Life & fun · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Low Poly Earth – The whole planet in 3D, built from OpenStreetMap data
The whole Earth in 3D, built from open map and elevation data. Free for Mac with Apple silicon.
Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.
- 1
- 2
Flexible tool to build planet-scale vector tilesets from OpenStreetMap data fast - onthegomap/planetiler
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 3OO
Hi HN, After 9 years of running my own OpenStreetMap tile server infra for MapHub (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11389989), I've open-sourced it and launched OpenFreeMap. You can either self-host or use our public instance. Everything is open-source, including the full production setup — there’s no 'open-core' model here. Check out the repo (https://github.com/hyperknot/openfreemap). The map data comes from OpenStreetMap. I also provide weekly full planet downloads both in Btrfs and MBTiles formats. I aim to cover the running costs of the public…
2024 · openfreemap.org · its alternatives →
- 4
Google released an API in May to get fetch 3D Tiles of anywhere on Earth. Using this in standard 3D engines like Blender is tricky because (1) the tiles are in a geographic coordinate system (2) you get a lot of little tiles at varying quality levels I wanted to simplify this so all you need to do is get an API key, select a map region and a zoom level, and get one combined glTF file that you can throw into any engine. Especially if you're just prototyping and want to see how this data looks in your engine before investing in figuring out all the nuances of the API & coordinate system. (Note…
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 5
I've been working on this project for about 4 years. It began as terrain only because world wide elevation data was publicly available. I then added buildings from OpenStreetMap (crowd sourced) and more recently from Overture Maps data. Some computer vision/machine learning advancements [1] in the past few years have made it possible to estimate tree canopy heights using satellite imagery alone making it possible to finally add trees to the map. The data isn't perfect, but it's within +/- 3 meters of so. Good enough to give a general idea for any location on Earth. Happy to answer…
2024 · shademap.app · its alternatives →
- 6G3
I made a web app to generate 3D models of real places on earth from land cover and elevation data. Click anywhere on the map to get a polygon, and then click "generate". It should work at most scales, but if your watershed or region selection is too large, the result can be less exciting because it's so flat. As a warning, the 3D models can sometimes be too much for my phone. It's nicer on desktop. I'm still working better on mobile support. The land cover data I'm using gives a cool effect, but at some point I'd like to add in global imagery and clouds. The backend is a Python thread…
2025 · topography.jessekv.com · its alternatives →
- 7MA
The concept for metiq.space came after playing Global Magnates with friends and realizing how fragmented live global data is. ships, aircraft, satellites, ports, weather, hazards, infrastructure, cyber, and public datasets all exist, but they usually live in separate tools and maps. The goal was to build one interactive 3D globe where live public data could be visualized by latitude, longitude, and altitude. Surface data stays on the globe, while aircraft, satellites, and other above surface things can be represented in actual 3D space instead of being flattened onto a map. The outcome is an…
Jun 2026 · metiq.space · its alternatives →
- 8MD
2023 · louisquissetlabs.com · its alternatives →
- 9
A free API for Poly. Development in 3D made simple.
2017 · developers.google.com · its alternatives →
- 10
Beautiful Earth▲113More than 1,500 stunning Earth desktop pictures for your Mac
2015 · its alternatives →
- 11
It's free to play on steam, but you'll need a computer with a dedicated graphics card. I just released a new version after first releasing it 18 months ago. It's been a hard slog to scrounge time as it's not my day job but that's life. There's a ton of obvious improvements in the future (weather systems, temperature, varying rainfall, ice/snow, more biomes, more plate tectonics, lava, etc) but all suggestions/feedback is welcome.
2023 · store.steampowered.com · its alternatives →
- 12FE
2016 · play.freeciv.org · its alternatives →
- 13
Planet Crust▲79Connect to any data source, build whatever you want
2021 · planetcrust.com · its alternatives →
- 14
The Earth▲81interactive model that lets kids study and observe the geol…
2015 · tinybop.com · its alternatives →
- 15
Just One Earth▲135We only have one earth. Let's save it. 🌏🔥
2020 · justone.earth · its alternatives →
- 16
Embed sustainability into your product with a simple API
2022 · console.connect.earth · its alternatives →
- 17
Better lighting and larger scales for 3D world generation
Nov 2025 · marble.worldlabs.ai · its alternatives →
- 18
EARTH▲7An immersive AR/AI experience & model of our planet
2018 · kickstarter.com · its alternatives →
- 19
Hey HN, jvaclavik here from OpenClimbing team! We are thrilled to release version 2.0 of our fully opensource/opendata climbing guide. Based on OpenStreetMap for map-data and Wikimedia Commons for images, we created a (hopefully) user-friendly app which completely uses these open databases, thus contributing data back to commons. We designed a simple and powerful notation for drawing climbing routes directly over the Wikimedia pictures: - https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:wikimedia_commons:pa... Check out the release article for a ton of new features, or go…
2014 · openstreetmap.org · its alternatives →
- 20
- 21
A "virtual satellite" to map Earth in unprecedented detail
2025 · deepmind.google · its alternatives →
- 22
Upland.me▲90Buy, sell & trade property NFTs based on real-life addresses
2021 · play.upland.me · its alternatives →
- 23
This is a service I've built to provide equirectangular cloud maps of the whole Earth, updated every 3 hours, for free. It's based on infrared and visible light data from EUMETSAT, processed to enhance the clouds and try to reduce the impact of surface temperatures on the final image. I built it because it's surprisingly hard to find these kinds of images in a format that's useful to developers and hobbyists. I was building a 3D ISS tracker and wanted to include live clouds but couldn't find anything good, so I got sidetracked, and here we are.
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 24
Draw any polygon on Earth. Name and style it. Own it.
Apr 2026 · merca.earth · its alternatives →
Also compare
- Poly by Google alternatives
- Flatmap – a new tool to make vector tiles from OpenStreetMap data fast alternatives
- OpenFreeMap – Open-Source Map Hosting alternatives
- Get any piece of Google Earth as a single normalized glTF 3D model alternatives
- Every mountain, building and tree shadow mapped for any date and time alternatives
- Global 3D topography explorer alternatives
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →