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Hi Everyone, We have a leaflet application which is targeted for general public and need to use one of the open-sourced tile server as the basemap. In finding the right tile server, we learned that most of the existing servers have limit on the number of mapviews (number of tiles loaded) per month, for example, Mapbox limits 3000 mapviews (1 mapview = 15 tiles) per month under a free account. So I am wondering is there any tile server which provides basemaps that do not have any limit on the number of tiles/request? Does the OpenSreetMap standard style (http://{s}.tile.osm.org/{z}/{x}/{y}.png) also have this limit? We do not anticipate heavy usage for loading the tiles. I am posting this because my client only want something that's 100% open sourced (free). Thanks for any input. Aster |
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To my knowledge, the most liberal tile server is that run by Mapquest (open.mapquest.com). However, your client seems to mix up two things. OpenStreetMap data is 100% open and doesn't cost you a penny to use, because it is contributed by volunteers who in turn are not paid. Running a tile server, on the other hand, does cost money. Last I checked, there were no hardware vendors who gave away processors for free, or power companies giving you free power consumption, or Internet providers giving you free access. You need to buy a server, set it up, pay for rack space and power consumption, and so on. There are organisations who have decided to pay this money and make tile servers available free of charge, but that is totally different from the "open source" or "open data" idea and the two should not be mixed. When you use a free tile server, that is essentially a "sponsored" server, and that "sponsorship" can change end at any time. Unlike the openness of OSM data which is guaranteed by the license and cannot stop. 4
@asterxiang: I would just like to add the option of running an own tile server. This has no fixed "limit on the number of tiles/request" – only a hardware limit. And of course you need to run and set it up (which is no simple and cheap task). Setting an own tile server is possible because the OSM data is free (as in "freedom", not as in "free beer", as you already noticed).
(20 Aug '14, 21:53)
aseerel4c26 ♦
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