About us
Who are we
and what does MapRiot mean?
We’re a small team based in Liberec, Czech Republic, passionate about building beautiful, reliable geolocation apps. Tired of being bound by third‑party map providers and their changing terms, we decided to take matters into our own hands—so in early 2024, MapRiot was born.
Meet the Author
Behind MapRiot is Patrik, a software engineer and lifelong map enthusiast
- Software Engineer specializing in mobile apps and geospatial technologies.
- Creator of Hory.app (Horobraní), one of the Czech Republic’s most popular hiking apps—used across Europe for planning trails, tracking routes, and discovering new peaks.
- Deeply passionate about open data, community‑driven maps, and pushing the limits of what location apps can do.
Why “MapRiot”?
We love OpenStreetMap—but stitching together tiles and overlays into a polished mobile experience was always a headache when leaning on other map‑tile services. When our usage outgrew any “small‑project” tier, we faced two choices: pay ever‑rising fees or build our own.
After a few weeks of prototyping, we realized we could host, style, and serve our own OSM‑based tiles—and thus free ourselves from limits, price hikes, and feature lock‑outs. We managed to create our own infrastructure and we can now offer these high-quality tiles to other projects at a significantly lower price than our competition.
The name MapRiot captures that spirit:
- Map, of course, for our foundation in OpenStreetMap’s community data.
- Riot, as in a “rebellion” against restrictive, costly, closed‑source map providers.
Together, it’s a “map uprising”—a playful nod to the frustration and excitement that fueled us through those late‑night coding sessions.