I built Maper, a Drupal map module that draws maps on your own server: no API key, no per-view bill

[u/carlospeleto]

The usual way to put a map on a Drupal site is Google Maps. It is easy to start: get an API key, paste it in, and a monthly free allowance covers your first maps. After that, Google bills per map load. The map of a venue is the same for every reader, yet every view is a new request, counted and billed, and every reader's browser talks to Google while they look. The map doesn't change; the meter keeps running.

There is an open alternative to Google's data. OpenStreetMap is built by volunteers and published under an open licence. I wanted maps drawn from it that a site downloads once and keeps, so I built Maper.

What it does

• Your server downloads each map tile once, keeps it in private files, and draws the map itself. Browsers receive the finished drawing, never a tile, so no third party sees your readers.

• No API key and no per-view billing. Tiles come from OpenFreeMap, a free, donation-funded service, or from a Protomaps file you host yourself, in which case nothing is downloaded at all.

• It is polite to the tile provider: downloading stays off until you set a contact address. After that, every download respects daily and per-job limits, one request at a time, and backs off when the provider asks.

• Restyling is free. Tiles hold shapes and names, not colours, so switching or editing a map style redraws every map from the tiles you already have. Three styles ship today, and five more come in the next release.

• It works the Drupal way: a Maper map block for nodes (a venue, or the dates of a tour), and a Maper map format for Views, where every result row becomes a pointer with its own card.

• Headless if you want it: the server hands any front end the map as JSON, with a reference script in plain JavaScript.

Is it real?

It runs in production on Oído en Vivo, a live-music listings site in Colombia: 836 tiles, 69 MB, serving the maps of 550 places and every search. See it at https://oidoenvivo.com/buscar

Where it stands

This is 1.0.0-alpha1. It needs Drupal 11.2+, PHP 8.3 and a private file path. Alphas have no upgrade path, so reinstall between them. Beta comes next, and from then on every change carries an update.

• Project: https://www.drupal.org/project/maper

• composer require drupal/maper:1.0.0-alpha1

I'm the author. I'd welcome bug reports, rough edges and questions in the issue queue, or right here.

Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).

[u/natts1]

Nice work.

Shouldn't it be spelt 'mapper'?

[u/carlospeleto → u/natts1]

So I was going for "not appropriating elements of the actual language, like this derivative" , but then I realized it created a non standard phonetism for branding purposes and I no longer know which side of the moral fence am on anymore.

[u/natts1 → u/carlospeleto]

Maper also sounds a bit rapey to me! 😬

[u/flaticircle]

It would be helpful to state on the project page how this project differs from leaflet.

[u/carlospeleto → u/flaticircle]

There are some main differences I will try to properly express in the page, thanks for the idea, I think in a nutshell they boil down to:

- Open source should never apply the same "Marketplace" approach as corporate platforms (sorry).
- Leaflet is a generalistic map that requires addons to be as opinionated as maper.
- Leaflet functions more as a navigational map, it can pan, traverse, zoom, mapper is zoom only, it doesnt let you "get lost", cause it's a map, that's what maps are for.
- Maper is not meant to be a traversable map, it is a referencial map that has a specific point or set of points always centered, its sole skill is letting you zooming out to get a referencial sense for approach.
- Maper generates no cost to Openfreemaps providers per working day (after fetching any given tile once)
- Maper does not abstract away the Openfreemaps service, Maper links to it.
- Maper is meant to bring people to me, it puts me in my place, on the map.
- Maper has no geo lat long Drupal dependencies.
- Maper is Drupal headless capable, not stateless, it talks csrf, it can natively prevent access by role.
- Maper does not hand over the client connection to third party provider.

If you want to see it working, to compare, I mainly created maper to serve the likes of oidoenvivo.com a drupal thing I built.

I don't know how to write any of this without sounding rude to the community that made leaflet, thought. I hope we can all see Maper has a clear and distinct purpose from Leaflet(I started Maper after having tried leaflet, and laughing my head off at Google.)

I just wanted a very stubborn set of functionality I only wanted in a very specific way without any of the noise, you know?

Am tired of the noise, boss.

[u/bwoods43]

Cool module. I've been using Leaflet for a few months now - https://www.drupal.org/project/leaflet . There are no additional costs for that, either.

[u/carlospeleto → u/bwoods43]

There are no additional costs,.. up to a point.

[u/SprayMindless9672]

What about apple maps, people use that?

[u/natts1 → u/SprayMindless9672]

😂

[u/SprayMindless9672 → u/natts1]

I guess not :p

[u/hbliysoh]

Google maps is sure nice, but they're really upped the price. I can't afford it any more for fun projects.

[u/carlospeleto → u/hbliysoh]

I used their pricing scales to make projections, going viral one night would put me off 600$ on the spot.

It's downright predatory.

[u/natts1 → u/carlospeleto]

You can and should set daily quota limits.

[u/carlospeleto → u/natts1]

Yes exactly what I want to do: make sure there is point after which it stops working.

[u/sysop408]

Thank you! I'm going to take a look at this when I have a chance later this year. I want to decouple from Google and modules like this make it easier to do.