❤️ Funding openmaps.fr

Openmaps.fr (See presentation page) based on OpenStreetMap datas provides both OpenTopoMap-R and OpenHikingMap free of charge for reasonable volume (<500k tiles/month) and non-commercial services. However, operating and renting servers is not free. There are two crowdfunding platforms to help fund the project:

• ko-fi.com/openmapsfr: 1.5% fee + 0.25 cents and allows for one-time donations as well as recurring ones. Preferred, because there is a target and a counter to track progress toward the yearly costs.

• liberapay.com/openmaps.fr: 1.5% fee + 0.25 cents, focused on recurring donations (unless you cancel the donation later).

What are those funds used for ?

For the 2026 expenses:

• Server cost (hosting and renting). See Openmaps.fr (See presentation page) for details about the current server (889 € /year) or the 2026 year’s bill (redacted from my personal information for privacy). I also use a less powerful backup server, otherwise used for professional purposes, which can only act as a temporary failover — its cost isn’t counted here.

• Domain name openmaps.fr (~8€ /year)

• 2 days a year of time spent on maintenance, OSM data re-import, and blocking excessive usage or abuse (~500 € /year)

Note: during 2026, donations weren’t quite enough to cover these costs — possibly because users simply weren’t aware of the situation. So, since September 2026, I’ve been trying to inform users by showing a substitute tile on about 0.5% of requests (roughly 1 tile in 200), asking for a donation. Once the yearly costs are covered, I’ll turn that tile off until the following year.