OSRM vs Valhalla
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted maps & gis options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
OSRM
High-performance routing engine for OpenStreetMap
VS
Valhalla
Open-source routing engine with multimodal support
| Feature | OSRM | Valhalla |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Maps & GIS | Maps & GIS |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | MIT |
| Language | C++ | C++ |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 8,192 MB | 8,192 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 7,955 | ★ 6,050 |
| First released | 2012 | 2015 |
| Replaces | Google Directions API | Google Directions API |
Why pick each one
Choose OSRM if…
- Released under the BSD-2-Clause license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 8k GitHub stars
- Written in C++
Choose Valhalla if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 6k GitHub stars
- Written in C++
Frequently asked questions
Is OSRM or Valhalla better?
Neither is universally better. OSRM has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are OSRM and Valhalla free and open-source?
Yes. OSRM is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and Valhalla under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run OSRM and Valhalla with Docker?
OSRM: yes. Valhalla: yes.