Planetiler

Planetiler is a tool that generates Vector Tiles from geographic data sources like OpenStreetMap. Planetiler aims to be fast and memory-efficient so that you can build a map of the world in a few hours on a single machine without any external tools or database.

Vector tiles contain raw point, line, and polygon geometries that clients like MapLibre can use to render custom maps in the browser, native apps, or on a server. Planetiler packages tiles into an MBTiles (sqlite) or PMTiles file that can be served using tools like TileServer GL or Martin or even queried directly from the browser. See awesome-vector-tiles for more projects that work with data in this format.

Several full-featured basemaps are built using planetiler:

• OpenMapTiles
• Protomaps Basemaps
• Shortbread

You can also create your own custom base maps or overlays using YAML or Java.

Planetiler works by mapping input elements to vector tile features, flattening them into a big list, then sorting by tile ID to group into tiles. See ARCHITECTURE.md for more details or this blog post for more of the backstory.

Demo

See the live demo of vector tiles created by Planetiler and hosted by OpenStreetMap US.

© OpenMapTiles © OpenStreetMap contributors

Usage

To generate a map of an area using the OpenMapTiles profile, you will need:

• Java 21+ (see CONTRIBUTING.md) or Docker
• at least 1GB of free SSD disk space plus 5-10x the size of the .osm.pbf file
• at least 0.5x as much free RAM as the input .osm.pbf file size

To build the map:

Using Java, download planetiler.jar from the latest release and run it:

wget https://github.com/onthegomap/planetiler/releases/latest/download/planetiler.jar
java -Xmx1g -jar planetiler.jar --download --area=monaco

Or using Docker:

docker run -e JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS="-Xmx1g" -v "$(pwd)/data":/data ghcr.io/onthegomap/planetiler:latest --download --area=monaco

⚠️ This starts off by downloading about 1GB of data sources required by the OpenMapTiles profile including ~750MB for ocean polygons and ~240MB for Natural Earth Data.

To download smaller extracts just for Monaco:

Java:

java -Xmx1g -jar planetiler.jar --download --area=monaco \
  --water-polygons-url=https://github.com/onthegomap/planetiler/raw/main/planetiler-core/src/test/resources/water-polygons-split-3857.zip \
  --natural-earth-url=https://github.com/onthegomap/planetiler/raw/main/planetiler-core/src/test/resources/natural_earth_vector.sqlite.zip

Docker:

docker run -e JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS="-Xmx1g" -v "$(pwd)/data":/data ghcr.io/onthegomap/planetiler:latest --download --area=monaco \
  --water-polygons-url=https://github.com/onthegomap/planetiler/raw/main/planetiler-core/src/test/resources/water-polygons-split-3857.zip \
  --natural-earth-url=https://github.com/onthegomap/planetiler/raw/main/planetiler-core/src/test/resources/natural_earth_vector.sqlite.zip

You will need the full data sources to run anywhere besides Monaco.

To view tiles locally:

Generate a pmtiles tile archive by adding --output=data/output.pmtiles then drag and drop output.pmtiles to pmtiles.io.

Or with the default mbtiles output format, use tileserver-gl-light:

npm install -g tileserver-gl-light
tileserver-gl-light data/output.mbtiles

Then open http://localhost:8080 to view tiles.

Some common arguments:

• --output tells planetiler where to write output to, and what format to write it in. For example --output=australia.pmtiles creates a pmtiles archive named australia.pmtiles. It is best to specify the full path to the file. In docker image you should be using /data/australia.pmtiles to let the docker know where to write the file.
• --download downloads input sources automatically and --only-download exits after downloading
• --area=monaco downloads a .osm.pbf extract from Geofabrik
• --osm-path=path/to/file.osm.pbf points Planetiler at an existing OSM extract on disk
• -Xmx1g controls how much RAM to give the JVM (recommended: 0.5x the input .osm.pbf file size to leave room for memory-mapped files)
• --force overwrites the output file
• --help shows all of the options and exits

Generating a Map of the World

See PLANET.md.

Generating Custom Maps

Planetiler supports custom vector tile maps in two ways, depending on how much control you need:

1. YAML configuration (no Java required) – for simple custom maps
2. Java profiles – for advanced logic and full control

Both approaches generate standard Mapbox Vector Tiles (MVT) that can be used with MapLibre GL, Mapbox GL, and other vector-tile clients.

Option 1: Custom Maps Using YAML (No Java Required)

For many use cases, you can define a custom vector tile map using a YAML configuration file. This approach does not require writing Java code and is ideal for:

• Simple or moderately complex maps
• Prototyping
• Users who prefer declarative configuration

YAML-based maps are powered by the planetiler-custommap module. See examples and documentation: https://github.com/onthegomap/planetiler/tree/main/planetiler-custommap.

Example YAML configuration

schema_name: Roads
attribution: <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright">&copy; OpenStreetMap contributors</a>
sources:
  osm:
    type: osm
    url: geofabrik:rhode-island
layers:
- id: roads
  features:
  - source: osm
    geometry: line
    min_zoom: 6
    include_when:
      highway: [primary, secondary, tertiary]
    attributes:
    - key: class
      tag_value: highway

To run:

java -jar planetiler.jar roads.yaml --download --output=roads.pmtiles

Option 2: Custom Maps Using Java Profiles

For more complex use cases, Planetiler supports custom Java profiles that allow full control over feature processing, attributes, zoom logic, and geometry handling. Java profiles are recommended when you need:

• Complex conditional logic
• Advanced attribute derivation
• Non-trivial feature interactions
• Maximum performance tuning

See examples and documentation: https://github.com/onthegomap/planetiler-examples/.

Example Java profile

import com.onthegomap.planetiler.*;
import com.onthegomap.planetiler.config.*;
import com.onthegomap.planetiler.reader.*;
import java.nio.file.Path;

public class Roads implements Profile {

  @Override
  public String attribution() {
    return """
      <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright">&copy; OpenStreetMap contributors</a>
      """.trim();
  }

  @Override
  public void processFeature(SourceFeature feature, FeatureCollector features) {
    if (feature.canBeLine() && feature.hasTag("highway", "primary", "secondary", "tertiary")) {
      features.line("roads").setAttr("class", feature.getTag("highway"));
    }
  }

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    Planetiler.create(Arguments.fromArgs(args)).addOsmSource("osm", Path.of("ri.osm.pbf"), "geofabrik:rhode-island")
      .overwriteOutput(Path.of("roads.pmtiles"))
      .setProfile(new Roads())
      .run();
  }
}

This can be run with Java 22 or later without any compile step or build tools:

java -cp planetiler.jar Roads.java --download --output=roads.pmtiles

Use as a library

For larger projects with other dependencies, Planetiler can be used as a maven-style dependency in a Java project using the settings below:

Maven

Add this repository block to your pom.xml:

<repositories>
  <repository>
    <id>osgeo</id>
    <name>OSGeo Release Repository</name>
    <url>https://repo.osgeo.org/repository/release/</url>
    <snapshots>
      <enabled>false</enabled>
    </snapshots>
    <releases>
      <enabled>true</enabled>
    </releases>
  </repository>
</repositories>

Then add the following dependency:

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.onthegomap.planetiler</groupId>
  <artifactId>planetiler-core</artifactId>
  <version>${planetiler.version}</version>
</dependency>

Gradle

Set up your repositories block::

mavenCentral()
maven {
    url "https://repo.osgeo.org/repository/release/"
}

Set up your dependencies block:

implementation 'com.onthegomap.planetiler:planetiler-core:<version>'

Git submodules

Planetiler has a submodule dependency on planetiler-openmaptiles. Add --recurse-submodules to git clone, git pull, or git checkout commands to also update submodule dependencies.

To clone the repo with submodules:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/onthegomap/planetiler.git

If you already pulled the repo, you can initialize submodules with:

git submodule update --init

To force git to always update submodules (recommended), run this command in your local repo:

git config --local submodule.recurse true

Learn more about working with submodules here.

Benchmarks

Some example runtimes for the OpenMapTiles profile (excluding downloading resources):

Input	Version	Machine	Time	output size	Logs
s3://osm-pds/2024/planet-240115.osm.pbf (69GB)	0.7.0	c3d-standard-180 (180cpu/720GB)	22m cpu:44h34m avg:120	69GB pmtiles	logs
s3://osm-pds/2024/planet-240108.osm.pbf (73GB)	0.7.0	c7gd.16xlarge (64cpu/128GB)	42m cpu:42m28s avg:52	69GB pmtiles	logs
s3://osm-pds/2022/planet-220530.osm.pbf (69GB)	0.5.0	c6gd.16xlarge (64cpu/128GB)	53m cpu:41h58m avg:47.1	79GB mbtiles	logs, VisualVM Profile
s3://osm-pds/2022/planet-220530.osm.pbf (69GB)	0.5.0	c6gd.8xlarge (32cpu/64GB)	1h27m cpu:37h55m avg:26.1	79GB mbtiles	logs
s3://osm-pds/2022/planet-220530.osm.pbf (69GB)	0.5.0	c6gd.4xlarge (16cpu/32GB)	2h38m cpu:34h3m avg:12.9	79GB mbtiles	logs

Merging nearby buildings at z13 is very expensive, when run with --building-merge-z13=false:

Input	Version	Machine	Time	output size	Logs
s3://osm-pds/2024/planet-240115.osm.pbf (69GB)	0.7.0	c3d-standard-180 (180cpu/720GB)	16m cpu:27h45m avg:104	69GB pmtiles	logs
s3://osm-pds/2024/planet-240108.osm.pbf (73GB)	0.7.0	c7gd.16xlarge (64cpu/128GB)	29m cpu:23h57 avg:50	69GB pmtiles	logs
s3://osm-pds/2024/planet-240108.osm.pbf (73GB)	0.7.0	c7gd.2xlarge (8cpu/16GB)	3h35m cpu:19h45 avg:5.5	69GB pmtiles	logs
s3://osm-pds/2024/planet-240108.osm.pbf (73GB)	0.7.0	im4gn.large (2cpu/8GB)	18h18m cpu:28h6m avg:1.5	69GB pmtiles	logs
s3://osm-pds/2022/planet-220530.osm.pbf (69GB)	0.5.0	c6gd.16xlarge (64cpu/128GB)	39m cpu:27h4m avg:42.1	79GB mbtiles	logs, VisualVM Profile

Alternatives

Some other tools that generate vector tiles from OpenStreetMap data:

• OpenMapTiles is the reference implementation of the OpenMapTiles schema that the OpenMapTiles profile is based on. It uses an intermediate postgres database and operates in two modes:
  1. Import data into database (~1 day) then serve vector tiles directly from the database. Tile serving is slower and requires bigger machines, but lets you easily incorporate realtime updates
  2. Import data into database (~1 day) then pregenerate every tile for the planet into an mbtiles file which takes over 100 days or a cluster of machines, but then tiles can be served faster on smaller machines
• Tilemaker uses a similar approach to Planetiler (no intermediate database) using lua scripts to customize handling.
• Tippecanoe generates vector tiles directly from GeoJSON and is designed for visualizing all features across all zoom levels, but unlike Planetiler it is not built for filtering and processing raw OpenStreetMap planet files at global scale.

Some services that generate and host tiles for you:

• Mapbox - data from the creator of vector tile technologies
• Maptiler - data from the creator of OpenMapTiles schema
• Stadia Maps - reasonably priced hosted OpenMapTiles tiles
• OpenFreeMap - free API serving OpenMapTiles tiles generated by planetiler weekly

Features

• Supports OpenStreetMap .osm.pbf, Natural Earth, geopackage, GeoJson Esri Shapefile, and GeoParquet (ie. Overture Maps) input data sources
• Writes to MBTiles or PMTiles output archives.
• Generates Mapbox Vector Tiles (MVT) or MapLibre Tiles (MLT) by running with --tile-format=mlt
• Java-based Profile API to customize how source elements map to vector tile features, and post-process generated tiles using JTS geometry utilities
• YAML config file format that lets you create custom schemas without writing Java code
• Merge nearby lines or polygons with the same tags before emitting vector tiles
• Robust geometry handling that automatically fixes self-intersecting polygons and avoids invalid geometries when snapping tiles to a grid
• Built-in OpenMapTiles profile
• Optionally download additional name translations for elements from Wikidata
• Export real-time stats to a prometheus push gateway using --pushgateway=http://user:password@ip argument (and a grafana dashboard for viewing)
• Automatically downloads region extracts from Geofabrik using geofabrik:australia shortcut as a source URL
• Unit-test profiles to verify mapping logic, or integration-test to verify the actual contents of a generated mbtiles file (example)

Limitations

• It is harder to join and group data than when using database. Planetiler automatically groups features into tiles, so you can easily post-process nearby features in the same tile before emitting, but if you want to group or join across features in different tiles, then you must explicitly store data when processing a feature to use with later features or store features and defer processing until an input source is finished (boundary layer example)
• Planetiler only does full imports from .osm.pbf snapshots, there is no way to incorporate real-time updates.

Contributing

Pull requests are welcome! See CONTRIBUTING.md for details.

Support

For general questions, check out the #planetiler channel on OSM-US Slack (get an invite here), or start a GitHub discussion.

Found a bug or have a feature request? Open a GitHub issue to report.

This is a side project, so support is limited. If you have the time and ability, feel free to open a pull request to fix issues or implement new features.

Acknowledgement

Planetiler is made possible by these awesome open source projects:

• OpenMapTiles for the schema and reference implementation that the openmaptiles profile is based on
• Graphhopper for basis of utilities to process OpenStreetMap data in Java
• JTS Topology Suite for working with vector geometries
• Geotools for shapefile processing
• SQLite JDBC Driver for reading Natural Earth data and writing MBTiles files
• MessagePack for compact binary encoding of intermediate map features
• geojson-vt for the basis of the stripe clipping algorithm that planetiler uses to slice geometries into tiles
• java-vector-tile for the basis of the vector tile encoder
• imposm3 for the basis of OSM multipolygon processing and tag parsing utilities
• HPPC for high-performance primitive Java collections
• Osmosis for Java utilities to parse OpenStreetMap data
• JNR-FFI for utilities to access low-level system utilities to improve memory-mapped file performance.
• cel-java for the Java implementation of Google's Common Expression Language that powers dynamic expressions embedded in schema config files.
• PMTiles optimized tile storage format
• Apache Parquet to support reading geoparquet files in java (with dependencies minimized by parquet-floor)
• MapLibre Tile Java for writing tiles using the new MapLibre Tile format.

See NOTICE.md for a full list and license details.

Author

Planetiler was created by Michael Barry for future use generating custom basemaps or overlays for On The Go Map.

License and Attribution

Planetiler source code is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License, so it can be used and modified in commercial or other open source projects according to the license guidelines.

Maps built using planetiler do not require any special attribution, but the data or schema used might. Any maps generated from OpenStreetMap data must visibly credit OpenStreetMap contributors. Any map generated with the profile based on OpenMapTiles or a derivative must visibly credit OpenMapTiles as well.