It has the map corpus from OpenStreetMap, so one of the best in the world
It works offline - just download the desired maps onto the device
That makes it really, really fast. Google Maps is slower
You can also use it in areas with bad reception. I'm using it for hiking in the woods where there is no cell phone connection available
I really like the UI - they are f.e. better at displaying house numbers and street names than Google.
No ads

[–] wizrad@lemmy.ca 12 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

On the hiking note, it also shows a lot of trails. I used it to navigate to a trail head and was pleasantly surprised to see a rough outline of the trails I would be using plus some others I didn't know were there.

[–] semperverus@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago

It even has water markers for longer trails where youd be hiking for weeks or months at a time. Sometimes those spots are dry, but you can clearly see water channels in the ground where it would be flowing.

[–] kungen@feddit.nu 3 points 15 hours ago

Google's maps are decent and can also be downloaded to be offline...? But yeah, it seems like it's a nice alternative, especially if you want to be free from Google's grips.

[–] kameecoding@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago

Maybe it's iOS specific but I had to go to a region and download the map to be able to search it, which is not great

[–] ILikePigeons@lemmy.ml 8 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Same, I have recently installed LineageOS on my phone and was looking for various replacements for Goggle apps. What I really like about OrganicMaps is that it downloads the maps locally, so you can view it even if you aren't connected to the internet.

[–] yetiftw@lemmy.world 1 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

google maps can do that too though

[–] InsertUser@en.osm.town 2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

@yetiftw @ILikePigeons

IIRC At one point Google Maps would let you download a map for browsing, but you couldn't do offline navigation. Don't know if that's still the case.

Organic Maps does the routing on the device.

[–] yetiftw@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

it's had offline navigation for years now

[–] ILikePigeons@lemmy.ml 2 points 9 hours ago

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that. I should have really had this information a year ago when I was constantly screenshotting Google Maps, LOL.

[–] pedroapero@lemmy.ml 1 points 14 hours ago

The feature looks made ugly on purpose though (compared to organic maps where you can just download the whole country or select more precisely what you want)