9 Front for GIS

Comparative Table of Web Mapping Tools


Object Name	Overall Rating	Website Link	Examples (Link)	1. OSM (20%)	2. Grid (10%)	3. Heatmap (10%)	4. Recalculation (20%)	5. Saving (5%)	6. Backend Flexibility (5%)	7. Min. Dependencies (5%)	8. Performance (20%)	9. Open Source (10%)	10. Ecosystem (5%)	11. CF Pages (5%)	12. Storj/R2/B2 (5%)	13. Formats/Compression (20%)	14. Built-in Table UI (20%)
Kepler.gl	1400	https://kepler.gl/	Kepler.gl Demo App	7	10	10	10	9	8	5	9	10	7	7	8	8	10
OpenLayers + deck.gl	1355	openlayers.org + deck.gl	deck.gl Examples Gallery (compatible with OL/MLGL)	10	10	10	10	8	10	4	10	10	9	10	10	10	0
MapLibre GL JS + deck.gl	1315	maplibre.org + deck.gl	deck.gl Examples Gallery (compatible with OL/MLGL)	8	10	10	10	8	10	4	10	10	9	10	10	10	0
deck.gl	1260	https://deck.gl/	deck.gl Examples Gallery	6	10	10	10	8	10	6	10	10	8	10	10	9	0
OpenLayers	1230	https://openlayers.org/	OpenLayers Examples Gallery	10	7	9	8	7	10	8	8	10	9	10	10	9	0
MapLibre GL JS	1230	https://maplibre.org/	MapLibre GL JS Examples	8	6	9	8	7	10	7	10	10	8	10	10	10	0
Leaflet	1205	https://leafletjs.com/	OpenStreetMap.org	10	6	8	6	7	10	10	5	10	10	10	10	7	0

Parameter Definitions:

OSM (20%): Ease of using OpenStreetMap as a base map layer.
Grid (10%): Built-in or easily implementable support for visualizing hexagonal or square grids.
Heatmap (10%): Availability of a built-in or easily addable layer for rendering heatmaps.
Recalculation (20%): Ability to quickly and dynamically update data visualization (styles, aggregations) on the client-side in the user's browser when parameters or data change.
Saving (5%): Ease of obtaining and saving map settings or visualization data on the client-side by the user.
Backend Flexibility (5%): How easily the library integrates with data provided by your own backend (including a temporary one on a PC) or from static files.
Min. Dependencies (5%): Relative lightness of the library, minimum external dependencies, ease of installation, and code size.
Performance (20%): Ability to effectively handle and render very large volumes of geospatial data (millions/billions of objects, as with global hexagons) on the client-side, utilizing the GPU (WebGL).
Open Source (10%): Availability of open source code and a permissive license allowing commercial use on your own servers.
Ecosystem (5%): Community activity, availability of documentation, examples, and third-party plugins/tools.
CF Pages (5%): Compatibility with Cloudflare Pages static site hosting.
Storj/R2/B2 (5%): Compatibility with loading data via HTTP(S) from object storage services like Storj, Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2.
Formats/Compression (20%): Support for efficient data formats for geometry and attributes (e.g., Vector Tiles MVT, Apache Arrow, GeoParquet) and the ability to effectively work with large data volumes in these formats.
Built-in Table UI (20%): Availability of a built-in, ready-to-use user interface component for displaying object data in a table and interactive filtering/sorting, synchronized with the map.

Detailed Breakdown of Scores per Object (Strict Table UI Evaluation):

Going through the table from top to bottom, for each object:

Kepler.gl (Overall Rating: 1400)

1. OSM (20%): 7. As an application, it can use OSM as a base map, but configuring tile sources is less integrated and flexible than with OL or Leaflet. It's often oriented towards commercial sources (Mapbox).
2. Grid (10%): 10. Has powerful built-in layers for aggregating data into hexagonal and square grids with flexible UI configuration.
3. Heatmap (10%): 10. Has a high-performance built-in heatmap layer with UI configuration.
4. Recalculation (20%): 10. Designed for interactive analysis. Changing filters, layer parameters (hexagon radius, color scale) in the UI instantly updates visualization thanks to deck.gl.
5. Saving (5%): 9. Provides built-in functions for exporting data, map image, and session state.
6. Backend Flexibility (5%): 8. Oriented towards loading data via its UI (dragging files, entering URLs). Programmatically integrating complex data loading logic (e.g., in chunks for 1.3B objects) might be less straightforward than with low-level libraries.
7. Min. Dependencies (5%): 5. It's a full React web application with many dependencies. Not a minimalist library.
8. Performance (20%): 9. High, as it's built on deck.gl. However, UI overhead and standard data handling mechanisms in Kepler.gl might slightly limit peak performance compared to writing optimized code directly on deck.gl.
9. Open Source (10%): 10. MIT License, fully Open Source.
10. Ecosystem (5%): 7. Active community, but more focused on using the application itself rather than developing extensions for it.
11. CF Pages (5%): 7. Can be deployed on static hosting, but as a complete React application, it requires standard build processes and might be slightly more complex to set up than a simple JS library.
12. Storj/R2/B2 (5%): 8. Can load data from URLs, but similar to point 6, might not be ideal for complex chunk-based loading logic of 1.3B objects from S3-like storage.
13. Formats/Compression (20%): 8. Works well with common data formats (CSV, GeoJSON, Arrow) for visualization (via deck.gl). Not focused on Vector Tiles for base maps. Efficiency heavily depends on how you prepare 150GB of data and split it into files readable by Kepler.gl.
14. Built-in Table UI (20%): 10. Has a built-in, full-featured UI for tabular data display and filtering, synchronized with the map. This is its main advantage in this parameter.

OpenLayers + deck.gl (Overall Rating: 1355)

1. OSM (20%): 10. OpenLayers has excellent, native support for various OSM sources (raster, vector tiles) and other geodata sources.
2. Grid (10%): 10. deck.gl adds a high-performance HexagonLayer.
3. Heatmap (10%): 10. deck.gl adds a high-performance HeatmapLayer.
4. Recalculation (20%): 10. The APIs of OL and deck.gl allow for high-performance dynamic visualization and client-side style recalculation when weights change.
5. Saving (5%): 8. APIs of both libraries provide access to data/state, but saving to a file is your implementation.
6. Backend Flexibility (5%): 10. Both libraries integrate well with data from any URL, including static files from Storj.
7. Min. Dependencies (5%): 4. Combination of two libraries, including WebGL/WASM in deck.gl. Larger size and more dependencies than a single lightweight library.
8. Performance (20%): 10. Best performance for your scenario. OL efficiently renders the base map (with WebGL options), deck.gl provides peak performance for visualizing your analytical layers (hexagons, heatmaps) on the GPU, scaling to billions of objects.
9. Open Source (10%): 10. Both libraries are fully Open Source with permissive licenses.
10. Ecosystem (5%): 9. Strong and active communities for both libraries.
11. CF Pages (5%): 10. Entirely static frontend, easily deployable.
12. Storj/R2/B2 (5%): 10. Excellent compatibility with loading static files via URL.
13. Formats/Compression (20%): 10. OL works well with MVT (for base map). deck.gl works excellently with binary formats (Arrow/GeoArrow/Parquet) for your data, which is critical for 150GB. The combination allows using the most efficient formats for different data types.
14. Built-in Table UI (20%): 0. Does not have built-in UI components for tables or filter panels. Requires writing your own UI or integrating a separate table library.

MapLibre GL JS + deck.gl (Overall Rating: 1315)

1. OSM (20%): 8. MapLibre works best with OSM when it's available as vector tiles.
2. Grid (10%): 10. deck.gl HexagonLayer.
3. Heatmap (10%): 10. deck.gl HeatmapLayer.
4. Recalculation (20%): 10. Combination of MLGL Data-Driven Styling and high dynamism of deck.gl.
5. Saving (5%): 8. APIs of both libraries.
6. Backend Flexibility (5%): 10. Work well with static files from URLs.
7. Min. Dependencies (5%): 4. Two libraries, WebGL/WASM.
8. Performance (20%): 10. Exceptionally high. MLGL is optimized for vector tiles, deck.gl for data visualization. Best performance for your scenario.
9. Open Source (10%): 10. Both libraries are Open Source.
10. Ecosystem (5%): 9. Active communities.
11. CF Pages (5%): 10. Static frontend.
12. Storj/R2/B2 (5%): 10. Excellent compatibility.
13. Formats/Compression (20%): 10. MLGL is ideal for MVT (for base map). deck.gl works excellently with binary formats for your data. Maximum format efficiency.
14. Built-in Table UI (20%): 0. Does not have built-in UI components for tables or filter panels. Requires writing your own UI or integrating a separate table library.

deck.gl (Overall Rating: 1260)

1. OSM (20%): 6. Does not provide a base map itself, requires an external one (OL, MLGL, etc.).
2. Grid (10%): 10. Specialized Hexagon/Grid layers.
3. Heatmap (10%): 10. Specialized HeatmapLayer.
4. Recalculation (20%): 10. Ideal for dynamic visualization and client-side data recalculation.
5. Saving (5%): 8. API for accessing layer data and parameters.
6. Backend Flexibility (5%): 10. Works excellently with data from any URL.
7. Min. Dependencies (5%): 6. WebGL/WASM, has dependencies, but it's a single library.
8. Performance (20%): 10. Outstanding performance for visualizing large data on the GPU.
9. Open Source (10%): 10. MIT License.
10. Ecosystem (5%): 8. Active vis.gl community.
11. CF Pages (5%): 10. Static library.
12. Storj/R2/B2 (5%): 10. Excellent compatibility.
13. Formats/Compression (20%): 9. Works excellently with binary data formats for its layers. Not about base map formats.
14. Built-in Table UI (20%): 0. Does not have built-in UI components for tables or filter panels. API is designed for integration with external UI, but the UI itself is missing.

OpenLayers (Overall Rating: 1230)

1. OSM (20%): 10. Excellent native support.
2. Grid (10%): 7. No built-in specialized layers for aggregation.
3. Heatmap (10%): 9. Built-in Heatmap layer.
4. Recalculation (20%): 8. API for updating layers, but not the same dynamic performance as deck.gl.
5. Saving (5%): 7. API for accessing data.
6. Backend Flexibility (5%): 10. Works excellently with various data sources from URLs.
7. Min. Dependencies (5%): 8. Relatively lightweight.
8. Performance (20%): 8. Good with WebGL for vectors, but not optimized for your analytical layers like deck.gl.
9. Open Source (10%): 10. BSD License.
10. Ecosystem (5%): 9. Large community.
11. CF Pages (5%): 10. Static library.
12. Storj/R2/B2 (5%): 10. Excellent compatibility.
13. Formats/Compression (20%): 9. Good support for MVT and other geo formats.
14. Built-in Table UI (20%): 0. Does not have built-in UI components for tables or filter panels. Requires writing your own UI or integrating a separate table library.

MapLibre GL JS (Overall Rating: 1230)

1. OSM (20%): 8. Works best with MVT OSM.
2. Grid (10%): 6. No built-in specialized layers.
3. Heatmap (10%): 9. Built-in high-performance Heatmap layer (WebGL).
4. Recalculation (20%): 8. Excellent Data-Driven Styling support, efficient layer updating.
5. Saving (5%): 7. API for accessing data.
6. Backend Flexibility (5%): 10. Works excellently with tiles from URLs.
7. Min. Dependencies (5%): 7. WebGL/WASM.
8. Performance (20%): 10. Very high for vector tile rendering.
9. Open Source (10%): 10. BSD License.
10. Ecosystem (5%): 8. Actively developing.
11. CF Pages (5%): 10. Static library.
12. Storj/R2/B2 (5%): 10. Excellent compatibility.
13. Formats/Compression (20%): 10. Ideal for MVT.
14. Built-in Table UI (20%): 0. Does not have built-in UI components for tables or filter panels. Requires writing your own UI or integrating a separate table library.

Leaflet (Overall Rating: 1205)

1. OSM (20%): 10. Very simple and native support for OSM raster tiles.
2. Grid (10%): 6. Via plugins/GeoJSON.
3. Heatmap (10%): 8. Via plugins.
4. Recalculation (20%): 6. Less focused on high data dynamism.
5. Saving (5%): 7. API for accessing data.
6. Backend Flexibility (5%): 10. Data loading via URL.
7. Min. Dependencies (5%): 10. Very lightweight, pure JS.
8. Performance (20%): 5. Limited for large data (Canvas/SVG).
9. Open Source (10%): 10. MIT License.
10. Ecosystem (5%): 10. Huge number of plugins.
11. CF Pages (5%): 10. Static library.
12. Storj/R2/B2 (5%): 10. Compatibility via URL.
13. Formats/Compression (20%): 7. Primary support for raster tiles.
14. Built-in Table UI (20%): 0. Does not have built-in UI components for tables or filter panels. Requires writing your own UI or integrating a separate table library.