MapTiler Alternative — maps.guru Compared (2026)
- Pricing verified July 2026
# MapTiler Cloud Alternative
The MapTiler alternative, commercial use without the logo mandate
Compare maps.guru vs MapTiler: free vs commercial plans, logo requirements, and on-premises hosting.
MapTiler Cloud pricing in 2026: the Free plan includes 5,000 sessions and 100,000 API requests per month but is non-commercial only, with a mandatory MapTiler logo. Commercial use starts at Flex, $30/month for 25,000 sessions plus 500,000 API requests, with overage billed at $2.50 per 1,000 extra sessions. maps.guru pricing: free forever with 50,000 tile requests per month, commercial use allowed with no logo, and Pro at $49/month (₹3,999) for 1,000,000 tiles plus 200,000 geocoding requests with a hard quota and zero overage.
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## Pricing comparison
MetricMapTiler Cloudmaps.guru
Free plan, sessions / month5,000 sessions (non-commercial, logo mandatory)50,000 tiles: commercial OK, no logo
Free plan, API requests / month100,000 API requests (non-commercial)50,000 tiles: commercial OK
Commercial use on free planNot allowed, Free = non-commercial onlyAllowed on all plans
Logo / attribution requiredMandatory on Free; required for 3D on FlexNo logo requirement on any plan
Entry paid planFlex $30/mo, 25K sessions + 500K API reqsPro $49/mo: 1M tiles + 200K geocoding
Overage billingYes, Sessions $2.50/1K; API reqs $0.15/1KNone: hard quota enforced
On-premises / self-hostedAvailable: MapTiler Server productNot available (cloud-only)

## Honest tradeoffs

### When MapTiler wins
Switzerland-based hosting, GDPR-compliant, data residency in EU
- On-premises MapTiler Server: full self-hosted deployment option
- Flex plan $30/mo is cheaper entry point than maps.guru Pro at $49
- High-resolution satellite and DEM (digital elevation model) layers
- 3D terrain and globe view support out of the box
- Established style catalog including Topo, Satellite, Outdoor, Winter variants

### When maps.guru wins

- Commercial use allowed on free plan, no waiting to upgrade
- No mandatory MapTiler logo or attribution on any paid plan
- No overage charges, hard quota, no surprise Flex overages
- Larger tile quota at Pro ($49/mo): 1M tiles vs 25K sessions (~500K API reqs at Flex)
- India ₹3,999/mo, no local currency from MapTiler
- Zero billing surprise, Pro is a flat ceiling, not a soft cap with overage

## Documented gotchas

### Free plan is non-commercial, commercial use requires Flex at $30/mo
MapTiler Free (€0/mo) explicitly prohibits commercial use per their terms. Any revenue-generating application or SaaS product must upgrade to Flex ($30/mo). The mandatory logo requirement also applies to the Free plan, the MapTiler logo must be visible on the map.
Source: MapTiler Cloud Pricing

### Flex plan has overage billing for sessions and API requests
MapTiler Flex is a soft cap, usage beyond 25K sessions or 500K API requests incurs overage: $2.50/1K additional sessions, $0.15/1K additional API requests. A spike in traffic results in an unexpectedly larger bill that month.
Source: MapTiler Cloud Pricing

### Session-based billing makes budget calculation complex
MapTiler counts "sessions" (a map load that initiates tile requests) rather than individual tile requests. One map session = multiple tile requests (zoom, pan). Mapping your expected usage to session counts requires testing, making cost estimates less intuitive than per-tile pricing.
Source: MapTiler Cloud Pricing

## Frequently asked questions

### Can I use maps.guru for commercial projects on the free plan?
Yes. maps.guru allows commercial use on the free plan (50,000 tile requests/month) without any logo requirement. MapTiler Free explicitly restricts commercial use, you would need MapTiler Flex at $30/mo for commercial projects.

### Does maps.guru have satellite imagery like MapTiler?
Not currently. maps.guru focuses on vector tiles from OpenStreetMap data. If you need satellite or aerial imagery layers, MapTiler Satellite or Mapbox Satellite are dedicated options for that use case.

### Is maps.guru available for self-hosted or on-premises deployment?
No, maps.guru is a cloud-native service built on Cloudflare's edge network. MapTiler Server is the recommended choice if you require on-premises hosting for data sovereignty or offline deployments.

## Mapping terms in this MapTiler comparison, defined
The vocabulary behind tiles, geocoding, and API pricing, in plain language.

### What is Vector tile?
A vector tile is a compressed binary chunk of map geometry (roads, buildings, labels) that the browser styles and renders at runtime, instead of downloading a pre-drawn image. Vector tiles let one dataset power unlimited visual styles and stay sharp at every zoom level.

### What is Basemap?
A basemap is the background map layer (roads, water, landuse, place labels) that your own data is drawn on top of. maps.guru serves basemaps as MapLibre-compatible vector tiles.

### What is Map style?
A map style is a JSON document that tells a renderer which colours, fonts, widths, and zoom rules to apply to each layer of a vector tile. maps.guru styles follow the MapLibre Style Specification, so they work in any MapLibre or Mapbox GL JS compatible renderer.

### What is Geocoding?
Geocoding is the process of converting a text address or place name into latitude and longitude coordinates. Reverse geocoding does the opposite: it converts coordinates into the nearest human-readable address.

### What is PMTiles?
PMTiles is a single-file archive format for map tiles that supports HTTP range requests, so a tile server can read one tile out of a multi-gigabyte archive without unpacking it. maps.guru stores its tile archives as PMTiles on Cloudflare R2.

### What is MapLibre GL JS?
MapLibre GL JS is an open-source WebGL map renderer, forked from Mapbox GL JS v1 after that project moved to a proprietary licence. It is the reference renderer for maps.guru styles and carries no per-render licence fee.

### What is Tile request?
A tile request is one HTTP fetch of a single map tile. A typical desktop map view loads roughly 10 to 20 tiles, and panning or zooming loads more, which is why tile quotas are counted in tens of thousands rather than page views.

### What is Static map?
A static map is a server-rendered PNG or JPEG image of a map at a fixed centre, zoom, and size. Static maps are used where an interactive map cannot run: email, PDF exports, Open Graph share cards, and AI chat replies.

## Sources

- MapTiler Cloud Pricing — MapTiler

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