Cooperative community open-source fork of Organic Maps, an offline privacy-respecting not-for-profit OpenStreetMap GPS app for your phone.
from https://programming.dev/comment/16991937
For some background, it turns out organic maps had a for profit llc registered and long poised itself as free and open source. When the llc was discovered the community volunteers wrote an open letter
When their concerns were not answered they forked the project and created CoMaps which in theory is supposed to be everything organic maps ever portrayed itself as.
Oh wow. I can see how that would piss a lot of people off with that kind of deception.
I was Organic when this happened. Reading what the volunteers wrote moved me to CoMaps.
As someone who formed a non-profit in the US, it's a shitty corporate organization. There has to be a board but that board can just dump the founders and do what they want.
With a for-profit LLC, you can be the only member or make the founders all members and not worry about a board.
It varies state by state, but it was not a good experience for me trying to form a nonprofit.
CoMaps is a fork of Organic Maps that emerged after some drama with Organic Maps, the details of which (or even topic) I don't remember.
Comparing to OsmAnd, I suppose it's a matter of a relatively clean and simple UI but more limited features, while OsmAnd (from what I've heard) does kind of everything but has a less intuitive and more cluttered UI. I can't speak to that from first-hand experience but I've heard that quite often.
Can't speak to any other alternatives, personally. I find CoMaps perfect for on-foot navigation, and that's all I need since I hardly ever travel by car.
If you want your grandma switch from Google maps, use comaps. It's fast and easy to use.
If you want a tool camper, use osm+. It's very deep, very complete. You can do so much with it. But you need to know what you are doing with it.
https://www.comaps.app/support/how-do-the-features-differ-from-those-of-organic-maps/
A project governance issue lead to the split, more specifically the introduction of sponsored links (Kayak)
https://github.com/organicmaps/organicmaps/pull/6523
Comaps dont charge you to download more than 6 maps lol
osmand+ from fdroid doesn't
Use Comaps if you want to get from A to B (and maybe have a short look around an area). Quick & easy.
Use OSMAnd for detailed navigation, differing views for walking / driving / flying etc, with much more detailed maps... slow and much more advanced.
You didn't ask, but use StreetComplete to gamify updating the map data whilst you're in an area... shop opening times, house numbers, cycle lanes, bus stops, etc... I use it to pay back the community for using their data for free.
Personally, it's because the UI is good enough that I don't forget how to do things if I don't do them for a while (I rarely use route plotting / following near my home), it has just enough editing features that I don't have to mess about with Vespucci when I find something's changed, and the offline maps are split up just small enough that it's not a total nuisance clearing storage space and downloading a region before I go there.