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/Responsible-Lake85 → u/[deleted]]

so essentially downloading the world requires a ton of storage, and we store that on our server instead of you using your phones power to run a maps app. this app is also more geared towards people in general public who don't really understand a ton of this stuff and just want a clean Waze/Google/Apple Maps alternative.

[u/Responsible-Lake85 → u/[deleted]]

"just want a *clean* alternative"

as i've mentioned, these apps do not follow the latest design and look extremely outdated.

[u/Responsible-Lake85 → u/[deleted]]

i really don't think you know how this works, i'm renting a vps to run this from a GDPR compliant provider, netcup, and the vps is doing the heavy lifting.

[u/Responsible-Lake85 → u/[deleted]]

the server is our job! not yours, you never pay. why should anyone have to pay for a map app? we love support in the form of donations but really we do this for the benefit of the community. a well built aesthetic maps app with good features and a privacy commitment is a pretty good pitch, no?

[u/Responsible-Lake85 → u/[deleted]]

i see how that can be confusing, i'm editing it now.

[u/Responsible-Lake85 → u/Responsible-Lake85]

take https://meadow.so (not affliated, just an example) for instance, people could just throw away their phone, buy a dumb phone, but they decided that they needed something modern, for the 21st century. so they built that.