Our own map tiles with MapLibre

A map game needs a map. PricePinner uses MapLibre to show it. The map images come from OpenStreetMap, the free map that volunteers make.

Two tile sources

• By default, the app loads map images from the public OpenStreetMap tile servers.
• We also run our own tile server. You can select it in the app: Profile, then Preferences, then Map tiles, then Self-hosted.

Why our own server?

The public OpenStreetMap servers are run by volunteers, and they have a usage policy. A popular game should not put a big load on them. Our own server also lets us draw the map in our own style.

The tools

• The tile server is built from OpenStreetMap data for Sweden.
• Planetiler turns the data into vector tiles.
• tileserver-gl draws them as images in two styles: Classic and Arcade.
• The server runs in Docker, like the rest of our back end.

The trade-offs

• We must update the map data ourselves.
• We must design the map style ourselves.
• We must credit OpenStreetMap, which we are happy to do.

The benefit

Full control over how the map looks, and no bill per map view. For a free game with no ads, that matters.