this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2026
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DeGoogle Yourself

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First of all, thanks all for your tips on how to unravel my life from GMail. I've slowly started to migrate over to Proton mail (slightly controversial but I feel the full suite will be easier to sell my wife on, who loves her big tech corpos)

Now to the topic at hand, what are some good alternatives to Google maps for driving directions?

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[–] FrostyPolicy@suppo.fi 28 points 23 hours ago (3 children)
[–] extremeboredom@lemmy.world 6 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Just tried it out. I'm astounded at just how deep the settings go. It's bordering on too configurable.

[–] cabhan@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 17 hours ago

I've been using it for years, but I agree that it's almost too configurable. Start small, and don't ezplore the menus too deep :).

[–] Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

This is the best alternative I found so far. I love how much you can configure it to your own needs. There is a bit of a learning curve, but once you get over that, it's so much better than g maps.

[–] ParadeDuGrotesque@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 23 hours ago

And another vote for osmand+

[–] Jokulhlaups@lemmy.world 2 points 20 hours ago

Its also great at finding and optimizing paths for bicycle!

[–] Vimes@discuss.tchncs.de 25 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

https://www.comaps.app/

I use it in combination with SherpaTTS in Android Auto for car navigation

[–] sunth1ef@sh.itjust.works 9 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Osmand+ is definitely the right answer for customizability and power; however CoMaps has made the GUI decisions for you in a nice way and is ready to go out of the box.

Osmand+ added secure location sharing to their roadmap for 2026 which is something my family really misses - so I will he using and supporting when that drops.

Laslty, open street maps have one fatal choke point - search is pretty terrible. Even inputting a correctly formatted address often yields no results or too many confusing results. Searching by place name is hit or miss, mostly miss. The only workaround is to verify address and get lat long coordinates for that address- I typically do this from a third party website.

@sunth1ef
For Location Sharing you can try Zood

[–] Trent@lemmy.ml 10 points 23 hours ago

I use OsmAnd+, works fine for me.

Disclaimer: I don't often go to places I'm unfamiliar with so I don't need directions very often, but when I do it seems to get the job done. YMMV.

[–] toothbrush@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 21 hours ago

I personally found Osmand to be horrible UI wise, it was impossible to find anything with the search bar. CoMaps on the other hand, is wonderful, uses a lot less battery charge and the search works great too. Only downside is that I had to install a text-to-speech software seperatly as my phone does not have Google TTS.

[–] non_burglar@lemmy.world 4 points 21 hours ago

Like others here, I use open street maps data, but I've found comaps to be the best frontend to it. I can approach the navigation functionality of google maps with it.

[–] hesh@quokk.au 6 points 23 hours ago

Ive been using Here Wego, with SherpaTTS for voice instructions

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 5 points 23 hours ago

Open Street Maps. On android you can use osmand from fdroid

With that said, I've noticed that OSM does not have a lot of addresses, especially for residential areas, so I would recommend pairing that with gps-coordinates.net two convert street addresses into GPS coordinates.

[–] Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works 4 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Organic Maps works well enough for me. Even for car travelling through Apple Car Play it’s reliable enough. I don’t know if there are better alternatives, but I can vouch for this one.

I only miss satellite pictures to facilitate my navigation as the map can be a bit too abstract..

[–] Niquarl@lemmy.ml 1 points 18 hours ago

With OSMand you can get a satellite view if you wish

[–] mr_might44@lemmy.world 5 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I know OpenStreetMap exists as an alternative, but I don't know if it has decent driving directions. You could check it out and see if it has what you want/need.

[–] IDew@feddit.nl 4 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I use it most of the time and it always gets me to my destination just fine! The text telling you to take X exit could be bigger though.

[–] thomas@friendica.bytebox.nohost.me 1 points 19 hours ago (1 children)
[–] IDew@feddit.nl 1 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Where exactly? I cannot find it in the options..

[–] thomas@friendica.bytebox.nohost.me 1 points 18 hours ago (1 children)
[–] IDew@feddit.nl 1 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

I somehow thought the original comment was talking about Organic Maps but I now see it was about OpenStreetMap aha. My bad! There's no option for it on Organic Maps is what I tried to say

[–] UncleOb@lemmy.world 4 points 23 hours ago

I've been using Mapy.com for the last six months and it just works. Sometimes it's even better than Maps.

[–] Glifted@lemmy.world 2 points 21 hours ago

I personally use OSMand+ but its not as nice as Google maps. I've had some luck using Magic Earth in the past. Something about it pissed me off and I uninstalled it, but I can't remember what. It might be worth trying

[–] DieserTypMatthias@lemmy.ml 1 points 19 hours ago

Mapy.cz, OSMand, Organic maps and so on.

[–] hildegarde@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 21 hours ago

OSMand has been recommended many times here. Its a paid app on the corpo app stores, with subscription fees or a $70 purchase to access premium features. However, the version on F-droid is free and as far as I'm aware has those "premium" features enabled.

Openstreetmap's address lookup is the one usability issue I have encountered. OSM can only look up building numbers if that specific building has been added, and many are not. When navigating to an address I often have to find it in another app and copy the coordinates.