openrouteservice vs Valhalla
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted maps & gis options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | openrouteservice | Valhalla |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 85 · Excellent | 91 · Excellent |
| Category | Maps & GIS | Maps & GIS |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | Java | C++ |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 8,192 MB | 8,192 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,975 | ★ 6,241 |
| First released | 2017 | 2015 |
| Replaces | Google Directions API | Google Directions API |
What are openrouteservice and Valhalla?
openrouteservice
openrouteservice provides routing, isochrones, distance matrices, and more as a self-hostable API. It supports many travel modes and is built on the GraphHopper engine with OpenStreetMap data.
- Routing and isochrones
- Distance matrices
- Many travel profiles
- Self-hostable API
Valhalla
Valhalla is an open-source routing engine and accompanying libraries for use with OpenStreetMap data. It supports car, bicycle, pedestrian, and transit routing along with isochrones and map matching.
- Multimodal routing
- Isochrone generation
- Map matching
- Tiled routing data
openrouteservice vs Valhalla: key differences
Openrouteservice is written in Java, while Valhalla is built with C++. Licensing differs — GPL-3.0 for openrouteservice versus MIT for Valhalla. Valhalla is the more established project (first released 2015), while openrouteservice arrived in 2017. Valhalla has the considerably larger community, at 6,241 GitHub stars versus 1,975.
Why pick each one
Choose openrouteservice if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (2k GitHub stars)
- Written in Java
Choose Valhalla if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 6.2k GitHub stars
- Written in C++
Frequently asked questions
Is openrouteservice or Valhalla better?
Neither is universally better. Valhalla has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are openrouteservice and Valhalla free and open-source?
Yes. openrouteservice is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Valhalla under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run openrouteservice and Valhalla with Docker?
openrouteservice: yes. Valhalla: yes.