Comparision Google map vs OpenStreetMap

Edison Devadoss

Published in

YavarTechWorks

4 min readMay 30, 2020

Hi friends, I this article I explain the key difference between Google map and OpenStreetMap.

Google Map

Google Maps is a proud product of Google Inc and is a major part of their services. The service was publicly launched in February 2005 and from that time it has been enhancing and now a giant product with so many features, user-end API services such as routing, direction, map tiles design customization, route traffic, many advanced layers, overlays, map customization options and so much more. The major boost of Google Maps in web world was when people were able to start integrating their maps solution in their websites, now it’s so common that we see almost every single website either corporate or commercial have a section of maps showing up their location in the view represented by some markers.

Drawbacks of Google Maps API Services

When we think about it in the developers' point of view the first thing which comes to our mind is the source code of Google Maps is the proprietary of Google Inc and we can’t play around with it to adjust it according to our requirements and usage. The libraries hacks will not work much longer as the whole package is loaded every time and Google keeps enhancing it with every release. Google maps can hide some data if they want. In the Google map, they mark borders wrongly for different countries.

So all against it, we have Open Street Maps which is Open Source Mapping Solutions that start getting popular every day because of its Open Database License, we can download the whole solution and edit it without any restriction.

Overview of Open Street Maps

Open Street Maps (OSM) is an open-source project maintained by the OpenStreetMap Community that provides free editable maps of the whole world. OSM motivation was to make a restriction-free mapping solution that can be used for commercial and non-commercial usage which any limitation. The project was launched in August 2004 by Steve Coast as a non-profit organization, the data of OSM is a perfect alternate solution for google maps that contains almost all the service that google maps offer with the advantage of customizability. In the next section, we will compare the services of both mapping solutions.

Comparison of both Mapping Solutions

Geocoding API

In Geocoding API if we pass address it will give coordinations. Google map provides this feature. But there is a limit in this feature per day we can use 25000 free API requests alone, for more requests we need to pay.

For Open Street Maps we have free service and are hosted on many private servers. MapQuest and Mapbox also provide Address lookup services as a paid solution.

GeoDirection API

Google GeoDirection service is a pretty popular service that calculates the distance between two coordinates or addresses that show marks over the route.

It also provides several modes of transportation where a user can choose between transit, driving, walking, or cycling. But there is a limit in this feature per day we can use 25000 free API requests alone, for more requests we need to pay.

For Open Street Maps doesn’t have any direction API, there are some other 3rd Party solutions such as Mapbox, MapQuest that can be used as a paid solutions.

Place API Service

Google has Place API, it provides a list of Locations (Zip code, Country, State, City) and keeps filters as you type the address. This API service works with google maps API and has a usage limit but for small or medium scale websites the usage limit is pretty good.

OpenStreetMap lacks such widget as free service, a third-party provider such as Mapbox does provide such service but that’s just a data service rather than a widget.

Data Layers

Google Maps supports many types of data layers which include KML Layer, Data Layers for Earthquakes, heat maps, fusion tables, etc. It also provides data layers for traffic, transit, and Bicycle layers.

In the OpenStreetMap these layers are not part of the project, these custom layers can be fetched from Mapbox or Mapquest services.

Street View Feature

Google has a pretty accurate Street View feature that provides panoramic 360-degree views from designated roads throughout its coverage area, the view is the same as it does show at https://maps.google.com, the coverage of this 360 view is for limited cities.

For Open Street Map or any 3rd party service provider doesn’t have such great service.