I agree with the search, but being a map is where OSM shines.
When I visit google maps a see a bunch of colorful boxes and notable locations, I have no idea why it chooses the notable locations it does but it appears to be either paid or some sort of SEO shenanigans, a local curry place is list but one of the biggest train stations in the country isn't (Southern Cross in Melbourne), recently they've also tried to cover the map with the "explore" panel.
When I look at the same area with OSM it shows the train station and shows me the street names with the street names all those colored boxes (buildings) are information, without them they're just noise.
Because in a lot of places, OSM has more accurate points-of-interest coverage.
I maintain the map for a fair chunk of Soho in London. On Google Maps, I've seen places I know about filled with points of interest that aren't actually there, geo-targetted SEO spam and so on.
For various bits of London, if the map says it's there, I either put it there or checked it.
I just checked an area of London that I maintain for OSM but on Google Maps: it's a load of shit. Shops and businesses that closed years ago still on the map. Large corporations inside police stations. The Victoria Embankment Gardens marked as being in the River Thames.
I've been using osm more and more recently. Google just makes a bunch of frustrating decisions that really pushed me to look elsewhere. Especially in the public transport layer, but more generally in being really bad at deciding when to hide details with no way to override it and say "TELL ME THE NAME OF THIS CROSS STREET DAMNIT THATS THE ONLY REASON I KEEP ZOOMING IN HERE!!!".
Outside of the US, OSM is almost completely useless. I live in a major Australian capital city, and there's vast areas of the city without any geocoding information at all.
If you just want to display a vague map of a major metropolitan area it's ok. But as soon as you need to actually find an address, you're out of luck.
I use OSM heavily, and it blows Google Maps out of the water in certain categories.
It has much more granular data that is especially useful for outdoor activities. You can tell roads from trails from tracks, and all are there. In many places, everything is mapped down to benches and signage. Google Maps shows you a white line, and it's up to you to find out whether your vehicle fits on it. This bit me a few times.
When I was in Central Asia, I used it to find gas stations and ATMs that weren't on Google Maps. I mapped a dozen of them myself, and added information about the fuel octane they had. It's also how I found accommodation and restaurants that wouldn't be listed on Google Maps.
Google Maps covers people living in cities rather well, but if your use case isn't "take the train to a nice restaurant", OSM has a lot more to offer.
Reviewing the difference, OSM actually puts the street name where I can find it. The first thing I want with maps are street names and for whatever reasons, google maps makes that very difficult in some cases.
There's nothing wrong with OSM but you can't pretend it is on the same level as Google Maps. Where is streetview? Business opening times? Reviews? Phone numbers? Directions? Turn-by-turn navigation? Live traffic? Historical traffic?
Google Maps now has a live busynessometer for some businesses. And 3D models of entire cities, even non-London ones.
As a traditional paper map OSM is fine, but Google Maps is now far more than that.
On the other hand, google maps has been showing a road right through our neighbours' living room for the last ten years, while OSM correctly shows all roads and footpaths. Different maps have different errors, look what works for you.
A marketing problem with OpenStreetMap is that people used to Google maps where you get some .png tiles and that's it assume that OpenStreetMap is the same kind of thing.
Note that the OSM say "We make beautiful maps", that's maps plural, not "a beautiful map".
The project is primarily about the underlying data, not any particular end product. They have vector and bitmap outputs, 2D and 3D, digital and printed, up-to-date and historical maps, cycle, public transport and walking maps etc.
And many are both more beautiful and more useful than the alternatives, as well as being free. But not all of them.
Their featured image section of the Wiki gives a better overview, though again many of these images are intended to highlight the quality of the data or new technology:
In brand new neighbourhoods, I've also found OSM much better than Google Maps. E.g., lots of new developments in Cambridge were extremely well annotated whereas Google Maps didn't even have streetnames. This is super helpful when you are shopping for a new property.
Casually browsing OSM in my area, I see individual park benches, garbage cans including type, road surface material, doorways to buildings, power lines, location of springs. And that's just what Osmand is rendering, I'm sure I'm just scratching the surface.
Google doesn't even attempt to map most or all of these things here, much less expose this information. OSM attempts to build a much better map, and for my region, easily succeeds.
That's not to discredit Google Maps. Almost all of the time, I don't need the best map, I need the kind of yellow pages, yelp, sightseeing guide, live traffic and transport, navigation mashup Google is projecting onto their map with great skill. I think it's their best product.
As someone used to osm, you can show me my home town on Google maps and I won't recognize it anymore. There is so little detail on the map, it might as well be blank. Osm is fine, it's you who has only trained yourself in using Google maps.
Are you suggesting OSM has better point-of-interest search than Google Maps?
I love OSM, but this doesn't match my experience at all. Can you provide a bit more detail, maybe some examples of searches that OSM has better data for than Google?
Maps isn't about maps anymore, it's a location database that happens to show a map sometimes.
If you want an actual map with useful map features like showing street names then OSM is a far better product.
I don't get me started on how gmail has been filtering the content of emails. I wonder how many services have been spam blocked because google decided to hide the unsubscribe links.
I generally favor Google Maps for the things they care about--like major roads, directions, etc. But, while not perfect, I find OSM is far more likely to have things like hiking trails and other types of features that are apparently not on Goggle's list of things it actually cares about.
When I visit google maps a see a bunch of colorful boxes and notable locations, I have no idea why it chooses the notable locations it does but it appears to be either paid or some sort of SEO shenanigans, a local curry place is list but one of the biggest train stations in the country isn't (Southern Cross in Melbourne), recently they've also tried to cover the map with the "explore" panel.
When I look at the same area with OSM it shows the train station and shows me the street names with the street names all those colored boxes (buildings) are information, without them they're just noise.
reply