Mapbox has long been a popular choice for developers seeking advanced mapping functionalities in their applications. However, recent changes have left some users frustrated and searching for more user-friendly and feature-rich alternatives.
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If you are looking for a mapping solution without hidden fees, Maptive offers a refreshingly transparent pricing structure that lets you know exactly what you’re paying for.
You can start with a free 10-day trial to explore all the features Maptive has to offer. Once you’re ready to commit, choose a plan that aligns perfectly with your needs:
This variety of plans ensures that Maptive is accessible to a wide range of businesses, from solopreneurs to large corporations. You can find a solution that fits your budget and team size, without ever having to worry about surprise charges.
If you are struggling with the complexities of setting up and managing a mapping software, Maptive can be the perfect solution. Designed for user-friendliness, Maptive allows you to leverage its powerful mapping features regardless of your technical background.
Maptive boasts a streamlined setup process, eliminating the need for extensive technical knowledge, including a number of options to import your data with ease, whether it’s from Excel, Google Sheets, or a manual entry format.
Maptive also offers a wide range of customization options to tailor your maps to your specific needs, whether you are looking to create something completely bespoke from a branding perspective or need to set up maps for optimal accessibility.
And if you ever encounter a hurdle, Maptive’s customer support team is readily available to assist you. Whether you lack an in-house developer or simply need guidance utilizing advanced features, Maptive’s dedicated team ensures you get the most out of the platform.
Maptive boasts a streamlined setup process, allowing you to import data with ease from various formats like Excel, Google Sheets, or even manual entry. This flexibility ensures you can customize your maps precisely to your needs.
If you encounter a roadblock, Maptive’s customer support team is readily available across multiple channels–chat, email, and phone. Their extensive documentation and tutorials are a valuable first resource, but the support team goes the extra mile. Reviews from enterprise clients consistently praise the team’s quick and accurate responses, detailed instructions, and feature-specific assistance.
This robust support system becomes even more crucial if you lack an in-house developer. Whether you need help troubleshooting an issue or guidance on utilizing advanced features, Maptive’s dedicated team ensures you get the most out of the platform.
While both Mapbox and Maptive offer mapping solutions, they cater to different user needs. Some of the key advantages that set Maptive apart include:
True insight into our data is vital to our success—and Maptive gives us exactly that. – Anjil, BRAC
The Hallelujah Chorus played in my head when I discovered Maptive—everything we wished for when we started our path. – Amanda S., SteelMaster Buildings
The team at Maptive is great and super helpful. The product itself is a great mapping software with every feature you need, while also being extremely easy to use. – Verified User in Commercial Real Estate
Very satisfied customer! The seamless integration with Google maps makes the customization totally efficient and the output familiar and easily presentable! – Casey H., G2 Crowd User Review
For more reviews and testimonials, continue reading here.
While Mapbox GL V1 included a free, open-sourced option, in December 2020, the company decided to transition Mapbox GL JS v2 to a proprietary license.
The switch led to increased costs for users and, in some cases, caused monthly costs to jump eight times higher. The new categories used for their new pricing model have added to the overall confusion and have resulted in unexpected charges.
As this GitHub user pointed out, one of the largest problems with Mapbox’s new pricing model is that it penalizes use cases that see a lot of loads in a single session–making it unreasonably pricey for games, for example: “Imagine paying $1/m PER PLAYER in your mobile game that often switches away from and back to the map? It’s entirely unfeasible. Even a less-than-successful game might have 50k monthly active users, that’s $50,000 per month in MapBox fees just for the privilege of loading this library”.
The free tier offered by Mapbox is pretty restrictive, and the company doesn’t make it easy to project monthly users and associated costs. What’s more, if users need any support, that will incur additional monthly charges, with the cheapest support plan costing $50 a month and guaranteeing a first response in 3 days. The next tier costs $500 a month, with the response time ranging from a minimum of 1 day to a maximum of 3 days.
Mapbox users frequently encounter technical issues that hinder development progress, as the software can be rather complex for someone just starting out.
You can refer to this full list of issues and bugs, but here are some of the more common ones:
Other limitations to the software include your custom map styles, created in Mapbox Studio or uploaded to your account, which can only include up to 15 data sources. Exceeding this limit will result in a “Failed to update style” error message.
More common troubleshooting issues relate to a range of topics from formatting addresses for geocoding and manually adjusting the zoom extent of your tilesets to caching in Mapbox’s Maps APIs and using the software securely (or protecting your access tokens so that they aren’t used by others).
As mentioned above, Mapbox does not include support in their free tier or paid service, but charges users extra to receive help with the software–which seems counterintuitive given how tricky the technical aspect of using Mapbox truly is.
Without paying for a support subscription, your options are limited to their Discord channel, using StackOverflow to search for fixes to your problems, or asking their AI bot for assistance. Unless, of course, you want to hire someone from the Mapbox Developer Network to help you–in case you managed to get this far without a software development professional.
According to a verified user review on Software Advice: “The big problem with Mapbox is the support, even if you are a big customer and you have a big monthly expense the support is very precarious and slow. It literally takes weeks or months to get the first response to your ticket. They don’t make it clear that Support is “not included” and that to get faster service you need to purchase an extra support plan.”
Brad Crisp is the CEO at Maptive.com, based in Denver, CO and born in San Francisco, CA. He has extensive experience in Business Mapping, GIS, Data Visualization, Mapping Data Analytics and all forms of software development. His career includes Software Development and Venture Capital dating back to 1998 at businesses like Maptive, GlobalMojo (now Giving Assistant), KPG Ventures, Loopnet, NextCard, and Banking.
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