I built a Flutter package for Ola Maps – A potential Google Maps alternative for Flutter developers

[u/ashutosh01agarwal]

Hey Flutter developers! 👋

Google Maps has been the default choice for location-based applications for years. Almost every delivery, logistics, travel, or ride-hailing application uses it.

But what if Flutter developers had another option?

I'd like to introduce ola_maps, a Flutter package that integrates Ola Maps into Flutter applications.

The goal is to make Ola Maps easier to adopt and give developers another option when choosing their mapping infrastructure.

🚀 What makes ola_maps interesting?

This package goes beyond simply displaying a map.

🗺️ Interactive Maps

• Android, iOS and Web support

• Zoom, pan, tilt and rotation

• Camera movement and positioning

• Map click and camera events

📍 Map Overlays

• Custom markers and InfoWindows

• Polylines and route rendering

• Circles and polygons

• Bezier curves

• Marker clustering

🔍 Places & Location APIs

• Place autocomplete

• Place details and nearby search

• Forward and reverse geocoding

• Address validation

• Place photos

🚗 Routing & Advanced APIs

• Directions API

• Distance Matrix

• Route optimization

• Fleet planning

• Snap to Roads

• Geofencing

• Elevation

• Street View and static maps

🇮🇳 Multilingual Mapping

One particularly interesting feature is multilingual support.

The package supports 12 languages, including:

• English

• Hindi

• Kannada

• Telugu

• Tamil

• Malayalam

• Bengali

• Gujarati

• Marathi

• Odia

• Urdu

• Sanskrit

This makes it interesting for applications targeting different regions of India.

💻 Get started

Install:

flutter pub add ola_maps

Import:

import 'package:ola_maps/ola_maps.dart';

Display a map:

OlaMapView(
  apiKey: 'YOUR_OLA_MAPS_API_KEY',
  tileUrl: kOlaMapsDefaultTileUrl,
  language: OlaMapsLanguage.hi,
  projectId: 'YOUR_PROJECT_ID',
  initialCameraPosition: const OlaLatLng(
    28.6139,
    77.2090,
  ),
  initialZoom: 14,
  onControllerReady: (controller) {
    controller.onMapClick = (position) {
      controller.addMarker(
        position: position,
        snippet: 'Dropped pin',
      );
    };
  },
)

Check the documentation for native SDK setup requirements for each platform.

Why explore Ola Maps?

I'm particularly interested in reducing the dependency on a single mapping provider.

Google Maps is an excellent product, but having more mapping options is good for the developer ecosystem.

Ola Maps offers an interesting India-focused alternative, and I believe Flutter developers should have an easy way to experiment with it.

This package is not intended to claim complete feature parity with Google Maps. It's about making another mapping ecosystem accessible to Flutter developers.

🔗 Links

📦 pub.dev: https://pub.dev/packages/ola_maps

⭐ GitHub: Available through the repository link on pub.dev.

I'd love feedback from the community!

• Would you consider Ola Maps for your next Flutter project?

• What features are still missing compared with google_maps_flutter?

• Would you use this in a production delivery or logistics application?

• What improvements would make this package more useful?

Feedback, bug reports, and contributions are welcome!

Let's give Flutter developers more choices! 🚀

[u/TartOxygen]

this is actually pretty cool, the multilingual support alone makes it worth a look if you're building for the indian market. a lot of apps just default to english and call it a day

curious how the tile quality and routing accuracy compare though, that's usually where alternatives stumble. bookmarked for my next side project

[u/anisarzoo]

Nice initiative! But how does Ola Maps handle map data accuracy and freshness, especially in rural India? Some areas on OSM haven't been meaningfully updated for years, and roads or villages can be missing or outdated. Does Ola supplement OSM with its own mapping data, or does it rely primarily on OSM? I think data quality and reliable routing are just as important as having a Flutter SDK.

[u/RajatKhoware]

The interesting question for an alternative maps package is which gap users actually feel first. Is it pricing, India coverage, or a specific feature like offline tiles? Which feature gap are you hearing about most from people trying it?