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Comment by megous | Hacker News Reader

> Google Maps is objectively the best product on its market, in many regards positioned light years ahead of its competitors.

No. Google maps is an absolute, washed out turd style wise. We have much better local competitor.

Compare this:

https://www.google.com/maps/@50.081478,14.4272906,13z https://mapy.cz/zakladni?x=14.4068130&y=50.0892746&z=13

You can try various zoom levels, and mapy.cz is always better. Much more detail. Much more contrast. Much more visual information. Tourist version of the maps.

I hated using Google maps when traveling in Spain. Sadly they are the recommended way to get public transport info. But I avoid them at all costs. I sometimes print maps when travelling and I can imagine google maps style would be more than useless when printed B/W on a shitty printer, while I could still use mapy.cz maps while low on ink.

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> You can try various zoom levels, and mapy.cz is always better.

mapy.cz indeed has more data but visually, Google IMO looks better on my Windows PC. Maybe it’s high DPI support, maybe it’s font rendering, but small labels are barely readable in mapy.cz, compare the screenshots yourself: http://const.me/tmp/maps/mapy.png http://const.me/tmp/maps/gm.png BTW, Microsoft did even better: http://const.me/tmp/maps/ms.png

I don't use hidpi, so I can't really compare your screenshots. :) Mapy.cz just looks better on your screenshot to me (aside from blur caused by rendering a screenshot vs direct software rendering optimized for my LCD).

You don’t need a high resolution display to compare. Save the images, open them in irfanview.com or getpaint.net or other image viewer/editor that can set 100% zoom (with scrollbars). The hotkey for 100% zoom is Ctrl+H in irfanview, Ctrl+0 in paint.net.

Yes, my image viewer can set 100% zoom. But my monitor just displays it exactly like if I did open mapy.cz myself on a lowdpi monuitor, and the labels are thus correctly sized and everything just looks very nice, except for a huge canvas with a need for scrolling.

I disagree that the competitor is anywhere better for the links you just posted.

Not only does the mapy.cz version look terribly blurry compared to Google Maps, it doesn't do nearly as good of a job putting interesting waypoints in the right location (e.g. the label for "Prague" or the river name going along the river).

Actually putting the huge label in the middle just wastes space for anyone looking at the map regularly, or for printing. You already know what you're looking at at this zoom level, or can zoom out.

Google maps does terrible job by missing labels for half of the city parts.

I could navigate the city with a map printed even at that zoom level, but good luck trying to do that with google maps.

That's the single most important point for the map.

I didn't consciously try to compare the maps before, but looking at the differences now, google maps seem thoughtless and completely random at what is highlighted, how parts of the city are named (some use names, some numbers, for no reason), what parts are shown and what are not.

One zoom level in from that it shows the names of all the major roads, glorious. With google maps it seems you sometimes have to zoom right in to where a road is half the screen to see the names. I switch to OsmAnd on my phone for exactly this reason.

I prefer the old style of Google Maps, when roads were marked more clearly. I used MOBAC to get offline cached tiles and use them with Galileo on my iPhone and my own map app on my laptop.

There's a theme called OSM Bright that looks good, and when I figure out how to set it up, I plan to switch.

Pretty good, but check this out: https://2gis.ru/moscow

Buildings are actually 3d at closer zoom levels.

You can click on a building to see the list of all businesses in that building.

Bus routes can be shown when clicking on a route number.

The best part, it works completely offline as a phone/desktop app.

I like this too. I just like white countoured roads/streets I guess. :) Mapy.cz also have offline versions (for the whole europe that is!).

Seems like there are several good local competitors to google maps.

> Much more contrast.

I have to say the satellite imagery on Mapy.cz lacks sharpness in comparison to Google Maps' satellite view. Google's view actually looks over-processed, which I think would lend it greater acuity when zoomed out. They look like they hold a comparable level of detail, just Mapy.cz could use a photoshop massage.

Also, Google Maps seems to have, at least from the small area I'm zoomed in at from your links, better location labels. ie: https://i.imgur.com/yUOlWO0.jpg

The non-satellite view I do like better on Mapy.cz, though -- it looks significantly more readable as far as structures and streets go, at every zoom level. More useful, maybe, more like a map ought to be.

Google's "satelite view" is really a 3D view. You should compare that with "3D" on mapy.cz, not with aerial imagery.

It looks comparable with 3D view on mapy.cz.

Personally, google maps is a clear-cut winner for me your example. Google maps is easier to look at and has much better information hierarchy.

I agree that's it's much more map-like. You're not looking at a map to rest your eyes with gray mess.

They also have an API that's completely free also for commercial purposes (and they have coverage for Poland)

https://api.mapy.cz

Exactly. Specifically, for biking or hiking, Google Maps are useless. Mapy.cz can be downloaded (in region chunks) for offline use and are generally a pleasure to use.

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