Alex Rivera | Logout

OpenLayers vs Google Maps?

Asked 2009-08-06T06:01:43.410
174

I have used Google Maps a couple of times, but what wondering about OpenLayers.
Before starting any kind of coding, here are a couple of questions that come to my mind,

  • Why would I use OpenLayers instead of Google Maps?
    • Except for its OSS licence, anyway
    • Did you encounter any situation in which you'd recommend absolutly not using OpenLayers?
    • I did a search about "OpenLayers" on Stack Overflow; there are not many answers. Does it mean this solution is not used much? Could it be a problem for long-term viability of the project?
  • For those of you who have already used OpenLayers: are there any common pitfalls / problems I may encounter?
    • What about using a JavaScript Framework with it? I've seen it's using Prototype, and I know Prototype, so that would be OK. But what about using something else like MooTools? (Which is not compatible with Prototype, BTW)
    • Are there any kind of speed and performance related problems? I need my application to be responsive and can't wait hours to get a map displayed.
  • Are there maps available for many places, or are there lots of those missing?
    • That is, I'm in France, and need my application to work at least for big cities... Will that be OK?
    • if not, is it easy to find layers and visualisations for OpenLayers and integrate them?
  • Is there any kind of API to display roads?
    • For instance, to show roads that are one-way only.
    • If yes, how can I do that? Do I have to have some kind of file containing those roads information, and, then, display them on the map by myself?
  • Do you know
javascript google-maps openlayers
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2 Answers

13

One point that hasn't been fully made here is that using OpenLayers avoids various restrictions Google places on the terms of service for its map APIs, including:

  • You can't legally use a Google map solely in a section of your site that requires payment to access, or for a private site that the public can't sign up for (e.g. a corporate intranet). (IANAL, but see Terms of Service, 9.1 and the FAQ)

  • You can't legally (or practically) use the Google API for offline applications (i.e. where the tiles are served from your own machine). Even if there weren't legal restrictions, Google makes this technically very difficult, while OpenLayers makes it easy.

  • Google reserves the right to shut down access to the API if you're showing a map with content it finds objectionable. The example given in the FAQ is a map of illegal drugs, which gives a good sense of the gray areas this restriction might cover.

See this FAQ and the Terms of Service for more details.

All that said, as a long-time Google Maps developer who recently started using OpenLayers, I feel that Google Maps has better documentation, a larger user community, and a clearer and more stable API than OpenLayers. So you have to make a trade-off somewhere.

answered 2011-02-08T06:45:05.653
3

In addition to those who mentioned speed problems, I would like to add that IE's VML renderer can get really slow with a vector layer with many features. One user mentioned about 200. That's about exactly what I can add before IE slows down considerable to the point of freezing. If you add features that are text labels, you can add half less, probably because internally each text label consists of two VML elements.

In Google you may create a custom GOverlay whose content is a "div", which gets rendered without problems in IE.

answered 2011-08-01T11:19:27.707

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