Open source tools to query OpenStreetMap
wcedmisten.fyiAuthor here! Happy to answer any questions you all have about this article.
I think another option to consider would be running your own overpass server with a local copy of the data subsets you want, then using something like python's osmnx to do "native" queries.
osmnx looks like a cool library, I haven't seen that one before!
As for self hosting overpass, I have considered it, but the installation steps seemed a bit tedious to me compared to a lot of tools which are dockerized.
Whats your take on protomaps?
I'm a big fan! I use it for most of my OSM projects. It's pretty easy to download an OSM extract and process it into base tiles.
Protomaps also provides a free set of base tiles that you can download and rehost yourself if you don't want to process the data locally.
Funny just popped up; I just learned of the existence of overpass-turbo via a geoguessing video on Youtube [0] just this week. Thanks for an interesting article!
Has anyone else run into big gaps in OSM data? I’ve tried to cobble together a store locator with Overpass Turbo, and even though the queries look correct I’ll still get fewer results compared to Google Maps. Sephora and Walmart locations in the US, for example.
Someone has to add those stores to OSM. It is usually done by local volunteers, so data for businesses could be lacking. On the other hand, in some regions, the quality of road and building data on OSM usually surpasses Google Maps.
Makes perfect sense. Would it be frowned upon to contribute these POIs using automated scrapers? Or does OSM prefer hand-collected, seen-it-in-person data?