Organic Maps
FreeAn offline map that works with the network off — no account, no ads
An offline maps and navigation app built on OpenStreetMap data. Maps download per country or region, after which search, walking, cycling and driving routes and voice guidance all run on the device — airplane mode included. There is no account system and no location history collected.
Why we picked it
Apache-2.0, 15,400 stars.
The difference from Google Maps is not feature count, it is where the data goes. Search an address and Google Maps sends that query plus your position to a server; Organic Maps looks it up in a local offline index and answers with the radio off. Travelling without roaming, hiking out of signal, or simply not wanting a navigation app to remember where you go at what hour — all three cases hold.
Map data comes from OpenStreetMap, which costs you freshness on businesses: a shop that opened last month may wait for a volunteer to add it. In exchange, hiking paths, cycle routes and mountain tracks are often better covered than on commercial maps, because OSM's outdoor data was walked in by volunteers.
To be clear about:
- The project split in 2025. In April 2025 a group of contributors published an open letter about governance and financial transparency, the core dispute being that a small set of shareholders decided commercial partnerships and spending without community involvement. Talks went nowhere and the contributors forked CoMaps as a not-for-profit. Both are shipping updates from a shared code base; which you pick depends on whose governance you prefer.
- Mobile only — there is no desktop client.
- Live traffic and transit arrivals are absent, which is the unavoidable price of offline-first.