# OsmAnd 97 Hacker News commenters recommended OsmAnd and 29 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 10 years (8 owners). It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** A powerful, deeply configurable offline map app built on OpenStreetMap, especially good for hiking and non-car travel; expect a clunky interface, weak place search and slowness. ## Why people recommend it - Feature-rich and highly configurable (6 comments): "OSMand is a cartographer's friend - it does everything and more... With all the drawbacks of doing that." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48802584)) "OsmAnd is much more powerful, and if you can tolerate its complexity and battery-drain, it's worth it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48802271)) "OSMAnd is a really great full featured mapping app. A real tool that you can configure in detail." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48564909)) - Great for hiking with topo maps (2 comments): "OSMAnd is a lot better for hiking as it has 3d views, hiking routes, topo maps and better routing in general" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49459369)) "OsmAnd~ is great for hiking, when you need topographic contour info, 3D relief shading, etc." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48800253)) - Wikipedia layers and travel guides (4 comments): "they have travel guides built in (they became usable now, even small cities have decent descriptions where I live)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48814120)) "its guides, WikiData and Wikipedia integration are godsend for finding interesting places to visit" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48815018)) "the only reason I keep OsmAnd installed is that I can add a layer of "Wikipedia articles"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50206349)) - Better than Google for walking, transit (4 comments): "its maps are better than what Google and apple offer especially when you're not a car user." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47484457)) "For anything other than driving Organic Maps (iOS) or OSMand (Android) are the very best." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46266538)) "is better than Google Maps for walking and public transit where I am at the moment" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49206555)) ## What people warn about - Poor place and address search (5 comments): "Osmand is great, but it's difficult to use, it doesn't have good place search, and it doesn't plan public transport trips very well." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47498919)) "OsmAnd still hasn't fixed utah addresses. If I enter in how we call addresses in local slang, it has no idea how to find it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47177692)) "osmand, maps.me, organic-maps etc etc aren't used when Google maps shows accurate list of Bakeries" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49200984)) - Clunky, complex interface (5 comments): "And yet everyone always has the same complaint about the app: terrible UX." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48809881)) "Osmand is great, but it's difficult to use, it doesn't have good place search, and it doesn't plan public transport trips very well." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47498919)) "Still I would not recommend OsmAnd to everyone, e.g. not to "Aunt Mary". It has a clunkier, more techy UI." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49488169)) - Slow performance and bugs (5 comments): "OsmAnd is painfully slow, I keep it around just for unique features like transport routes and surface quality." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49467224)) "It has a history of having many memory corruption bugs discovered and reported by GrapheneOS users." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49914323)) "It's very likely caused by a set of bugs in the app rather than simply inefficient patterns." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49914366)) - Weak public transport planning (2 comments): "Osmand is great, but it's difficult to use, it doesn't have good place search, and it doesn't plan public transport trips very well." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47498919)) "planning something easy like "take a bus to the train station" is impossible in OsmAnd" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47178347)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [CoMaps](https://hackerapproved.com/p/comaps.md): 117 recommend - [Organic Maps](https://hackerapproved.com/p/organic-maps.md): 111 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "OsmAnd", https://hackerapproved.com/p/osmand/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).