Reviving the OpenTopoMap (Raster) tile service ?

[sletuffe]

Hi,

The tile server at https://opentopomap.org/ is going to survival mode and soon no tiles over 13 should be served, its data is from January 2023. @der-stefan announced that he is working on a Vector version of OTM and will probably abandon the Raster version.

I believe Vector tiles and Raster tiles are complementary. Not all smartphone apps, desktop apps, or even slippy maps are yet ready to switch to vector rendering. Furthermore, raster tiles will likely need to be generated server-side by TileServer GL and will still require a beefy server.

Plus, it may take time until the new rendering is on par with the original OTM (Mapnik) version. That is why I believe there is a need, most likely for some years to come, for several raster hiking maps to choose from. OpenTopoMap and OpenHikingMap could be a part of them.

alternative

I've been a happy user of OpenTopoMap's tiles for years on my hobbyist project : https://www.refuges.info/nav among other map services (and it won't be straight forward to move to vector tiles), or even using it personally on different Android Apps, and I am really thankful for that, but I'm sad to see it go.

Following the announce of Stefan in April 2025, since October I operate, for my hobbyist project, a replacement using the almost same style as OpenTopoMap along the OpenHikingMap I've been operating for 15 years.

And after seeing the announce of shut down, I'd be happy to share this tile service with other free projects that used to show OpenTopoMap maps.

My server with a demo map+documentation at https://openmaps.fr/ has both a functional (and partially mutualized) rendering world wide for OpenTopoMap and OpenHikingMap

Well then ? so far so good ?

Sadly no, those two rendering currently run on a slow, (4 cores, No NVME but spinning disks) server that cannot handle the load of rendering requests expected to replace OpenTopoMap, inducing slow responses, CPU load, while this server is also used for other tasks.

For those reasons, I'd like to continue operating those rendering, but on one (or ideally two servers). And that, I can't personally financially afford.

During the mean time, this server can be used as an OpenTopoMap replacement, following this Tiles Usage Policy but I doubt it can handle too high of a load.

Funding based on donations

The donation page, explaining what hardware is required and what are the cost is :
donation page, and funds usage

Funding Goals

Hardware

See down there details of the strictly minimum hardware requirements.
After a few searches, the cheapest Server I could find meeting those requirements is https://eco.ovhcloud.com/fr/soyoustart/sys-1/ (disabling the RAID redundancy)
For 960 € / Year
Other ideas of hardware are welcome

And Given the 2019 load on the tile.opentopomap.org #217 (comment) (11 TB of tiles served) it might not even be enough now.
So, If I can raise enough funds, I could rent another identical server to handle the load, a fail-over in case of problems, and uptime during re-import or maintenance.

Tiles Usage Policy

I still plan to offer access to those rendering free of charge, without API key. Tiles would be under CC-BY-SA License.
Tiles Usage Policy

However the past has proven that full openness has caused load problems on opentopomap.org, so I would like as the first phase to allow high volume accesses to free projects only (Website, smartphone Apps, Desktop Apps) free as in "Free beer".

To be discussed

• Does a non free app should still be allowed if a payment for the hardware is done ?
• Should this repo of OpenTopoMap, be transfered to a team, or me to re-take control of the code ? (knowing that I'm not interested in maintaining a Garmin version)
• Should the domain name opentopomap.org be kept for the future vector version of stefan, or for continuity of tile serving be transfered to me ?

Minimum hardware requirements based on current status of OpenHikingMap

4 cores / 3Ghz
64 GB RAM
Disk :
~1,1TB mod_tile/hiking (Cached tiles for OpenHikingMap)
~1.5TB (expected) mod_tile/otm (Cached tiles for OpenTopoMap)
~860GB postgresql/ (Contours + osm2pgsql db)
~60GB mapnik-data/hillshade
~300GB for temporary import

Total : ~3.8 TB on NVMe drives

Comments

Comments, ideas, suggestions, alternatives are very welcome.

ps: I don't know if discussing this in an issue here is the best place, So I duplicated my proposition also on the discussion's tab of my repo : https://github.com/sletuffe/openmaps.fr/discussions

[der-stefan]

Hi all, a quick comment for clarification: OpenTopoMap will continue to serve raster tiles also after switching to vector maps. The data source however will be from the vector tiles, so it won't be a 1:1 copy of today's raster tiles, but a 1:1 copy of the new vector tiles. With this we get rid of the insanely large databases (>1 TB).

[sletuffe]

@der-stefan Thank you for the update !

Do you mind sharing some details about the future of OpenTopoMap ? So I know if I should spend time for a backup/alternative continuing operating the raster version ?

• Is the vector map repository public ?
• What will be the licence of this new work ?
• Will usage of tiles still be the same as now ?
• Will there be a different tile end point or will https://[abc].tile.opentopomap.org/$z/$x/$z.png be preserved ?
• Is there a demo somewhere so that we can help/see the progression ?
• any date idea for a first demo ?
• Will this repo+issues be deleted ?
• I see tiles from zoom 16 & 17 aren't served anymore by a.tile.opentopomap.org : is it so until Vector tiles arrival ?
• Any estimated date for entering your "survival mode" ?
• Personnaly not interested, but I think others are, what about the garmin version ?

Sorry for showing up with so many questions but I really like the look and feel of this map, well suited for external re-using and icons overlays, so I'd be sad to see it disappear or changed too much.

[sletuffe]

Some news on the reviving of this raster tiles project : sletuffe/openmaps.fr#1

Per https://opentopomap.org/about#backup Stefan added this information :

The main server will be shut down on 07.01.2026

But I now have a much more powerfull alternative server to serve Millions of tiles.

Just give it a try : https://openmaps.fr/#opentopomap-r/5/45.42930/8.74512

[der-stefan]

Hi @sletuffe ,
please find my reply to your questions:

• Is the vector map repository public ?
  => I already pushed the config for tilemaker and the MapLibreGLJS style. A full Howto including all files will be pushed in the next days.
• What will be the licence of this new work ?
  => Unchanged: CC-BY-SA for the map and all source files. CC-BY-NC-SA for Garmin maps (sale forbidden)
• Will usage of tiles still be the same as now ?
  => The legacy raster files will be served from a smaller vServer, no rendering so far. Thomas looks into setting up a renderer with the old toolchain (postgresql + Mapnik). However, in the mid-future raster tiles will be generated from the vector tiles with MapLibre Native, so the old toolchain will definitely be shut down some day.
• Will there be a different tile end point or will https://[abc].tile.opentopomap.org/$z/$x/$z.png be preserved ?
  => Of course we won't change the URL for raster tiles. Even when generating them from vector tiles, the URL will stay the same.
• Is there a demo somewhere so that we can help/see the progression ?
  => Will be published in the next days.
• any date idea for a first demo ?
  => In the next days.
• Will this repo+issues be deleted ?
  => No, this repository is the official repository of OpenTopoMap.
• I see tiles from zoom 16 & 17 aren't served anymore by a.tile.opentopomap.org : is it so until Vector tiles arrival ?
  => Probably yes. I don't want to restart the server at the moment.
• Any estimated date for entering your "survival mode" ?
  => The old main server shutdown was kindly postponed to 07. January by the Rechenzentrum of University Erlangen. This date won't change anymore.
• Personnaly not interested, but I think others are, what about the garmin version ?
  => I haven't used the Garmin maps for 10 years now, but there are still a lot of happy users. The service will continue as it has always been on a separate server anyhow.