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this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2024
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The thing is, OSM is not comparable with GoogleMaps. OSM is just a (gigantic) database and is in many cases way more complete than GoogleMaps. What people usually associate with OSM is a rendered version of the database focused on what ever the renderer decided: bike lanes, waterways, hiking trails, etc. Many other apps actually use their database: OrganicMaps, Komoot, etc. And even more their rendered tiles. Now there are so many functionalities that this database doesn't do like geocoding (searching for adresses), reverse geocoding (getting the adress of a point) or route planning, but there are tools for it build on OSM data. e.g. Nominatim does geocoding and graphhopper does routing.
And to be honest, if you're travelling by bike graphhopper does a way better job at routing than google. An other plus, you can download the complete data for offline usage. All of Europe is only around 60GB.
I mean... Yes that's literally what I said. I don't know if there is any of these apps that really provide all that Google Maps provides. But I'd be interested if they do.
They will never do, because they are not trying to. AFAIK no one is trying to build FOSS reviews of restaurants/stores, no one is building street view and no one is saving where you live to make the one click from work to home route planning. For me, those are not functions that I need (or want). I need a map that works offline, does route planning (offline) and allows me to display multiple GPX files at the same time.
Does OSMAnd have all that? It does, so for me it's an alternative. What use case do you have?
Osmand does have a plugin for open reviews or something and I think I saw there were plans to use another source too. I guess, on top of photos from Wikimedia and mapillary it is trying to become a bit like Google Maps in a way...
There is also a plugin for mapillary street view that doesn't work too bad.
Only missing a Web app for desktop.
Directions using public transit for instance.
Public transit navigation is possible in Osmand but there will not times just the routes and only if the data is present in Openstreetmap and that pretty rare, really depends where you live.