Today marks the beginning of the wind down for Google Maps Engine. As of today, the service is no longer taking new signups. Some good news is that we have been working closely with Google to create a CartoDB on Google Platform product. If you are looking for an alternative, please review our new offering. Below, you can also find a comparison of the two offerings, GME and CartoDB, and information about migrating your existing projects.
Over the years, Google Maps Engine (GME) has grown to become one of the most similar products to our own and one of our closest competitors. It is so similar in fact, that the question, “What is the difference between CartoDB and Google Maps Engine?”, might be one of the most common questions we get from customers. Today, we want to spend a minute to help answer that question.
We know that a lot of existing GME fans and users are going to be looking for a similar set of tools to maintain their projects without significant changes. If you are one of those GME fans or if you are thinking about using GME in a future project, let us take a moment now to explain why CartoDB is the obvious choice for your next project or as the new home for your existing one.
What do both services offer?
The services in CartoDB and GME are very similar - including a web interface to manage data, create maps, a set of APIS to access data, request maps, and create applications. Let’s take a look at the organization of those services.
While Google Maps API is here to stay, this morning’s news means that the Google Maps Engine UI and Google Maps Engine API are no longer available for new projects.
Editor and User Interface
The GME service provided a simple and minimalist interface for interacting with your hosted data and maps. At CartoDB, we offer a similar service. A major difference is that at CartoDB we have worked hard to refine the process of working with maps and geospatial data online through simple interfaces and intuitive interactions. We are constantly improving, measuring and refining those interfaces. The CartoDB Editor is far ahead of the GME interfaces in regard to usability and design.
The ease-of-use in the CartoDB Editor has quickly made it a favorite among university educators, data analysts, sales managers, and journalists. Maps are no longer just for for developers!
Input Data Formats
Prior to this morning, GME was one of only a few CartoDB alternatives that offered support for such a broad range of data formats and file types. GME and CartoDB support: point, line, polygon and raster import, as well as, analysis and rendering. In fact, compared to GME, CartoDB actually has a more comprehensive list of supported file extensions, including GeoJSON and GPX.
| CartoDB | Google Maps Engine |
|---|---|
| Vector:.csv, .tab, .shp, .kml, .kmz, .xls, .xlsx, .geojson, .gpx, .osm, .bz2, .ods | Vector:.shp, .csv, .kml, .kmz, .tab |
| Raster:.tif | Raster:.tif, .hgt, .dem, .bag, .dt0, .dt1, .dt2 |
APIs and Platform
CartoDB and GME have become exciting services for power users because they expose full suites of APIs that allow the developers to leverage everything from data import to map creation. What this means is that most of the functionalities you see in the CartoDB Editor actually run on APIs that can be leveraged from your own applications and interfaces. The GME user interface was the same.
| CartoDB | Google Maps Engine |
|---|---|
| MAPS API | REST API |
| SQL API | Authentication using OAuth with Google ID. |
| Import API |
For users looking to leverage geo-processing capabilities, CartoDB offers everything available in Google Maps Engine and much, much more. CartoDB includes access to a library called PostGIS which enables a comprehensive list of GIS and data filtering functions including buffers, intersections, proximity searches, and more.
Authentication and Identity Management
In GME authentication is based on the Google Authentication system, including support for enterprise account. In CartoDB, we now give organizations on enterprise accounts the ability to use Google Authentication for single sign-on and identity management. If you are interested in other authentication connectors, such as LDAP, let us know and we can explain what is possible.
What types of maps can you make?
In terms of map design, GME took a slightly different approach when exposing customization tools to the user. Both services allow the user to interact with simple wizards to modify the style data on the map. When you dig deeper, GME had created a unique JSON structure for applying styles to maps. Alternatively, CartoDB exposes CartoCSS to users. CartoCSS is a more widely used map styling language and is immediately comfortable to anyone familiar with CSS.
For users switching to CartoDB from GME, the CartoCSS language will still allow for attribute and zoom dependant styling. It will also open up a wide range of new features to leverage for your maps, including better control of color, scale, and positioning.
How can you leverage the Google Maps API?
When looking for an alternative, the ability to use these APIs will be a key consideration for many GME fans. Fortunately we have built CartoDB so that the full set of tools available in the Google Maps API toolkit can be used with data hosted on our services. Any API you look to build on is included in the services - from Google basemaps, to StreetView, the Directions API, and Traffic API.
To help get you started we put together a set of examples that show how you can use custom data hosted on CartoDB with Google Maps API methods. Take a look at the full set of examples:
- Directions API (click on a point)
- CartoDB SQL API and heatmaps
- Many polygons and interactivity
- Animated maps
How do the services compare in performance and scalability?
Many users turned to GME in order to leverage the Google infrastructure for their own products. You might be surprised to know that CartoDB can actually run on the Google Cloud Platform (as well as other infrastructures) and that we have created a specific server cluster within Google Platform. If you are interested in using this feature, ask us about CartoDB on Google Cloud.
In addition to where CartoDB can be run, we have developed technology that enables us to provide world class performance and reliability in our services no matter who runs it. For example, some of the world’s most popular websites use CartoDB to regularly publish maps to their viewers. Our services scale and adapt to handle every user, here are some of the ways we do it:
Multiple layers of caching: CartoDB performs caching operations at many different stages of data and map transfer, from the database all the way out to the user. At the final stage, CartoDB uses a next-generation CDN that scales with minimum latency and has direct connection to Google servers.
Horizontally scaling renderers: Inside CartoDB infrastructure, multiple servers render the maps in parallel. During periods of peak load, new renders are added to the available pool.
Scaling the database: For very large datasets or very dynamic applications, CartoDB can federate multiple servers at the database level to allow for parallel queries across multiple servers.
If you are interested in more details on the CartoDB on Google Cloud solution, ask us for an early look at our forthcoming white paper detailing the performance in real-world scenarios. We have seen sustained performance at more than 50,000 requests per second and updates every 10 seconds.
Finding the Right Data
Often one of the hardest parts to making a map is finding the right data to get it started. As a solution, Google Maps Engine offered public datasets that users could query. Similarly, CartoDB provides frequently requested data such as Natural Earth and USGS datasets for simple integration with your own data. On top of these curated datasets, CartoDB also gives users access to Twitter Firehose, MaxMind IP address database, and other sources of data to create maps from the most interesting data on the web.
Data Migration Options
There are three existing options for you to use. The process to manually download your data from GME and import it to CartoDB is straight-forward for many users. If you need more or have a lot of data, we have been working with two of our certified partners, AppGeo and HabitatSeven, to create a migration tool to help on the migration process. The tool authenticates with Google and using the ogr2ogr tool moves data from GME to CartoDB. It is as easy as selecting the tables you want to migrate and entering your API keys. Finally, the third option is FME
We will announce the migration tool very soon, stay tuned.
Conclusions
Today is the beginning of the end for the Google Maps Engine service. For users and developers that have grown to rely on the service, we want you to know that there is no need for stress. CartoDB provides an excellent service with viable alternatives for the complete GME product. Both services were built to be fast, scale to millions of requests, and simplify your development of geospatial projects.
We have been working with Google to provide a solid offering called CartoDB for Google Cloud and ensuring that GME customers will have all the power of Google Maps API available on CartoDB. We have already several projects migrating and several partners helping on the process.
Are you interested in moving from Google Maps Engine to CartoDB today? Get in touch to talk to one of our experts about using our custom migration tool to move your hosted data with ease. We can talk through your project needs and timelines and come up with a plan for your move to CartoDB right away.
We can’t wait to see what you build on top of Google Maps and CartoDB.