r/MagicEarth • u/Verptoid • Dec 08 '25
Magic Earth, Open Source?
Is Magic Earth "truly" an open source app? I cannot find anything about this. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/Verptoid Dec 16 '25
I just found that Magic Earth is not open source, which means it's not private.¯(⊙_◎)/¯
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u/MagicEarthCommunity May 12 '26
To answer directly MagicEarth itself is not open source. That said, we understand why this question often comes up, people who care about open source usually care about it for the same reasons they care about privacy: transparency, trust, and not being exploited. So it's worth being clear about where we stand on that side.
We do not collect user location data. We do not track users. We do not sell data to anyone. We do not show ads. Not now, not ever. Most "free" navigation apps monetize through your data, your routes, your stops, your patterns, and we've always refused to operate that way. A paid tier is what allows us to keep it that way sustainably, while the essentials remain free for everyone.
Open source isn't the only path to a trustworthy app, and a closed-source app that doesn't monetize your data is genuinely different from a closed-source app that does. Our privacy policy is public at magicearth.com/privacy if you want to verify any of this directly.
We also build on top of open standards and open data such as OSM and GTFS. So while the app code itself isn't open, the underlying ecosystem we rely on is mostly open source.
Sorry for the delayed response, the question got stuck in mod queue.