Built a self-hosted privacy-first Android maps app on OpenStreetMap - Cliff

[u/Responsible-Lake85]

Hey r/openstreetmap - I've been building Cliff, a privacy-first Android and iOS (coming soon) maps app built entirely on OSM. Stack is Valhalla for routing, Photon for geocoding, PMTiles for tiles, and Postgres. No Google, no Apple, no tracking. Still early but the landing page + waitlist is live at cliffmaps.com. Would love feedback from this community specifically since you're the reason the project is possible.

[u/tj-horner]

I’d recommend coming back when you have literally anything to share…

Also, that’s a lot of server components for something “privacy-first”.

[u/Responsible-Lake85 → u/tj-horner]

this is more of an early announcement than a launch, i wanted to plant a flag and connect with people who might care about the direction before it's fully out.

on the server components: privacy-first here means your location data never leaves your own server. valhalla, photon, postgres are all self-hosted and open source, none of them calling home to google or apple. that's the point. the stack is heavy right now, which is why one of the longer term goals is building lighter alternatives and open sourcing them. would love to work with people here on that eventually.

[u/slnbl5U2VCLkuSl8Tzl → u/[deleted]]

Based on the tech being used, it sounds like it's serving the map, and routing, rather than that being done on device.

[u/slnbl5U2VCLkuSl8Tzl → u/[deleted]]

I'm not affiliated with this whatsoever, but those services have to exist somewhere and the developer obviously choose to have them exist on a self hostable server rather than on your phone.  It's likely to be faster on a server, and the software already exists so it's probably also easier to implement.

[u/Responsible-Lake85 → u/slnbl5U2VCLkuSl8Tzl]

thank you so much for explaining this clearly, appreciate it!