of Leaflet, you won’t want the information. Regardless that there may be but no Leaflet instance, I used to be shortly in a position to get the tiles to work in Leaflet by utilizing the Maplibre GL Leaflet library.
The launch of OpenFreeMap is thrilling information for on-line map builders. It’s a implausible useful resource for ‘interest’ initiatives like mine which might now be developed and shared with out having to fret about map tile prices or map tile limitations.