Why Vector Maps Beat Raster Tiles — and How to Add Them in Minutes
For years, embedding a map in your app meant paying a tile provider every time a user panned or zoomed. Raster tile services charge per load, and costs scale linearly with traffic. Vector maps are a fundamentally better approach — and with Goggle Places, you don't even need to host the tiles yourself.
Raster vs. vector: what's the difference?
Raster tiles are pre-rendered PNG or JPEG images — one image per tile per zoom level. They're simple but inflexible: you can't change colours, hide labels, or rotate the map without requesting entirely new images from the server. Vector tiles, by contrast, deliver raw geometry and metadata as compact binary files. The client applies a style sheet at render time, which means you can restyle the entire map — dark mode, brand colours, custom layers — without any server-side changes. The result is sharper text at every zoom level, smoother rotation and tilting, and significantly smaller payloads.
No per-tile pricing, nothing to host
Traditional map providers meter every tile load — so a busy day on your site means a busy invoice. Goggle Places takes a different approach: fully featured GB vector maps are served from our infrastructure and rendered by our JS SDK, with no per-tile pricing. You don't need to provision storage buckets, manage tile pipelines, or worry about CDN configuration. Just add a publishable key to the widget or SDK, and your map is live — complete with POI layers for restaurants, pubs, hotels, EV charging, and transport.
Built on open data, attribution included
Goggle Places' maps are built on OpenStreetMap and Protomaps data under ODbL, with OS Open Names and ONS data under OGL. Attribution is mandatory — and the SDK renders it by default, so you stay compliant without any extra work. This open-data foundation means comprehensive GB coverage: every road, footpath, waterway, and building outline, kept up to date with the latest community contributions.
Getting started in five minutes
The quickest path is the drop-in widget: add one HTML element with your publishable key and one script tag, and you get search plus an interactive vector map — out of the box. For custom integrations, initialise a MapLibre GL JS map and point it at the Goggle Places tile endpoint. From there, you can add markers, draw routes from the Directions API, toggle POI category layers, and build exactly the map experience your product needs.
Interactive POI layers
A map without context is just shapes. Goggle Places vector maps come with toggleable point-of-interest layers: restaurants, pubs, hotels, EV charge points, transport stops, and more. Combined with the Nearby API — which returns POIs around a point or within a viewport, filtered by category — you can build rich 'what's around here' experiences. Show a user all the EV chargers within 5 miles, or every restaurant near their hotel. The data is already there; you just decide which layers to turn on.
Why it matters for your product
Maps are often the centrepiece of a location-aware app. Property portals, delivery trackers, travel planners, fleet dashboards — they all depend on a map that's fast, clear, and affordable to run at scale. Goggle Places' hosted vector maps deliver all three: crisp rendering on any device, no per-tile billing surprises, and a free monthly allowance so you can build and test without a credit card. When you're ready to scale, transparent per-request pricing means no hidden costs.