Documentation and tutorials

Docker with TileServer GL

If you need Docker microservice and advanced configuration, you can use the rendering core of our server directly. To install a tileserver serving both vector and raster tiles, we recommend using the official Docker image tileserver-gl. By launching the Docker with the command below, you mount the active directory with the previously downloaded MBTiles file with vector tiles and run the tile server at a local port 8080.

docker run -it -v $(pwd):/data -p 8080:80 klokantech/tileserver-gl

Read the Tileserver GL tutorial for more in-depth information.

Node.js - TileServer GL Light

1. Download Vector Tiles

Head over to the downloads page where you can get the vector tiles for your region or the whole planet.

wget https://.../zurich_switzerland.mbtiles

2. Run a TileServer

To serve the tiles to your mobile or web client, you need to choose a tileserver for your platform and configure it to serve the previously downloaded vector tiles.

Using tileserver-gl gl you can immediately serve vector tiles including a web viewer and sample styles.
The light version tileserver-gl-light can be easily installed using npm.

npm install -g tileserver-gl-light

Now run tileserver-gl-light together with the previously downloaded vector tiles

tileserver-gl-light zurich_switzerland.mbtiles

Open in your web browser the local address http://localhost:8080.

Read the Tileserver GL tutorial for more in-depth information.

The full version of tileserver-gl has the capabilities to fall back to serve raster tiles for interoperability with other clients. The raster tiles are then rendered on demand. This makes it harder to install, so we recommend using it via Docker.

3. Choose a Style

Once you have your own vector tile server running, you can choose one of the many styles supporting the OpenMapTiles schema.

After you downloaded the style, point the endpoint URL to your tileserver and embedd it in a mobile app or web viewer. You can also create your own styles using Maputnik.

TileServer PHP

1. Download TileServer PHP

Source code is available on TileServer's GitHub. Download the latest code and unpack it to directory on your LAMP/WAMP server.

2. Download Vector Tiles

Go to the Downloads page and download the vector tiles for your region or the planet. You need to copy this file into a directory with TileServer-PHP.

3. Add static assets

Create your own HTML viewer with MapBox GL JS and link TileJSON from TileServer with links to PBF tiles. For more details see TileServer PHP tutorial.

MapTiler Cloud

We are providing a free reliable maps API with maps based on OpenMapTiles data. This is the quickest way how to start and play with maps. Visit maptiler.com/cloud for more information and start with a free account.

Use maps from API for developers