Google My Maps vs Mapme: What’s the difference?

Last Updated: April 13, 2023

We get this question a lot: what’s the difference between Mapme and Google My Map?

We will try to answer this question as objectively as possible.

Both mapping tools let you create interactive maps without coding, but which one is the right fit for your mapping project?

Google My Maps

Google My Maps is a free map creator offered by Google. With this tool, you can add locations with custom pins, layers, and directions. You can also add images, videos, and text to each placemark.

Maps can be created on both a computer and an Android app. Additionally, Google My Maps is tightly integrated with other Google services. For example, you can easily create a map from images in Google Photos albums.

However, Google My Maps does not allow you to leverage services outside of the Google ecosystem. The feature set is geared toward specific use cases, such as travel planning and simple data visualization. Customization features are not designed to achieve a high level of branding.

In conclusion, Google My Maps is an ideal tool for personal mapping projects, with its free online and mobile app versions.

Mapme

Mapme is a platform for creating advanced interactive maps with rich content. The Mapme editor allows you to create maps, but there is no mobile app available to create maps on mobile phones.

Mapme is an open platform that lets you use the best services available on your map. For example, you can display Matterport tours, Vimeo videos, and PDF files on your maps.

Mapme offers a wide range of features. You can create interactive maps for various use cases, from storytelling to guides with advanced filters. Furthermore, you can customize your map to match your brand’s look and feel.

However, Mapme is not a free service. It offers a free trial followed by different premium plans, making it a cost-effective solution for businesses and non-profit organizations.

In summary, Mapme offers a powerful and flexible solution for creating interactive maps, but it comes at a price.

Media Gallery

Adding media such as images and videos is essential to engage the map viewers, so both Google My Map and Mapme let you create media galleries.

Let’s compare the media support for each service.

Unsurprisingly, Google My Map is focused on supporting Google media such as YouTube. You can upload images, add them from Google Drive, or import them from Google Photos.

Mapme offers a broader range of media support, including PDFs, audio files, and 3D tours like Matterport. With Embeds, Mapme allows you to add media from any hosted media service.

Customization

Let’s have a look at the customization options of each service.

When it comes to customization, Google My Map is geared towards personal use. Its customization options are limited, which makes it easy to create a map. However, this also means that the maps created with Google My Map all look similar, with little room for branding.

In contrast, Mapme offers extensive customization options. For example, it offers an advanced marker editor that allows users to pick from a huge library of icons or use free text markers, or even upload their own image markers. Mapme also offers a broad range of basemap styles, and users can create their own basemap style with map style editors like MapTiler and Mapbox and use those styles in their Mapme account.

Most of the Mapme customization features are configured through easy-to-use settings in the editor, but some of the more advanced customizations require basic knowledge of CSS and HTML.

Import and update data

Both Mapme and Google My Map allow users to import data into their maps, but with different approaches.

Google My Map lets users import KML and KMZ files, as well as Google Sheets. Users can view and edit their data with a Data Set table, but cannot import media.

On the other hand, Mapme lets users import data from Excel or Google Sheets saved in the CSV format, and it supports importing media like images and videos.

In addition, Mapme offers Map to Sheets, a Google Sheets extension that provides two-way synchronization, allowing users to add, update, or delete locations on their map directly from Google Sheets.

Categories and Filters

Google My Map lets users add layers to their maps, and sort and filter locations by layers.

Each layer can have different markers, but there is a limit of 10 layers per map, including data and drawings layers.

In contrast, Mapme organizes locations on the map with categories, and there is no limit to the number of categories.

Users can create nested categories with parents and subcategories. Mapme provides advanced filters with multiselect and combines or intersect options.

Users can also assign drawing layers to locations, categories, or the map home, giving them full control over when their drawings appear.

Embed and Share

Both Google My Map and Mapme let you embed and share your map on social media.

Google My Map offers social sharing with Facebook and Twitter, while Mapme offers social sharing with Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp.

Mapme allows users to enable or disable social sharing and also add a custom social sharing image.

Crowdsourcing

Google My Map allows multiple users to edit the map, but does not support data crowdsourcing.

In contrast, Mapme enables you to collect information from a user community. You can connect your map to forms like Jotform or Google Form, and have the form submissions added to your map in real-time.

Support

Google My Map is a free service and so not surprisingly, support is based on knowledgebase articles and community forums.

Mapme is a paid service and provides a knowledge base as well as live support through chat with phone escalation when needed.