CoMaps has been my main map for a while now after using Organic Maps, and traffic calculation has alwsys been a downside of open source projects like these.
I recently stumbled upon Vela Maps, an open source app that uses Open Street Maps, and integrates Google Maps’ traffic analytics and place search “anonymously” (logged out browser queries). Not degoogled, but a nice option. How do they do this? What does the CoMaps community think?
It is in beta and I am one person, so it has bugs. I build it with heavy use of AI assistants and test it on real phones. It is GPLv3 so it can outlive me, and I will never charge money for it.
So it’s a vibe coded map app that just asks Google for traffic data? you might as well just use Google maps in your browser if it’s that big of a deal for you
Google Maps in the browser does not offer navigation.
it does though? I’m not turning on location services for it, but it shows me the path and the start button.
Those are directions. That's not the same thing as navigation.
To be honest, from the point that you start using google, reliability goes down so much that the usage of AI on top becomes less of a bottleneck. E.g. the bugs would more frequently bite you that originate from google’s actions than AI code. Like the struggle of yt-dlp and NewPipe with YouTube.
Plus, I feel a bit bad expecting people to dig through proprietary google interfaces.
That being said, I’d still skip the project because I’d rather stick with FOSS. Maybe if I’d drive a car instead of a bike, I’d feel different, but as it is now, I can easily stay with CoMaps.
At the SOTM they announced they are working on traffic time integration, i don’t think we have already a date for the release. Minute 15:40 https://www.comaps.app/news/2026-09-14/comaps-at-state-of-the-map-2026/
some people on lemmy were posting about magic earth https://www.magicearth.com/
it’s not FOSS but it uses OSM.
we tried it for about a year. Navigation is better but we didn’t need “traffic calculation”. I’m sure others who are still on it would have better feedback about it.It may be your degoogled solution 🤷
when i tried magic earth i was under the impression that traffic analytics didn’t work, I assume because almost nobody uses this app, it cant calculate from no data.
I used to use magic earth but i switched for some reason – maybe they moved live traffic behind a subscription? I can’t remember.
Anyway, Here We Go is free and has live traffic
IMO Magic Earth got worse once they went down the subscription train. A subscription for a basic feature like CarPlay? No thanks!
I’m a little late to this, but since you asked for what the CoMaps community thinks, I’m going to answer this question from two viewpoints: as an occasional contributor to the project, and as an end-user. (The contributor statement is not an official statement from the project; it is solely my opinion.)
As a contributor, not really much to say here. We sometimes chat about these vibe-coded alternatives in Zulip, and to me it’s just another vibecoded app.
As a user? They’re most definitely violating Google’s copyright by using their (likely copyrighted) data, unlike e.g. NewPipe which is using YouTube videos that Google does not own the copyright to. I’ll leave to Alphabet to sue (or not sue) Vela’s devs. But personally, as a user, I’d be wary of an app like this. Besides the copyright standpoint, the whole point of switching to a FOSS app is to de-Big Tech, not remain tethered to Google. Plus, because it’s vibecoded, I’d just ignore it anyway.
